Oracle's Java pricing brews bitter taste, subscribers spill over to OpenJDK

Only 14 percent of Oracle Java subscribers plan to stay on Big Red’s runtime environment, according to a study following the introduction of an employee-based subscription model.

At the same time, 36 percent of the 663 Java users questioned said they had already moved to the employee-based pricing model introduced in January 2023. Shortly after the new model was implemented, experts warned that it would create a significant price hike for users adopting it. By July, global tech research company Gartner was forecasting that those on the new subscription package would face between two and five times the costs compared with the previous usage-based model.

As such, among the 86 percent of respondents using Oracle Java SE who are currently moving or plan to move all or some of their Java applications off Oracle environments, 53 percent said the Oracle environment was too expensive, according to the study carried out by independent market research firm Dimensional Research. Forty-seven percent said the reason for moving was a preference for open source, and 38 percent said it was because of uncertainty created by ongoing changes in pricing, licensing, and support.

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The research was sponsored by Azul, a company that provides support for open source Java platforms. CEO Scott Sellers told The Register: “It’s tough to draw a direct correlation other than look at the strong trend and usage rates, which moved away from Oracle Java to OpenJDK alternatives.

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“But one of the main reasons that was cited among report respondents in terms of why users of Oracle Java have moved was cost. So that seems fairly likely that it’s the new pricing metric that has further exacerbated that concern.”

He said that there was also a pull towards open source software in businesses looking for alternatives to vendor lock-in, where that was practically achievable.

“Azul, Amazon, and Microsoft, all have freely available versions of OpenJDK. Once a user moves off Oracle Java, they have a lot of different choices and we have to earn those dollars.”

To support OpenJDK applications in production, 46 percent chose a paid-for platform such as Bellsoft Liberica, IBM Semeru, or Azul Platform Core; 45 percent chose a free supported platform such as Amazon Corretto or Microsoft Build of OpenJDK; and 37 percent chose a free, unsupported platform.

Of the users who have already moved to OpenJDK, 25 percent said Oracle had been significantly more expensive, while 41 percent said Big Red’s licensing had made it somewhat more expensive than the alternative.

The survey found three-quarters of Java migrations were completed within a year, 23 percent within three months. ®

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