Jakarta EE 11: My Top 5 Game-Changing Features for 2025
Jakarta EE 11 is here! Discover the top 5 game-changing features, from virtual threads with Java 21 to the new Jakarta Data spec, set to redefine Java enterprise development in 2025.
Daniel Petrov
Principal Enterprise Architect specializing in cloud-native Java and Jakarta EE ecosystems.
Remember when "Enterprise Java" felt like a synonym for "slow and bloated"? For years, the platform, while incredibly powerful and stable, carried a reputation for being a heavyweight contender in a world sprinting towards lightweight microservices. Well, if you've been holding onto that image, get ready to have your mind changed. Jakarta EE 11 is not just an update; it's a fundamental reinvention, and it's poised to make Enterprise Java one of the most exciting development platforms of 2025.
For those new to the party, Jakarta EE is the open-source, community-driven successor to Java EE, stewarded by the Eclipse Foundation. It provides the specifications for building modern, scalable, and robust enterprise applications. After the major namespace shift in EE 9 and the introduction of Core Profile in EE 10, Jakarta EE 11 is where the platform truly hits its stride, embracing the latest innovations from the core Java language. The leap to a Java 21 LTS baseline is the headline act, but the supporting cast of new specifications is just as impressive. Let's dive in.
1. The Elephant in the Room: Java 21 LTS and Virtual Threads
This is, without a doubt, the single most transformative change in Jakarta EE's history. By making Java 21 the minimum required version, Jakarta EE 11 inherits a treasure trove of modern Java features, but the crown jewel is Project Loom's Virtual Threads.
So, what's the big deal?
For decades, Java concurrency was built on platform threads, which are thin wrappers around operating system (OS) threads. They are a scarce and heavy resource. A server could realistically handle a few thousand at most, leading to complex, reactive, and asynchronous programming models (think CompletableFuture or Project Reactor) to achieve high scalability. These models are powerful but notoriously difficult to write, debug, and maintain.
Virtual threads flip this model on its head. They are incredibly lightweight threads managed by the JVM, not the OS. You can run millions of them on a single machine. This means you can go back to writing simple, synchronous, blocking-style code that is easy to read and reason about, yet it will scale massively.
Imagine writing a simple JAX-RS endpoint that makes a few database calls and calls another microservice. With virtual threads, you write it as a straight, sequential block of code. The Jakarta EE container, running on a Java 21 runtime, will automatically run each request on a virtual thread. When your code blocks on I/O (like a DB query), the virtual thread is "parked," freeing up the underlying OS thread to do other work. It's the best of both worlds: simple code, incredible performance.
This change alone lowers the barrier to entry for writing highly concurrent applications and makes Jakarta EE developers immediately more productive.
2. Say Goodbye to Boilerplate: The New Jakarta Data Spec
If you've ever worked with Spring, you've likely enjoyed the magic of Spring Data, where you define a repository interface and the framework provides the implementation. It's a huge productivity booster that has been sorely missing a standardized equivalent in Jakarta EE. Until now.
Enter Jakarta Data 1.0, a brand-new specification designed to standardize data access and dramatically reduce boilerplate code. The goal is to provide a consistent, annotation-driven way to define repositories for different data stores, whether they are relational (JPA), NoSQL, or something else entirely.
Before: The Manual Repository
With plain JPA, you'd typically inject an EntityManager and write methods to build and execute queries. It's verbose and error-prone.
// A lot of boilerplate for a simple find operation
@ApplicationScoped
public class ProductRepository {
@PersistenceContext
private EntityManager em;
public List<Product> findByPriceGreaterThan(BigDecimal price) {
TypedQuery<Product> query = em.createQuery(
"SELECT p FROM Product p WHERE p.price > :price", Product.class);
query.setParameter("price", price);
return query.getResultList();
}
}
After: The Declarative Approach
With Jakarta Data, you just define an interface. The container provides the implementation at build time or runtime. Notice the built-in support for pagination and sorting!
// Zero implementation code needed!
@Repository
public interface Products extends CrudRepository<Product, Long> {
// The implementation is generated for you based on the method name.
