Differences between Oracle JDK and OpenJDK

Question

NOTE: This question is from 2014. As of Java 11 OpenJDK and Oracle JDK are converging.

Are there any crucial differences between Ora

Answer 1

Aside from the obvious licensing difference, the major difference between OpenJDK and OracleJDK 11 are stability and performance updates.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adv9--6IcQI&t=385

Every 6 months the two codebases will be in-sync. But during the 6 month window OpenJDK will only receive security updates while OracleJDK will receive additional stability and performance updates.

Given that update releases only occur every 3 months for both OpenJDK and OracleJDK this means that you are missing out on (at most) 3 months worth of fixes until the next major release comes out and you upgrade. However, if you choose to stick to LTS releases then a commercial license begins to make more sense.