r/javahelp • u/Naive_Topic_5292 • 3d ago

Solved Is Java losing popularity in 3-5 years?

So I'm learning java for 3 months now, even made a few simple projects, though my friend is telling me that java might lose to something like dart and its framework flutter, I read a little bit about it, but Im unable to get a conclusion if he is right, if someone has experince in that, please tell me your opinion

3 Upvotes

54% Upvoted

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47

u/prsquared 3d ago

I work for a large fintech and our entire backend system is built in Java/spring boot. It's not just about Java, it's the entire ecosystem surrounding it. And that's not going away any time soon

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u/pelicandev 2d ago

My company spent four years modernizing a java app to go and when we fucking at the delivery presentation to our client he told us there was a jboss dependency that he forgot to tell us about and they would only extend the due date by twelve months to update to modern java. Well our cto fired everyone on that team and I went to another team

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u/IntroductionSolid348 2d ago

Really? There's a fintech I know that wanted to shift to Go because of memory. Do you think it's because of badly written code or it's because of high memory overhead in java

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u/CutGroundbreaking305 1d ago

Go? Bro either take rust or modern Java over Go I think modern Java is completely different and better than what old java was

30

u/AgeingCoder 3d ago

I have been working professionally with Java since 1998 and for every one of those years I have listened to people discuss its demise. No doubt there are better tools for niche problems but when I want to build a highly scalable, high performance enterprise application / platform then Java is still my go to language.

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u/Particular-Winner136 2d ago

This is because you know Java good and have a lot of experience with it, but if you knew equally good other programming language I am sure Java will not be your first choice. OP is learning for 3 months, you argument is not valid for him. I really can't find arguments anymore in 2026 to use Java, other than "I am comfortable with it" - that is not enough for language to have a future and OP is asking exactly that.

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u/AgeingCoder 2d ago

If you read my response as 'I use Java because I am comfortable with it' then I apologise for not communicating my reasons clearly enough. I use Java for building high volume, high performing multi threaded platforms and applications because it is still the the ideal language for that purpose, its a widely used and reliable language for enterprises to use, which is why most still do. Over the years I have used many different languages, if I was learning to code now I would still learn Java, it was once described as the blue collar language that just gets stuff done and I think that's still true to do this day.

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u/doobiesteintortoise 2d ago

I know a ton of programming languages, and my goto languages and environments are… the JVM, with Java and kotlin, and rust. And yes, I know go, Python, the c family, JS/TS, and a host of others professionally. Java’s fine, it’s just not kewl.

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u/gambit_kory 3d ago

No. Your friend has no idea what he’s talking about and likely doesn’t have experience in the real world.

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u/disposepriority 3d ago

Java's primary usage is backend systems.

Flutter's primary usage is mobile apps.

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u/Naive_Topic_5292 3d ago

Tysm, I told him the same thing tho he was standing his ground so I made this post

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u/Ok_Entrepreneur_8509 3d ago

Ask him to write a backend service in dart and see how he feels about it.

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u/RhoOfFeh 1d ago

People have been saying that for like 20 years.

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u/frederik88917 3d ago

Honey, For most of its existence people have tried to downplay Java's importance and relevance.

You are not the first nor the last that was dead wrong about it

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u/smichaele 3d ago

Your friend may know the language, but must know very little about its use. Java runs on over a billion devices. It’s not going anywhere.

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u/Naive_Topic_5292 3d ago

My friend doesnt know the language😂, hes closer to a physical engineer, and Im the one coding backend, though I am too easy to gaslight

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u/smichaele 3d ago

Then you really shouldn’t be listening to him! I’ve never been in a car, but let me tell you which one is the best to drive…

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u/benevanstech 3d ago

A better estimate of the number of serverside Java processes running at weekly peak is 6-7 billion. And that number continues to grow steadily.