@Find
List<Product> findByPriceGreaterThan(BigDecimal price, Sort<Product>... sorts);
// You can even use pagination
Page<Product> findByNameLike(String name, Pageable pageable);
}
This is a massive quality-of-life improvement that modernizes one of the most common tasks in enterprise development.
3. Unified and Type-Safe: The Official Jakarta Config API
Configuration is the lifeblood of any application, but handling it in the Java EE world has been fragmented. You might use MicroProfile Config (which is excellent but not part of the Web Profile), vendor-specific solutions, or roll your own system based on property files. This lack of standardization created friction.
Jakarta EE 11 is slated to introduce a new Jakarta Config specification. While borrowing heavily from the successful ideas in MicroProfile Config, its inclusion as a core Jakarta EE spec is the key. It provides:
- A unified API: A single way to access configuration values in your application.
- Default sources: Out-of-the-box support for reading from `System.properties`, environment variables, and `META-INF/jakarta-config.properties` files.
- Extensibility: The ability to add custom `ConfigSource` implementations (e.g., for reading from a database, HashiCorp Vault, or a cloud provider's config service).
- Type-safe injection: The ability to inject configuration values directly into your CDI beans with type conversion handled for you.
@Inject
@ConfigProperty(name = "database.connection.pool.size", defaultValue = "10")
private int poolSize;
@Inject
@ConfigProperty(name = "api.base.url")
private URL baseUrl;
This is a foundational feature that streamlines application configuration and makes applications more portable across different environments and runtimes.
4. Built for the Cloud: CDI 4.1 Lite Gets Serious
Contexts and Dependency Injection (CDI) is the heart of Jakarta EE, providing the glue that holds everything together. However, traditional CDI relied heavily on runtime scanning and dynamic proxies, which contributed to slower startup times and higher memory usage—pain points in a cloud-native, serverless world.
CDI Lite, introduced in CDI 4.0, was the answer. It defines a subset of CDI that can be fully processed at build time. This allows for aggressive optimizations, faster startup, and compatibility with Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) compilation like GraalVM Native Image.
Jakarta EE 11 builds on this with CDI 4.1, further enhancing and solidifying CDI Lite. This focus signals a clear direction: Jakarta EE is fully committed to being a top-tier platform for building highly optimized, cloud-native applications. When you combine CDI Lite's build-time optimizations with Java 21's virtual threads, you get an application that both starts incredibly fast and scales to handle immense throughput. It’s a killer combination that puts Jakarta EE on equal footing with frameworks like Quarkus and Micronaut.
5. A First-Class Web Experience: Jakarta MVC 3.0
While JAX-RS is fantastic for building REST APIs, many applications still need to serve HTML to a browser. For years, the standard for this was Jakarta Faces (JSF), a powerful component-based framework. However, many developers prefer the simplicity of an action-based Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern, similar to Spring MVC.
Jakarta MVC 3.0, updated for the new baseline, provides exactly that. It's a standard, action-based web framework that builds on top of CDI and JAX-RS. It gives developers a familiar and productive model for building server-side rendered web applications.
A Glimpse of Jakarta MVC
@Path("/users")
@Controller
public class UserController {
@Inject
private UserModel model;
@Inject
private UserService service;
@GET
@Path("/{id}")
public String getUser(@PathParam("id") long id) {
User user = service.findById(id);
model.put("user", user); // Add data to the view model
return "user-detail.jsp"; // Return the view path
}
}
Its tight integration with the rest of the platform (like Bean Validation, CDI, and JAX-RS) makes it a natural and compelling choice for web development within the Jakarta EE ecosystem, finally providing a standard alternative to JSF for those who want it.
Conclusion: A New Era for Enterprise Java
Jakarta EE 11 is more than just another version number. It's a statement. By embracing Java 21, the platform gains a superpower in virtual threads. By standardizing modern development patterns with Jakarta Data and Jakarta Config, it drastically improves developer experience. And by doubling down on cloud-native principles with CDI Lite, it ensures its relevance for the next decade.
The days of viewing Enterprise Java as a legacy platform are over. Jakarta EE 11 is lean, modern, and incredibly powerful. It's a platform reborn, ready to build the next generation of scalable, resilient, and maintainable enterprise applications. If you've been away from the ecosystem for a while, 2025 is the perfect time to come back and see what you've been missing. The future is bright.