Jakarta EE's Landmark Year: A 2025 Retrospective on Community Growth and Innovation

As 2025 concludes, the Jakarta EE community reflects on a year of significant progress, marked by major platform updates, a refreshed website, and growing developer engagement.

Celebrating Jakarta EE 11

A key milestone for the year was the release of Jakarta EE 11, which adopted an agile release approach, delivering profiles and platforms as soon as they were ready. The Core Profile became available in December 2024, the Web Profile in March 2025, and the full Jakarta EE Platform was finalized in June 2025. Compatible products swiftly followed.

Jakarta EE 11 introduces the new Jakarta Data specification, modernizes the testing experience with updated TCK infrastructure based on JUnit 5 and Maven, and expands support for Java 21, including virtual threads. The platform is also streamlined by retiring older specifications such as Managed Beans, reinforcing Contexts and Dependency Injection (CDI) as the preferred programming model, and continues to offer Java Records support.

This release significantly simplifies enterprise Java development, boosts developer productivity, and supports modern, cloud-native applications. It stands as a true reflection of the community’s collaborative efforts and ongoing commitment to innovation.

Introducing Jakarta Agentic AI: A New Standard for Running AI Agents on Jakarta EE

This year marked the introduction of the Jakarta Agentic AI specification project, aimed at standardizing how AI agents run within Jakarta EE runtimes. This new specification, slated for a future release, will provide a clear, annotation-driven API that defines how agents are created, managed, and executed, much like Jakarta Servlet unified HTTP processing and Jakarta Batch defined batch workflows.

Built on CDI as its core component model, the specification will establish consistent lifecycle patterns and usage semantics, making it easier for developers to implement and integrate a wide range of agent types. The project also anticipates deep integration with key Jakarta EE APIs, ensuring seamless interoperability across the platform.

Jakarta Agentic AI is being developed with broad industry collaboration in mind. The project is actively seeking input from subject-matter experts, vendors, and API consumers both inside and outside the Java ecosystem to build the most open, portable, and future-ready agent execution model possible. For more information, visit the project page.

Listening and Learning Through the Jakarta EE Developer Survey

Our annual Jakarta EE Developer Survey remains one of the best ways to track how developers and organizations are using enterprise Java and shaping their cloud strategies. In 2025, participation increased by 20%, with over 1,700 participants sharing their practical use of Jakarta EE.

The results showcased continued growth and confidence in Jakarta EE across the ecosystem. Notably, even before the full platform release was finalized, 18 percent of respondents were already using Jakarta EE 11, a strong signal of interest and early adoption.

These insights help us better understand where the community is focusing its energy, from modernizing applications and adopting newer Java versions to evaluating cloud strategies and driving specification innovation. We are grateful to everyone who participated and shared their views.

Learning and Contributing: A Growing Developer Ecosystem

The Jakarta EE Learn page expanded its resources to better support developers at all levels. As part of our broader effort to support community growth, we also introduced a new Contribute page, a dedicated space that outlines how individuals and organizations can get involved with Jakarta EE.

The Contribute page highlights the many ways to participate, from writing code and improving documentation to joining specification discussions or helping with community outreach. It also explains why contributing matters, what contributors gain, and how to get started.

To further support newcomers, we launched the Jakarta EE Mentorship Program, which pairs new contributors with experienced community mentors who can provide guidance, answer questions, and help them navigate the contribution process. Whether new to open source or simply new to Jakarta EE, the mentorship experience helps build skills, confidence, and deeper community connections.

Looking Ahead: A Refreshed Web Presence

Throughout 2025, our marketing team, in collaboration with the Jakarta EE Marketing Committee, worked on a major Jakarta EE website refresh to better reflect the clarity, maturity, and momentum of the community. While the full launch is now scheduled for early January, the homepage and navigation redesign are already complete and ready for rollout. The updated site features a bold new homepage, improved navigation through streamlined mega menus, and a new “Why Jakarta EE” section that helps visitors quickly understand the platform’s value.

This is just the beginning. Additional updates and structural improvements will continue rolling out through 2026, with a focus on enhancing messaging, navigation, and the overall user experience. Stay tuned for the official launch and more updates in the months ahead.

Global Presence: Virtual Events, Conferences, and Community Connections

Jakarta EE had a visible and impactful presence at face-to-face (F2F) conferences around the world, especially in the first half of the year. From Devnexus to JCON and beyond, Jakarta EE working group and community members presented talks, engaged with attendees at sponsored booths, and built valuable relationships.

In 2025, JakartaOne Livestreams continued to grow with successful regional events in China and the annual JakartaOne Livestream, which attracted more than 6,000 viewers globally, with over 3,200 participants. With over 20 sessions, 15+ speakers, and 14+ hours of multilingual content, the JakartaOne Livestream series continued to drive strong community engagement across regions. Recordings of the Chinese JakartaOne Livestream and the annual JakartaOne Livestream are available on our YouTube channel.

JakartaOne F2F Meetups further expanded the program’s regional footprint, with events in China and Japan drawing over 170 registered participants and more than 100 in-person attendees, supported by high community approval and strong local participation.

With 17 Jakarta EE Tech Talks delivered in 2025, the program remains a vital channel for community learning, collaboration, and inspiration. Topics ranged from microservices and containers to security and observability. Recordings of these sessions are available on our YouTube channel.

Looking Forward to 2026 and Beyond

As we conclude an impactful 2025, it’s clear that Jakarta EE continues to strengthen its role as the open, vendor-neutral foundation for modern enterprise Java. The progress made this year, from delivering Jakarta EE 11 and introducing new specifications like Jakarta Agentic AI, to expanding our global events and deepening community engagement, reflects the dedication, collaboration, and passion of everyone involved. 2026 promises to be another exciting year of innovation and growth.

Thank you to all members, contributors, committers, and the wider community for your continued support. Together, we’re driving the platform forward and building a vibrant, open, and innovative ecosystem. Here’s to another year of progress, collaboration, and innovation with Jakarta EE.