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Since Oracle donated Java EE to Eclipse Foundation, Java EE has evolved with a new name, Jakarta EE. In addition to the new name, the specification and API packages have also been renamed, for example from javax.servlet to jakarta.servlet.

This will have a big impact into the existing code (update dependencies, rebuilds, deployments, etc), so I would like to know when application servers will start supporting Jakarta EE. To do so, I have found this page with all the current Jakarta EE compatible products and, to my surprise, WebSphere Application Server (WAS) is not in that list. Actually, the current WAS versions support only Java EE (WAS v8.5 Java EE 6 and WAS 9.0 Java EE 7) and I have not seen any information about future releases.

Therefore, my question is, will WAS support Jakarta EE in the future? If the answer is no, I guess that the solution provided by IBM is to migrate to WebSphere Liberty or OpenLiberty. Is that correct?

telle
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WebSphere Application Server is an IBM Product that provides two runtime choices, the traditional WebSphere runtime and the more modern and agile Liberty one. The WebSphere Application Server product supports Jakarta EE via the WebSphere Liberty runtime. There are no current plans to implement Java EE 8, or Jakarta EE 8+ on the traditional one.

WebSphere Liberty (or Open Liberty) is a better target for new modern applications since it starts more quickly and uses less memory while providing the same throughput performance and is a better fit for modern cloud deployments like Kubernetes. For existing applications that are still under active development WebSphere Liberty is also a better option for those applications for the same reasons it is a better option for new applications.

Alasdair
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