Java 25 (LTS) marks a pivotal moment in the JVM’s history. This guide explores the elimination of thread pinning, the finalized FFM API, and the paradigm shift in memory layout with Project Valhalla, backed by extensive benchmarks.
In the landscape of enterprise software development, few updates have been as eagerly anticipated as Java 21. As the latest Long-Term Support (LTS) release following Java 17, it represents a paradigm shift rather than a mere incremental update.
By 2026, Java 21 has firmly established itself as the new “gold standard” Long-Term Support (LTS) release, finally displacing Java 8 and Java 11 in most forward-thinking enterprise environments. While Java 17 was a significant stepping stone, Java 21 brings structural changes to the language and the JVM that fundamentally alter how we write high-throughput applications.
By late 2025, the Java landscape has fundamentally shifted. The release of Java 21 as a Long-Term Support (LTS) version brought Project Loom’s Virtual Threads into the mainstream, and today, they are the standard for high-throughput I/O applications.
