82% of companies are fed up with Oracle pricing
Azul’s first State of Java Survey & Report revealed that while organizations recognize high cloud compute costs affect their business, they still routinely pay for unused cloud capacity. The second report shows that those issues remain, but that organizations are using a high-performance Java platform to both reduce cloud compute costs and improve application performance.
Azul’s 2025 State of Java Survey & Report, a study of more than 2,000 Java professionals, uncovers the strategies organizations are adopting to address cloud costs.
Let’s look at some of the results in detail and examine important trends from the report.
Cloud compute overages are still high
More than half of the cloud services organizations adopt are dedicated to Java workloads. Most organizations using Java in the cloud report that over 50% of their cloud compute costs stem from Java. Optimizing Java in the cloud presents a substantial opportunity to reduce costs without compromising performance.
Many organizations are overpaying for cloud resources by underutilizing their compute capacity. In this survey, more than 7 in 10 participants have more than 20% of their cloud compute capacity sitting idle. Companies must more closely correlate the cloud compute resources they purchase with the resources they actually use. As cloud expenses climb, this disconnect not only inflates operating costs but also diverts funds that could be invested in innovation or growth initiatives.
Organizations tackle cloud costs
Preventing overspending on cloud resources doesn’t happen overnight, and most survey participants are taking proactive measures. Over the last 12 months, organizations are using varying strategies:
- Operational frameworks: 38% of survey participants say they have implemented new internal rules for using cloud instances, including 25% who say that they have already established a FinOps function.
- Infrastructure: 35% of organizations are using newer, more efficient compute instances and processors, supporting the trend to use AWS Graviton and ARM processors for efficiency and speed.
- High-performance JDK: 24% of survey respondents use a high-performance JDK to enhance application performance, reduce costs, and boost efficiency. This highlights the growing recognition among organizations that investing in an optimized Java runtime can deliver significant operational and financial benefits.
The allure of high-performance JDKs
High-performance JDKs differentiate themselves from out-of-the-box builds of OpenJDK by providing better performance.
Most people don’t think of the underlying JDK as a consideration when trying to achieve cost savings. However, traditional JDKs limit your ability to get the most out of Cloud Cost Optimization strategies. A high-performance Java platform can make a big difference in improving application performance and reducing cloud waste.
In this survey, organizations use a high-performing JDK primarily to “improve application performance” and “optimize cloud compute costs.”
Azul Platform Prime is built on OpenJDK, but with additional features for faster startup and warmup, a faster and more consistent steady state, and more efficient use of resources. Azul Prime customers enjoy better performance and lower cloud and infrastructure costs.
The State of Java Survey & Report is available now
This report shows organizations are actively seeking ways to optimize their Java deployments to drive operational efficiency and cost predictability. As Java continues to be the backbone for business-critical applications in the enterprise, we’re seeing important trends — from the growing interest in Oracle Java alternatives to cloud optimization strategies, improvements in DevOps productivity, and innovation with AI. Read Azul’s full 2025 State of Java Survey & Report today.
