Oracle’s Java licensing shift sparks mass migration to open source

Nearly 8 in 10 organizations are moving away from Oracle Java, driven by rising costs and frustration over the company’s shift to employee-based pricing, according to a research report based on the ITAM & SAM Survey 2025.

The survey, which was jointly conducted by Azul — a firm that provides open source Java alternatives, and the ITAM Forum — a non-profit membership association for IT Asset Management (ITAM) professionals, assessed responses from 500 participants who are ITAM or software asset management (SAM) professionals who use Java.

Oracle, according to the report, introduced four licensing and pricing policy changes between 2020 and 2023, specifically the employee-based pricing, forcing enterprises to start looking at alternatives.

Oracle’s pricing change: Targeted licensing to blanket fee

In January 2023, Oracle overhauled its Java licensing model by launching the Java SE Universal Subscription, shifting from traditional per-device or per-processor metrics to a per-employee pricing structure.This new approach mandates that any organization using Oracle Java beyond its free-use allowances must license the software for every employee, regardless of how many actually use Java.

Oracle’s definition of “employee” is expansive, encompassing not only full-time and part-time staff but also contractors, temporary workers, and agents involved in internal operations.

As a result, even minimal Java usage within an enterprise — such as a few developers or isolated applications — can trigger licensing obligations for the entire workforce, increasing the risk of inflated Java licensing costs with limited deployment.

Before 2023, the Java SE licenses for desktops and servers were priced at roughly $2.50 per user and $25 per processor core per month, respectively. With the introduction of the Java SE Universal Subscription, rates now start at $15 per employee per month for enterprises with fewer than 1,000 employees, decreasing incrementally for larger companies, dropping to $12 at 1,000 employees, and as low as $5.25 for enterprises with over 40,000 staff.

Oracle did not immediate respond to a request for comment.

Oracle’s blanket fee is driving discomfort for enterprises

The blanket fee, according to the report, has significantly increased discomfort for enterprises in the form of adding new budgets for increased costs for Java licensing, investing in new Java usage monitoring systems, conducting internal audits, and facing audits from Oracle itself.

While 29% of respondents said that their enterprise faced issues around budgeting for Oracle Java licensing, 27% of respondents complained about experiencing difficulties in interpreting Oracle’s “often opaque” licensing terms.

Another issue, at least for 28% of respondents, was around ensuring compliance, especially managing Java licenses across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

With Java embedded in countless enterprise applications, tracking usage across diverse infrastructures has proven difficult, especially without robust automation tools, the report concluded.

Further, respondents pointed out that Oracle conducting audits on Java licensing and usage has been a major challenge.

A staggering 73% of respondents reported undergoing an Oracle Java audit within the past three years. These audits, according to the respondents, are not only frequent but also disruptive, with many citing operational slowdowns, unexpected budget hits, and even stalled projects as consequences.As a countermeasure to audits from Oracle, 76% of respondents said that their enterprises now conduct internal audits for Java compliance at least twice a year, with a quarter doing so continuously, as even a single unlicensed Java instance can trigger costly penalties.

The pressure doesn’t stop at audits. Respondents also pointed to Oracle’s assertive sales tactics as a source of frustration, with 21% specifically citing it as an issue.

The slow but steady shift toward Oracle Java alternatives

For most of the respondents, the burden of staying compliant under Oracle’s evolving rules has become too great, prompting a shift toward open-source Java alternatives that offer greater cost savings, security, reliability, transparency, and flexibility.

Nearly 51% of respondents in the survey cited security and reliability as the primary consideration when deciding to move off Oracle Java, followed by 42% citing cost reduction including audits, and 40% citing simpler compliance.

Out of the 500 respondents, 15% said that they had already completed their migration off Oracle Java, 22% said that they had started their migration journey with 25% actively planning a migration.Another 17% said that they wanted to move off Oracle Java but have not started planning their migration yet. A separate research report from Azul based on the 2025 State of Java Survey and Report — that surveyed over 2,000 Java users globally, points out that respondents cited software quality, keeping software current, flexibility to update software, cost savings, visibility into the source code, and alignment with open standards as the primary reasons behind opting for open source alternatives to Oracle Java.