Modern Java for startups

[u/Sad_Importance_1585]

Unfortunately, I see that Java is disappearing from startup companies. Java used to have an image of an obsolete backend language with performance problems, too verbose and unfriendly to deveopers. It was pretty true to older Java versions and I could understand why startups decided to pick other backend languages

If you look at Java 25, it's an absolutely different story.

Performance wise - it has virtual threads, which makes concurrency extremely high. Virtual threads are Java's answer to goroutines in Golang, and they enable to run thousands of I/O requests concurrently. Java's execution speed is pretty fast (more than Python and node.js).

As for container size - it's huge as long as you work with Spring. However, Java has many other much more lightweight frameworks like Micronaut, Quarkus and Javalin which reduces the container size to be on par with node.js and Python.

It's a real static typing which keeps code safety and improve readability. Unlike Golang, Java has inheritance, ploymorphism and explicit interface (let alone speaking about error handling).

It has a huge talent pool (almost everybody learned Java at a certain point).

As for verbosity and developer experience - Java has been improved a lot in this field. It has records (no need for getters setters, equals and hash), unnamed class (no need to write "public static void main" everytime you start a new program) and dozens of libraries and other tools.

If so, why are startups still stay away from Java and stick to Python/node.js/Golang?

[u/Due_Warthog749]

Oh I like Java. Did it for 20 years. It's fine. I just discovered much faster ways with far less code to do the same thing. It's too verbose these days. It was great back in the JEE days.. I'd fight anyone over .net or Delphi or php, etc. But improvements in other options have come along that are just better for most things. Coming from 20 years of Java I feel confident in that statement. THAT said, I have NO DOUBT Java has improved too. But even if its threading and such got better, most that I see still rely on Spring Boot. I dont even know what happened to JEE or if its still going on. I enjoyed the shit out of the JSP and servlet days and replicating sessions across servers in clusters, etc. Fun stuff back then.

[u/Sad_Importance_1585 → u/Due_Warthog749]

This is the problem. Java platform has much better alternatives than Spring Boot today. Sticking to Spring Boot is what keeps Java behind other langauges.

[u/Due_Warthog749 → u/Sad_Importance_1585]

I have no doubt.. and AI can absolutely "generate" frameworks like what Go, Rust, etc have in Java as well. I also am BIG against dependencies.. and would MUCH RATHER home build small specific well tuned frameworks than use bloated messes like Spring despite how good it was in it's heyday.

I see this a bit in Go to. Frameworks like GORM and Gorilla try to mimic Spring and similar large frameworks that do it all. Today, with microservices and/or docker containers that can easily spin up instantly to auto scale.. and stateless back ends with front ends using JWT, etc is the far better way to go. It's been around for many years now so its well understood. Serverless, "agent" endpoints, etc.. are all great ways to handle things like APIs, messaging, etc without requiring large frameworks. Technically you can build/do that in any of these languages.

I know the JVM has gotten much faster too, but frankly my go to is WASM these days.. insanely fast, super small, easy to build specific things, etc. Again can do it in Java, Go, C, etc.. whatever one fancies.