Oracle Java Cloud vs. Oracle Java SE

Oracle Java Cloud is especially appropriate for moderate to complex Java applications. Due to BYOL licensing, it is also works well when you are planning to do dev and test in-house and then deploy it on Oracle Java Cloud. It is not well suited for simple Java applications due to the cost of Oracle Java Cloud. Simple applications don't need the fully managed aspect of Oracle Java Cloud.

Incentivized

Oracle Java SE is well suited to long-running applications (e.g. servers). Java Swing (UI toolkit) is now rather outdated, lacking support for modern UI features. JavaFX, the potential replacement for Swing, has now been separated out of Java core. Ideally, there would be a path to migrate a large application incrementally from Swing to JavaFX, but due to different threading models and other aspects, it is difficult. At this point, it is probably better to use an embedded web browser (e.g. JxBrowser) to provide a modern UI in HTML/Javascript and keep just the business logic in Java.

Incentivized

• Integration with development tools
• Auto scale
• Enhanced security

• Plenty support built into the tool and IDE like Maven, Ant, Eclipse, IntelliJ.
• Strong object-orientation language and clear project structure.
• Wrapper underlines hardware and memory management so the developers can focus on business and implementation.
• It offers a huge library and framework support from third-parties and the community.

Incentivized

• Pricing can certainly be improved as the cost adds up for dev/test environments using the Oracle Java Cloud platform.
• It is hard to customize Oracle Java Cloud for complex Java applications requiring high bandwidth memory and network requirements.

Incentivized

• Commercial Licensing in 2019. Oracle will charge commercial organizations using Java SE for upgrading to the latest bug fixes and updates. Organizations will now need to either limit their implementation of Java SE or may need to drop it altogether.
• Slow Performance. Due to the all of the abstraction of the JVM, Java SE programs take much more resources to compile and run compared to Python.
• Poor UI appearance on all of the major GUI libraries (Swing, SWT, etc.). Through Android Studio, it is easy to get a native look/feel for Java apps, but when it comes to desktops, the UI is far from acceptable (does not mimic the native OS's look/feel at all).

Incentivized

The language is fluent and has good support from a number of open source and commercial IDEs. Language features are added every 6 months, although long-term service releases are only available every 3 years. It would be nice if some of the older APIs were depreciated with more pressure to move to the new replacement APIs (e.g. File vs. Path), but transitions to new features are generally well implemented.

Incentivized

Java is such a mature product at this point that there is little support from the vendor that is needed. Various sources on the internet, and especially StackOverflow, provide a wealth of knowledge and advice. Areas that may benefit from support is when dealing with complex multithreading issues and security libraries.

Incentivized

We selected Oracle Java Cloud for its native integration with other Oracle solutions and its focus on Java applications. Overall, our experience with Oracle Java Cloud has been positive, as it has improved our efficiency, security, and scalability in developing cloud applications.

Chose to go with Java instead of Python or C++ due to the expertise on the ground with the technology, for its ease of integration with our heterogeneous setup of production servers, and for the third party library support which we've found was able to address some challenging aspects of our business problem.

Incentivized

• Positive impact on ROI by reducing the time to deploy Java applications in the cloud.
• Positive impact on business objectives by reducing the CapEx needed to hire staff to deploy and then later maintain the Java instances.

Incentivized

• The different versions make it harder to work with other companies where some use newer versions while some use older versions, costing time to make them compatible.
• Licenses are getting to be costly, forcing us to consider OpenJDK as an alternative.
• New features take time to learn. When someone starts using them, everyone has to take time to learn.

Incentivized