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u/RushTfe 3d ago

Java has been loosing A LOT of popularity since 1990. Now it's only one of the most used languages in the world, supporting (at least in my country) almost all of the banking and government online infrastructure. Yeah, I think it will die next week at this pace

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u/r_n_c 3d ago

Does your friend realise how much is powered by Java? For instance, Netflix backend systems are powered by a set of java microservices. If you want to take a look at how easy it is now to build applications take a look at Quarkus

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u/Naive_Topic_5292 3d ago

I mean I was telling him theres A LOT running on java, he didnt really listen though

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u/No_Score_1977 3d ago

No. First Flutter is front end, and Java is generally backend. Flutter will die before Java does.

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u/JGhostThing 3d ago

Java is used in a *lot* of enterprise software. I don't think it is going to get less popular any time soon. I did Java programming since before 1.0. I like Java, and haven't found problems that it can't solve. I've even programmed hobby robots in Java. I probably wouldn't use it for embedded or real time programming.

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u/Ok_Substance1895 3d ago

I have used Java for embedded and real-time programming (Java 1.6 running on 1,000's of ARM micro boards we spun ourselves connecting to up to 5,000 devices over the LAN network connected to 1,000's more concentrated over a WAN). It worked great.

Works great on Android too.

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u/Naive_Topic_5292 3d ago

Ty, looking forward to get as experienced as you people)

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u/LordMOC3 3d ago

No. People have said it's losing popularity for what feels like decades and it's not happened.

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u/pelicandev 2d ago

Lmao I've been "waiting" for java to be replaced for the ten years I've been coding professionally. If anything were to happen it would be typescript but even that isnt being adapted.

If you want a career learn java

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u/Coffeezao 1d ago

Nope, it's not going anywhere and anytime. Too much of the world is dependent on Java.

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u/pronuntiator 3d ago

Dart is still a thing?

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u/zlaval 3d ago

No. Many languages had risen and fell. Java is still a thing..

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u/Naive_Topic_5292 3d ago

Completely no idea, didnt read much, just my frined keeps standing his ground so I asked)

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u/TW-Twisti 3d ago

People have been saying that since literally the 90s. I remember when people said this new language named PHP would make it so Java would be effectively dead by 1997.

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u/United_Fix_843 3d ago edited 3d ago

They always say that java will lose its popularity for decades now.

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u/jarrod_barkley 3d ago

Take career advice from seasoned professionals actually practicing in the field, not some young know-it-all who’s not even a programmer.

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u/Z00fa 3d ago

It will not happen. You may not see java in small projects anymore but java is used in the corporate world everywhere. It's the language that defines backend for most of those systems. It will not die that easy.

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u/neikn 3d ago

Java will last longer than this planet.

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u/princepii 2d ago

i am a softwaretester and this is my opinion.

i used a lot of programming languages. and let me tell u this.

even i think a language like c will last forever and ever i think java will be replaced one day. but with that said it's also important to mention that i also speak for a way bigger timeframe than one human lives on earth.

but it's more likely to happen to a language like java than c.

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u/OneHumanBill 3d ago

I can confidently predict you that in a century, there will still be Java systems running (but COBOL systems will run even longer).

It's been four or five years since I ever heard anyone even mention Dart / Flutter.

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u/logperf 3d ago

20 years ago they were already saying that Java was going to die within a couple of years. 18 years later it's still alive. This prediction keeps getting renewed every year. Just ignore it. It's like those predictions of the end if the world.

"Oh you don't understand, this time it's for real". Yeah right.

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u/tommyleejonesthe2nd 3d ago

No, java will be still be used in thirty years. Legacy software and brownfield projects need to be maintained.

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u/freshpots11 2d ago

Ask yourself why on earth Java, a language deeply embedded in huge enterprise applications, would lose ground to a mobile framework? Google could drop Flutter tomorrow but Java will still be around when you retire

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u/xdsswar 2d ago

In what reality he is living?

