Oracle has recently announced that its GraalVM Java virtual machine and Java Development Kit (JDK) equipped with advanced compiler technology will now be available for free. This move enables developers and organizations to utilize and distribute Oracle GraalVM without the need for a click-through license agreement. The company’s decision, announced on June 13, extends the availability of Oracle GraalVM for JDK 17 and JDK 20, as well as future releases, at no cost, including regular security updates. These releases will be governed by the GraalVM Free Terms and Conditions (GFTC) license, granting free usage rights, even for production deployments. Redistribution is also allowed, except when accompanied by a fee. Additionally, for long-term support (LTS) releases like GraalVM for JDK 17, Oracle will provide free GFTC releases until one year after the subsequent LTS release.
GraalVM stands out by pre-compiling Java applications into standalone binaries, resulting in faster startup times and reduced memory and CPU consumption compared to applications running on the standard OpenJDK JVM. Moreover, GraalVM extends its support to other languages such as Python, JavaScript, R, and Ruby, offering runtimes or implementations for seamless integration. Additionally, GraalVM enables the execution of programs compiled to the WebAssembly binary instruction format.
Oracle has also confirmed that it will continue to provide GraalVM Community Edition releases under the GNU General Public License (GPL), maintaining the same terms as Oracle builds of OpenJDK.
