Your AI-generated monthly roundup of Java platform, framework, and community updates.
[infoq.com], [spring.io], [quarkus.io], [oracle.com], [javaland.eu]
March 2026 was a milestone month for the Java ecosystem, headlined by the General Availability of JDK 26 on March 17 and the return of JavaOne to the Bay Area for three days of celebration and learning. A week earlier, JavaLand drew nearly 1,500 developers to a theme park in Germany for community-driven sessions. On the framework front, the Spring portfolio delivered third-milestone previews of its next versions, Quarkus declared its new Long-Term Support branch and shipped a feature release, and projects like JHipster, Helidon, and Google’s Agent Development Kit for Java all reached important milestones. Enterprise Java moved forward with the first GlassFish 9 milestone targeting Jakarta EE 12, a fresh Payara Platform update, and an Open Liberty beta with MCP Server capabilities. Below is a timeline of the month’s most notable developments, followed by detailed coverage of each area.
| Date | Event / Update | Source | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early Mar | JHipster 9.0.0 GA | JHipster / InfoQ | Full-stack app generator shipped with JDK 21+ / JDK 25 support, Spring Boot 4.0, React 19, Angular 21, Gradle 9.4.0 [infoq.com]. |
| ~Mar 9 | Spring Framework 7.0.6 & 6.2.17 | Spring / InfoQ | Maintenance releases with bug fixes, doc improvements, and new resource-handling checks in ScriptTemplateView [infoq.com]. |
| ~Mar 9 | Spring Tools 5.1.0 | Spring / InfoQ | Alignment with Eclipse IDE 2026-03; JEP 483 AOT support to reduce language-server startup; auto-conversion of JDBC queries to text blocks [infoq.com]. |
| ~Mar 9 | Helidon 4.4.0 | Oracle Helidon / InfoQ | Improved OpenTelemetry (OTLP replaces Jaeger), experimental LangChain4j 1.11.0 “Agentic” integration, JSON media consistency improvements [infoq.com]. |
| Mar 10–12 | JavaLand 2026 (Europa-Park, Germany) | JavaLand | ~1,500 attendees, ~130 sessions across 13 tracks, Dr. Venkat Subramaniam’s opening keynote on AI, live-streamed dome sessions accessed 2,000+ times [javaland.eu]. |
| Mar 17 | JDK 26 GA | Oracle / OpenJDK | First non-LTS release since JDK 25, delivering 10 JEPs spanning language, libraries, GC, security, and clean-up [infoq.com], [nasdaq.com]. |
| Mar 17–19 | JavaOne 2026 (Redwood City, CA) | Oracle | Oracle’s flagship Java conference celebrated Java’s legacy with standing-room-only keynotes, hands-on labs, a Hack Haus, and the live JDK 26 launch [nasdaq.com]. |
| Week of Mar 16 | Spring M3 / M2 Milestones | Spring / InfoQ | Third milestones of Boot 4.1, Security 7.1, Integration 7.1, AI 2.0, AMQP 4.1; second milestones of Data 2026.0 and Kafka 4.1; first milestone of Vault 4.1 [infoq.com]. |
| Week of Mar 16 | GlassFish 9.0.0-M1 | Eclipse GlassFish / InfoQ | First milestone of GlassFish 9 targeting Jakarta EE 12, with full M1 implementations of Jakarta Security 5.0, Faces 5.0, CDI 5.0 and partial Servlet 6.2 / Concurrency 3.2 [infoq.com]. |
| Week of Mar 16 | Payara March 2026 Edition | Payara / InfoQ | Community 7.2026.3, Enterprise 6.36.0, Enterprise 5.85.0 — memory-leak fixes (e.g. PayloadFilesManager, InputJarArchive, LogFileHandle), 27+ deprecated command parameters removed [infoq.com]. |
| Mar 25 | Quarkus 3.33 LTS & 3.34 | Red Hat Quarkus | Quarkus 3.33 declared as new LTS (12-month support, based on 3.32); Quarkus 3.34 shipped with Dev UI, Panache Next, and other enhancements [quarkus.io], [quarkus.io]. |
| Late Mar | Google ADK for Java 1.0.0 | Google / InfoQ | Open-source Agent Development Kit for building AI assistants on the JVM, using InMemoryArtifactService, AgentExecutor, and dual output_schema/tools support [infoq.com]. |
JDK 26 Reaches General Availability. On March 17, 2026, Oracle released Java 26 — the first non-LTS release since JDK 25. The final feature set contains 10 JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEPs), five of which remain in preview or incubator stages: [infoq.com]
| JEP | Title | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | Prepare to Make Final Mean Final | Libraries |
| 504 | Remove the Applet API | Clean-up |
