With sources like AdoptOpenJDK you might see a choice between HotSpot VM and something else. An LTS version will be given updates for longer, so people tend to use them as a stable standard of 'modern, but not too new' Java. You will see that Java is divided into LTS (long-term support) like 11 and STS (short-term support) version numbers like 16.

Oracle JRE ( NOT recommended instead you pay) (stable 'OTN' builds).

Oracle OpenJDK (stable and development builds) – zip packages only (no installer).

Zulu OpenJDK ( recommended) (stable and development builds).

All production of further builds has been moved to )

AdoptOpenJDK (stable and development builds)(From July 2021 no new jdks will be produced.

Adoptium OpenJDK (Continuation of AdoptOpenJDK)(stable builds only, check /adoptium for development builds).

If you make money from streaming Minecraft or running a Minecraft server (even non-profit), you MUST use OpenJDK unless you want to figure out how to pay. For the purpose of Minecraft they are essentially the same, but Oracle's 'OTN' version requires a PAID license for commercial and production purposes. You can get Java either from Oracle or from someone who builds OpenJDK. See also: Wikipedia:OpenJDK § OpenJDK builds See Tutorials/Setting up a server for more information.

Running a server requires your computer to have Java installed instead of the pre-installed Java.

For example, the newer garbage collectors can help with lag spikes during high memory usage.

Java updates fix lots of problems and bugs and typically cause increases in performance.

Minecraft may sometimes crash without being run by a relatively modern version of Java.

Since Java Edition 1.18( 1.18 Pre-release 2), Minecraft requires Java 17 or newer.

From Java Edition 1.17( 21w19a) to Java Edition 1.17.1(1.18: 1.18 Pre-release 1), Minecraft requires Java 16 or newer.

Different Minecraft versions have different requirements of minimum Java version.

Installing the latest Java update ensures that Minecraft continues to run safely and efficiently. The latest versions of Java contain important enhancements to help improve performance, stability and security of the Java applications that run on your machine. Currently, you cannot use Java 17 or 18 EA with 1.17 and 1.17.1. Minecraft is written in Java, and uses it for game logic, rendering, and networking.Īs of November 16, 2021, the latest stable Java versions are 1.8.0_311 (Oracle JDK) / 1.8.0_312 (OpenJDK) (Long-Term Support or LTS), 11.0.13 (LTS) and 17.0.1 (LTS), while the latest development build is version 18 early-access build 23. Unlike many other languages, Java does not run directly on the hardware, but in a virtual machine, called the JVM (Java Virtual Machine). Java is a programming language and computing platform.

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