The 2025 Java Productivity Report  from Perforce reveals that Java 17 is now the most widely used JDK with Java 21 also well used, indicating a marked trend towards LTS versions. Over 80% of respondents use of AI to aid productivity

This year, 731 developers, team leads and executives working with Java responded to the survey, up from 440 in the equivalent 2024 report but still short of the 846 responses for the 2022 JRebel report which was the last time we reported on it. At that time we noted that 31% of the sample worked in large Enterprise settings with 1000+ employees, making it a good indicator of the usage of Java on an industrial level. This time the proportion  of respondents from companies with 1,000+ employees was 40%.

Every edition of this survey looks at JDK adoption and in 2022 Java 8 still held sway, being used by  37% of respondents, compared to 58% in 2020, although Java 11 with 29% (from 22% in 2020) was gaining ground. This time around there has again been a substantial shift year on year.

The report notes that these results revealed a wholesale shift to JDK versions under long-term support (LTS).

Whereas Java 8 was still the most widely used version in 2024 (44%), with Java 17 close behind (41%), in 2025 Java 17 is clearly in front (61%) and Java 21 (45%)  is widely adopted,

One thing is clear from this chart is that more than one JDK version is being used simultaneously so the fact that 72% of respondents are using Oracle distributions that are no longer supported isn't too troubling.  Another thing shown in the chart is that the proportion of respondents using Kotlin, Groovy or Scala shrank between 2024 and 2025.

Again for this chart respondents could choose all that applied, so while alternative distributions are challenging Oracle it still manages to dominate the chart. Looking at the data from another perspective, a clear majority - 58% don't use Oracle Java, the majority preferring an OpenJDK alternative.

Respondents were also asked which factors motivated them to upgrade JRE/JDK versions. Across all respondents Long-Term Support was selected by 64%, security by 54%, performance by 49%, new features by 45%, and compliance by 31%. There were however, different priorities between those in Enterprise companies, i.e those with more than 1,000 employees, and smaller outfits.  Security came first for Enterprise - 68% as compared to 46%.   

Looking at the use of AI tools for Java development, the JRebel report confirms what we has discovered from other surveys - that AI tools are widely used:

Only 12% of respondents said they don’t use AI tools, and an additional 12% said their companies don’t allow the use of AI tools. Among enterprise respondents, however, the number who said their companies don’t allow the use of AI tools climbs to 16%.

Code completion is the most-used AI-feature (50%), followed by code refactoring (39%), error detection (30%).

Top tools include ChatGPT, used by 52% and GitHub Copilot (42%). A further 25% use IDE-integrated AI tools (25%), such as JetBrains AI Assistant.

With regard to choice of IDE, JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA is by far the most popular, used by 84% of respondents, up from 71% in 2024. However 42% of respondents of respondents are using more than one IDE for Java development. This year saw Eclipse ousted from its previously held second position by VS Code and both of them had reduced popularity with Eclipse going from 39% to 25% and VS Code from 34% to 31%. Similarly, NetBeans slumped from 13% to 4%. 

More Information

Download JRebel 2025 Java Developer Productivity Report

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