| 516 | Ahead-of-Time Object Caching with Any GC | Performance (Project Leyden) |
| 517 | HTTP/3 for the HTTP Client API | Libraries |
| 522 | G1 GC: Improve Throughput by Reducing Synchronization | Performance |
| 524 | PEM Encodings of Cryptographic Objects (Second Preview) | Security |
| 525 | Structured Concurrency (Sixth Preview) | Libraries / Concurrency |
| 526 | Lazy Constants (Second Preview) | Libraries |
| 529 | Vector API (Eleventh Incubator) | Libraries |
| 530 | Primitive Types in Patterns, instanceof, and switch (Fourth Preview) | Language |
Source: InfoQ [infoq.com]
Several of these JEPs represent significant platform milestones:
final fields, enforcing Java’s “integrity by default” principle and preparing developers for a future release that will restrict this behavior entirely. [nasdaq.com]HttpClient API to support the HTTP/3 protocol, enabling libraries and applications to interact with HTTP/3 servers with minimal code changes — reducing latency for microservices and API-driven applications. [nasdaq.com]switch constructs. [nasdaq.com]Beyond the 10 JEPs, Java 26 offers dozens of additional improvements: streamlined HPKE (Hybrid Public Key Encryption), post-quantum-ready JAR signing, updated Unicode 17.0 and CLDR v48 support, dark mode for JavaDoc, expanded C2 JIT compilation, and region-based file uploads in HttpClient. [nasdaq.com]
Oracle simultaneously announced the Java Verified Portfolio (JVP), a curated, enterprise-grade set of Oracle-supported components. JVP includes commercial support for JavaFX (with JavaFX 25 and 26 available for JDK 26, and support for JavaFX on JDK 8 extended through March 2028) and Helidon (whose release cadence will align with JDK releases). JVP is included free for Java SE subscribers and OCI customers running Java workloads. [nasdaq.com]
Vendor Distributions. BellSoft shipped Liberica JDK 26, incorporating all 2,825 fixes (2,665 in OpenJDK and 160 in JavaFX), with BellSoft contributing nine fixes to this release. [infoq.com]
JDK 27 Early Access. The next release (scheduled for GA in September 2026) progressed through multiple early-access builds during March: Build 13 was available at the start of the month, Build 14 arrived by mid-month, and Build 16 was published by the end of March. At this stage, only one JEP — JEP 527, Post-Quantum Hybrid Key Exchange for TLS 1.3 — is officially Targeted for JDK 27. However, several candidates are under evaluation, including: [infoq.com] [infoq.com] [infoq.com] [infoq.com]
isInitialized()/orElse() and adding ofLazy() for collection types. [infoq.com]PEM API from a record to a class and introducing a new CryptoException). [infoq.com]A feature freeze for JDK 27 is expected in early June 2026, and more JEPs will likely be targeted in the coming months. [infoq.com]
Spring Ecosystem — Third Milestone Wave. During the week of March 16, the Spring teams delivered a broad set of pre-release builds for the next minor versions: [infoq.com]
AmqpConnectionFactory and AmqpClient interfaces) and auto-configuration for Spring Batch on MongoDB via a new spring-boot-batch-data-mongo module. [infoq.com]MessageExpressionAuthorizationManager class and a reusable InetAddressMatcher interface. It also addressed CVE-2026-22732, a vulnerability that could expose sensitive data via caching mechanisms because HTTP headers were not written while specifying HTTP response headers for servlet applications. [infoq.com]CloudEventHeadersBuilder class and replaced TimeUnit with Duration across RedisQueue* classes. [infoq.com]McpClientCustomizer interface for customizing named client components, and improved builder patterns in ZhiPuAiChatOptions and OllamaChatOptions. [infoq.com]@AmqpListener annotation supporting AMQP 1.0 and a classic() method on QueueBuilder. [infoq.com]@EnableRedisListeners annotation (Spring Data Redis), a bulkWrite() method on MongoOperations (Spring Data MongoDB), and new compare-and-set/delete functionality for Redis 8.4. [infoq.com]RENEW acknowledgement type on the ShareAcknowledgment interface and poll-level/listener-level error handling in ShareKafkaMessageListenerContainer. [infoq.com]CertificateContainer class for managing certificate bundles and a ManagedSecret class with SecretsRegistry for simplified secrets management. [infoq.com]Earlier in March, Spring Framework 7.0.6 and 6.2.17 (maintenance releases) fixed bugs and added resource-handling checks in ScriptTemplateView, restoring inadvertently deleted test classes. [infoq.com]
