Java Ecosystem Updates: JDK 26 RC2, Jakarta EE 12 Progress, and Framework Releases

The Java ecosystem saw significant updates across core platforms and frameworks this week, with JDK 26 nearing its final release and multiple enterprise specifications advancing toward production readiness.

JDK 26 Release Candidate 2

JDK 26 has entered its second release candidate phase with Build 35 resolving licensing issues. Scheduled for GA release on March 17, 2026, JDK 26 includes 10 finalized features:

• JEP 500: Makes final truly immutable at runtime
• JEP 504: Removes the deprecated Applet API
• JEP 516: Implements ahead-of-time object caching compatible with any garbage collector
• JEP 517: Adds HTTP/3 support to the HTTP Client API
• JEP 522: Reduces G1 GC synchronization overhead for throughput improvements
• JEP 524: Enhances cryptographic object handling with PEM Encodings (Second Preview)
• JEP 525: Advances structured concurrency (Sixth Preview)
• JEP 526: Optimizes constant handling via lazy initialization (Second Preview)
• JEP 529: Refines the Vector API (Eleventh Incubator)
• JEP 530: Enables primitive type patterns in instanceof and switch (Fourth Preview)

Developers can test JDK 26 RC2 builds and report issues via the Java Bug Database.

Jakarta EE 12 Specifications Progress

Jakarta EE 12 development continues with Milestone 3 focusing on Maven Central deployment preparations. Specifications advancing to Milestone 2 include:

• Jakarta Contexts and Dependency Injection 5.0
• Jakarta Persistence 4.0
• Jakarta Validation 4.0
• Jakarta RESTful Web Services 5.0
• Jakarta Query 1.0
• Jakarta Data 1.1
• Jakarta NoSQL 1.1

These updates establish compatibility with the new EE4J Parent 2.0.0 POM configuration, addressing artifact staging requirements following OSSRH's retirement.

Framework Updates

Payara Platform

The February 2026 release includes:

• Community Edition 7.2026.2
• Enterprise Edition 6.35.0
• Enterprise Edition 5.84.0

Key changes:

• New system logging facility configuration property
• Enabled HTTP DELETE requests with non-zero Content-Length headers
• Removal of Lifecycle Modules and Distributed Component Object Model in CE 7

Release notes detail compatibility matrices and upgrade paths.

Hibernate Search 8.2.2.Final

This maintenance release:

• Adds compatibility with Hibernate ORM 7.2.4.Final
• Optimizes logger initialization using Locale.Root
• Fixes cascading delete behavior for @OneToOne relationships

Quarkus 3.31.4

Resolves:

• NullPointerException when setting QUARKUS_HTTP_TEST_HOST in Gradle 9.3.1
• Restores empty source set handling via DirectoryPathTree.isEmpty()

Apache Camel 4.18.0

New features:

• Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF) Data Format
• MCP module for Camel JBang
• KafkaSecurityConfigurer for streamlined Kafka authentication

Platform Developments

JDK 27 Build 10 progressed with various issue fixes, while Spring projects released multiple milestone versions including Spring Boot 3.2.0-M2 and Spring Security 7.0.0-M2.

Michael Redlich is a Java Champion and Director of the Garden State Java User Group with over 25 years of Java ecosystem contributions. He serves as a committer on Jakarta EE specifications and Java Queue Lead Editor at InfoQ.