In 1995, a small team of engineers at Sun Microsystems, led by James Gosling, unveiled a new programming language designed for flexibility, portability, and robustness. That language was Java, and three decades later, it remains one of the most influential technologies in the software world. As we celebrate Java’s 30th birthday, we look back at its remarkable journey—one that reshaped the Internet, transformed enterprise computing, and cultivated a global developer community that continues to push the boundaries of innovation.

Java was born out of a need to create a platform-independent language that could run seamlessly across a variety of hardware devices. Its guiding principle—“write once, run anywhere”—became a revolutionary idea at a time when most applications were tightly bound to specific platforms. Java’s early adoption in web browsers through applets demonstrated the potential of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to execute bytecode across disparate environments. Over time, the JVM evolved into a powerful execution engine supporting not just Java but many other languages.

The technical evolution of Java has been both steady and adaptive. Key releases—from the early JDK 1.0 to the transformative Java 8 (introducing lambdas and the Stream API), and recently, releases that have brought innovative features such as foreign function & memory API, pattern matching, records, virtual threads, ZGC and more — Java remains modern while preserving compatibility. Through important Java development projects such as Amber, Loom, Leyden, Panama, and Valhalla, Java continues to signal a bright future towards accelerating developer productivity, as well as enabling it to remain relevant in data-intensive, cloud, and AI environments.

As we commemorate 30 years of Java, it’s not just a milestone but a celebration of a living ecosystem—one that has grown through collaboration, adaptation, and a relentless pursuit of developer excellence. Java’s legacy is not merely in the code it runs, but in the millions of people it has empowered to build, create, and change the world through the power of community participation.

To help with celebrations, we’re bringing back the “Best of Java Feature Face-Off”. Originally launched to celebrate Java’s 25th birthday, this online competition pits some of the most recognized Java features against each other in a winner take all format. Broken out in brackets mapping to “Languages”, “Libraries”, “Tools”, and “Runtimes”, YOU get to vote on the feature you care about the most. Participate by following @Java on X/Twitter to cast your vote and then follow along to see how each feature performs. Each match-up will offer two days to cast your vote before moving onto the next round. Which feature will come out on top? It’s up to you, so remember to vote on X/Twitter and follow the #30YearsOfJava hashtag.