Quarkus — LTS and Feature Releases. Red Hat published two significant Quarkus versions on March 25, 2026:
Throughout March, several Quarkus maintenance releases kept the platform stable: 3.32.2 (March 5), 3.32.3 (March 11), plus 3.27.3 and 3.20.6 LTS patches (both March 25). [quarkus.io]
Micronaut — Maintenance & Security. The Micronaut Foundation released Micronaut 4.10.10 (based on Micronaut Core 4.10.18) with bug fixes, a patch to the Micronaut Test module, and resolutions to two denial-of-service vulnerabilities: one in JsonBeanPropertyBinder’s expandArrayToThreshold() method (improper handling of descending array index order during form body binding) and one in DefaultHtmlErrorResponseBodyProvider (using a ConcurrentHashMap with no eviction policy). Later, Micronaut 4.10.11 (Core 4.10.20) followed with further bug fixes and module patches to OpenAPI and Logging. [infoq.com] [infoq.com]
JHipster 9.0.0 GA. After three beta releases, JHipster 9.0.0 reached general availability, modernizing the popular full-stack generator. Key changes include a minimum of JDK 21 with support for JDK 25, alignment with Spring Boot 4.0, an upgrade to React 19, replacement of reactstrap with react-bootstrap, and support for Gradle 9.4.0 and Angular 21. [infoq.com]
Helidon 4.4.0. Oracle’s microservices framework shipped Helidon 4.4.0 with noteworthy enhancements: improved OpenTelemetry support that deprecates the Jaeger tracing provider in favor of the OTLP Exporter, experimental LangChain4j 1.11.0 integration with Agentic capabilities for AI-enabled microservices, and enhanced JSON media consistency across Helidon JSON, Jackson, Jakarta JSON Processing, and Jakarta JSON Binding providers. Oracle also confirmed that Helidon’s release cadence will align with the JDK roadmap going forward. [infoq.com] [nasdaq.com]
Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) for Java 1.0.0. Google open-sourced version 1.0.0 of its Agent Development Kit for Java, a framework for building AI assistants on the JVM. The release uses InMemoryArtifactService alongside InMemorySessionService in AgentExecutorProducer to build AgentExecutor instances, and enables simultaneous use of output_schema and tools for models that do not natively support both features. [infoq.com]
ClawRunr by JobRunr. JobRunr introduced ClawRunr, a Java-based personal AI assistant built on JDK 25, Spring Boot 4, Spring AI, and JobRunr. ClawRunr runs on local hardware and performs tasks such as communicating through a web interface, scheduling tasks, browsing the web, and reading email — inspired by OpenClaw, a Node.js-based personal assistant. [infoq.com]
OpenXava 7.7.0. The OpenXava low-code Java web framework released version 7.7.0 with a new AI chat assistant built into all modules (allowing developers to query, filter, and modify data via natural language) and new @NewView / @EditView annotations for selecting and editing views when creating objects from references and collections. [infoq.com]
Java Operator SDK 5.3.0. The Kubernetes operator framework for Java released version 5.3.0, improving ResourceOperations to guarantee read-after-write operations and event filtering after updates, and introducing a MicrometerMetricsV2 class that scopes metrics to a controller instead of individual resources. [infoq.com]
Jakarta EE 12 Progress. Work on Jakarta EE 12 continued through March without a formal new milestone, but several specifications advanced toward Milestone 2: Jakarta Connectors 3.0, Jakarta Faces 5.0, Jakarta Transactions 2.1, and Jakarta JSON Processing 2.2. In the Jakarta EE Platform call, the community discussed how the three security specifications relate to one another. For historical reasons, Jakarta Authorization is not part of the Jakarta EE Web Profile (though Jakarta Authentication and Jakarta Security are), and there is active discussion about merging the security specs and including Authorization in the Web Profile as a first step — potentially achievable for Jakarta EE 12. [infoq.com]