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u/No-Communication9377 3d ago

I am applying for jobs and there are jobs for Java but not for fresher

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u/Educational_Box_4079 2d ago

Java, C#, Kotlin best languages ever created

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u/FriendlyPerformer871 2d ago

Other JVM languages like Kotlin and Scala will gain more popularity, which will make Java even stronger as a platform and minimally less popular as language itself.

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u/Dry_Safe_6021 1d ago

No, java is evolving in ways I never imagined. If anything, it will regain ground on the JVM from Kotlin, Scala and other alternatives. Watch some talks by the people from the designer team who call the shots. I never thought Java's will be defined by such open minded and ambitious people. Unless, you know... Oracle's AI bet blows up erasing the company, and no suitable replacement is found.

That being said, core APIs like collections still feel like it's 1996, that will likely never change, and I would welcome some more courage when it comes to syntactic sugar, since Java 8 the syntax sometimes has a hard time carrying the new features.

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u/OffbeatDrizzle 2d ago

Java's been losing popularity ever since 1995

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u/gjsopmu 3d ago

BTW I have a question for you since you are learning in the age of AI - how are you learning Java and doing the projects? I know I'd be struggling in your shoes.

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u/Naive_Topic_5292 2d ago edited 2d ago

Im actually reading all the documentations and using deepseek only if I need help in some easy part like taking input which I dont remember, all the code I write myself with docs on the internet and Im proud of it) though its hard to make myself go code, but itll go away eventually

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u/_Affan_ 3d ago

Your friend is asking this from AI 😄

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u/PipePressurePanic 1d ago

learning, simple projects, all this lead to nohthing when all they hire are seniors.
Java perhaps is going to stay for long. But frameworks will change. Curent frameworks are still the same as years before, they are made to be used in the old way with manual programming. I think ther emust be many frameworks under constuction now that are meant to be prompt-programmed.

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u/Cyserg 1d ago

Really hope we will be able to upgrade to 11... maybe a wet dream and jump up to java 17 in 3 years time !!!

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u/TechnoHead909 1d ago

No, large companies like SAP, Oracle, Telefonica and Android aren’t going to suddenly rewrite all their software. It will still be around in 50 years, never mind 5!

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u/Skiamakhos 1d ago

They're always touting some new language as the Java-killer. And 6-18 months later whatever the new language had, Java has it too if it was any good.

Like, Java has too much boilerplate? Ok now you can have a class that just has a main method & nothing else wrapping it. That's the speed Java moves at, a release every 6 months.

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u/Alfafita 19h ago

Java supuestamente esta muriendo desde hace 20 años y desde hace 8 años que empecé en este mundo, veo que lo usan en todas las empresas en las que he estado. 🤣

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u/tarix246 11h ago

i believe almost all languages have bwwn losing on popularity since 2023 and birth of ai as a coding tool. ai still uses python and html/js/css as its first choices when you tell it "make me a tic tac toe" or something, as they are quite easy languages to read. so, the frame of your projects needs to be decided by its authors, otherwise it will most likely be some python or javascript. however, i think java is quite a good language, as it is very flexible

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u/Anxious-Insurance-91 1h ago

Java was never about the popularity contest

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u/gedamial 8m ago

People’ve been asking this same question for decades.

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u/Particular-Winner136 2d ago

There will be always legacy code to support. It is not going away, but I can't find a good reason to start a new project in Java. With penetration of AI agents into the industry, I benefits of those class of languages/runtime disappear. I would always pick Rust, C++ or even .Net C# before Java

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u/Own_Nail_2999 2d ago

Java, just like Oracle in general, unfortunately still plays a large role in enterprise sectors.

But these days you often end up with legacy products which are maintained. 

Modern new apps often shifted over to C#/.NET and since everything has to be a web app for some reason, Java doesn't seem to fit into that niche anymore.

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u/Electrical_Being_813 1d ago

I refuse to believe anyone would create new application in c# over java