GlassFish 9.0.0-M1. The first milestone of Eclipse GlassFish 9.0 was published during the week of March 16, targeting Jakarta EE 12. It delivers full Milestone 1 implementations of Jakarta Security 5.0, Jakarta Faces 5.0, and Jakarta Contexts and Dependency Injection (CDI) 5.0, along with partial Milestone 1 implementations of Jakarta Servlet 6.2 and Jakarta Concurrency 3.2. This milestone gives the community a concrete reference implementation against which to test new EE 12 APIs. [infoq.com]
Payara Platform — March 2026. Payara released its March 2026 edition: Community 7.2026.3, Enterprise 6.36.0, and Enterprise 5.85.0. Alongside bug fixes and component upgrades, all three editions resolved multiple memory leaks in the PayloadFilesManager, InputJarArchive, and LogFileHandle classes. Modernization continued: support for legacy deployment descriptor formats and the built-in JVM profiler configuration were deprecated, and over 27 deprecated command parameters (including restore-domain, create-cluster, and delete-cluster) were removed. These removals streamline the codebase as Payara focuses on its next-generation Enterprise platform aligned with Jakarta EE 12. [infoq.com]
Open Liberty 26.0.0.3 Beta. IBM’s Open Liberty published a beta of version 26.0.0.3 featuring updates to the Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server 1.0 feature (mcpServer-1.0). New interfaces ContentEncoder and ToolResponseEncoder provide more control when converting encoded responses to Content and ToolResponse instances, and a new RequestID record enables obtaining unique session-based request IDs in tool method calls. [infoq.com]
Apache Tomcat Updates. In the March 30 roundup, Apache Tomcat shipped versions 11.0.21, 10.1.54, and 9.0.117. Notable fixes include resolution of an issue where non-blocking flushing code for NIO and TLS meant responses might not be fully written until the connection closed, and improved error handling for HTTP/2 and the EncryptInterceptor class. [infoq.com]
Spring Tools 5.1.0. The Spring IDE plug-in reached version 5.1.0 in March, aligning with the Eclipse IDE 2026-03 release. It added support for JEP 483 (Ahead-of-Time Class Loading & Linking) to reduce language-server startup time, and introduced automatic conversion of JDBC queries to use text blocks (JEP 378) for improved readability. [infoq.com]
Micrometer Milestones. Micrometer Metrics 1.17.0-M3 shipped with bug fixes and a change to the OtlpMetricsSender.Request toString() method (removing special characters for human-readability) and updates to PrometheusMeterRegistry to allow registering meters with the same name but different tag keys. Micrometer Tracing 1.7.0-M4 removed the Micrometer Metrics BOM dependency so that the Tracing BOM can manage its own modules independently. [infoq.com]
Gradle 9.5.0 RC1. The first release candidate of Gradle 9.5.0 was published in late March, with improvements to task-failure diagnostics (now including provenance information and clearer logging for incompatible client JVMs) and a new disallowChanges() method on DomainObjectCollection for build authoring safety. [infoq.com]
Apache Log4j 2.25.4. The logging framework patched formatting and sanitization issues in XML and RFC5424 layouts, restoring alignment between documented and actual configuration attributes in Rfc5424Layout (which had diverged after migration to the builder pattern in version 2.21.0). Handling of invalid characters and non-standard values was improved in XmlLayout, Log4j1XmlLayout, and MapMessage. [infoq.com]
Grails 7.1.0 RC1. The first release candidate of Grails 7.1.0 moved the Groovy invokedynamic configuration from the generated build.gradle to the Grails Gradle Plugin to centralize configuration, and changed the @Service annotation to automatically inherit a datasource from a domain class’s mapping block. [infoq.com]
Maven 4. Apache Maven 4.0.0 remained in its final release-candidate phase during March; a “GA checklist” wiki page was being maintained by the Maven team, but GA had not yet been declared by month’s end.
Project Valhalla. Build 27-jep401ea3+1-1 of the Project Valhalla early-access builds was made available during March, based on an incomplete version of JDK 27. This build focuses on JEP 401, Value Classes and Objects (Preview), currently in Submitted status. Value objects — objects containing only final fields and lacking identity — remain one of Java’s most anticipated long-term language changes. [infoq.com]
JavaLand 2026 (March 10–12, Europa-Park, Germany). For the first time, Europa-Park in Rust hosted JavaLand, welcoming nearly 1,500 attendees and offering close to 130 sessions across 13 thematic tracks. The opening keynote, “AI: It AI-n’t What You Think!” by Dr. Venkat Subramaniam, set a light-hearted tone with remarks like “AI doesn’t make you a bad programmer. You already were one before”. Sessions in the Dome main hall were live-streamed and accessed more than 2,000 times by 617 unique viewers. Sponsors and exhibitors included adesso, msg, Deutsche Welle, REWE digital, AXA, and others. The “OpenPark” evening event gave attendees exclusive access to Europa-Park rides — the Voltron roller coaster drew long queues despite a brief thunderstorm — followed by a DJ set in the Traumpalast. For the first time, DevLand followed JavaLand as a new sister event. JavaLand 2027 is already confirmed for March 2–4 at Europa-Park. [javaland.eu]
JavaOne 2026 (March 17–19, Redwood City, CA). Oracle’s flagship Java developer conference returned to the Bay Area, timed to coincide with the JDK 26 launch. The event featured standing-room-only keynotes and a Hack Haus experience, drawing Java developers, architects, and community leaders from around the world. Attendees participated in expert-led sessions, immersive hands-on labs, and real-world case studies spanning Java language enhancements, performance tuning, and AI integration. Oracle used the conference to announce the Java Verified Portfolio and to celebrate Java’s legacy since 1996. Developer advocate Dan Vega delivered talks on MCP server development and software engineering fundamentals and reported strong community energy throughout the conference. [inside.java] [danvega.dev]
Content & Publications. InfoQ’s weekly Java News Roundups (March 9, March 16, March 30) continued to provide comprehensive weekly digests of JDK progress, library releases, and community news. The March 9 roundup covered JHipster 9.0, Project Valhalla, Spring Framework/Tools, Helidon, OpenXava, and Java Operator SDK. The March 16 roundup summarized JDK 26 GA, Liberica JDK 26, Payara, GlassFish 9, and ClawRunr. The March 30 roundup featured Google ADK for Java, Grails, Tomcat, Log4j, and Gradle updates. The Spring News Roundup for March 16 detailed all Spring milestone releases and the CVE-2026-22732 fix. Community blogs explored practical AI integration: articles demonstrated building AI agents in Jakarta EE using LangChain4j, and Dan Vega’s newsletter highlighted Spring AI 2.0 M3 as a fast-moving project for AI-powered Spring applications. [infoq.com] [infoq.com] [infoq.com] [infoq.com] [danvega.dev]
Looking Ahead. With JDK 26 now released and JavaOne wrapped up, the Java community’s attention turns to upcoming events and releases. DevNexus 2026 (Atlanta) is expected in April, and KotlinConf 2026 was teased for the same month. On the platform side, JDK 27 development will accelerate toward its early-June feature freeze, and Jakarta EE 12 specifications will continue progressing through milestones. In the framework space, Spring Boot 4.1 and Spring AI 2.0 are on track toward GA, and the Quarkus team will maintain both the new 3.33 LTS and the fast-moving 3.34+ line. The tooling ecosystem — from Maven 4’s imminent GA to Gradle 9.5 and refreshed IDE support — ensures developers have the infrastructure to adopt Java 26 features immediately. [infoq.com]
In summary, March 2026 confirmed that Java’s evolution shows no signs of slowing. The combination of a polished JDK 26 release, a vibrant conference circuit, and relentless iteration across Spring, Quarkus, Jakarta EE, and dozens of supporting libraries demonstrates that the platform’s ecosystem — more than 30 years old — continues to deliver meaningful innovation for developers and enterprises alike.