Implementation components used by Jakarta EE servers

A while ago we looked at which implementation components the various Java EE servers were using. At the time this concerned mostly Java EE 6 servers, with a few Java EE 7 ones thrown in for good measure.

Fast forward 6 years, and we have arrived at Jakarta EE 8 essentially (a re-licensing of Java EE 8). Most servers from the previous instalment have Jakarta EE 8 versions out. WebLogic has its Java EE 8 version officially out, with a Jakarta EE 8 version coming soon (there is no technical difference between these two really). TomEE has started to implement Java EE 8 and in its latest version has gotten quite far, but is not there yet. Resin remained at Java EE 6 with seemingly no plans to update these. JOnAS has disappeared off the face of the earth, and so has Geronimo as server (though as a provider of APIs and their implementations it has stayed alive).

Without further ado, here's the matrix of Java EE 8/Jakarta EE 8 implementation components used by Java EE/Jakarta EE servers:

Vendor	Red Hat	Eclipse	Oracle	Apache	IBM	TMax
AS	WildFly	GlassFish	WebLogic	TomEE+	Open Liberty	JEUS
Spec/Version	19	5.1	14.1.1	8.0.1	20.0.0.4	8-b266
Servlet	Undertow Servlet 2.0.30 source	Tomcat derivative & Grizzly	Nameless internal	Tomcat	WAS WebContainer (part of open liberty) 8.1 / 1.0.39.cl200420200401-1714 source	JEUS Servlet (part of JEUS) 8.0.0.2
Enterprise Beans	Nameless internal	Nameless internal (EJB-container)	Nameless internal	OpenEJB	Nameless internal	Nameless internal
Connectors	IronJacamar 1.4.20	Nameless internal (Connectors-runtime)	Nameless internal	Geronimo Connector 3.1.4 source	Nameless internal source	Nameless internal
Authentication	Part of Elytron 1.11.2 source	Jaspic provider framework (part of GlassFish)	Part of WebLogic Security	Part of Tomcat	Nameless internal source	Nameless internal
Transactions	Narayana source	Nameless internal	Nameless internal	Geronimo Transaction 3.1.4 source	Nameless internal	JEUS Transaction Manager (part of JEUS) 8.0.0.2
Messaging	ActiveMQ Artemis 2.10.1 source	OpenMQ 5.1.4 source	WebLogic JMS	ActiveMQ Classic 5.15.10 source	Liberty messaging (part of open liberty) 1.0.39.cl200420200401-1714 source	JEUS JMS (part of JEUS) 3.0.0
Concurrency	Concurrency RI 1.1.1 source	Concurrency RI 1.1.1 source	Nameless Internal (WebLogic concurrent)	Nameless Internal (part of OpenEJB-Core) source	Nameless Internal source	JEUS Concurrent (part of JEUS) 8.0.0.2
WebSocket	Undertow WebSockets JSR 2.0.30 source	Tyrus 1.15 source	Tyrus 1.15 source	Tomcat WebSocket (part of Tomcat) 9.0.30 source	Liberty WebSocket (part of Open Liberty) 1.0.39.cl200420200401-1714 source	JEUS WebSocket (part of JEUS) 8.0.0.2
CDI	Weld 3.1.3 source	Weld 3.0.0 source	Weld 3.1.0 source	Open WebBeans 2.0.12 source	Weld 3.1.1 source	Weld 3.1.2 source
Validation	Hibernate Validator 6.0.18 source	Hibernate Validator 6.0.10 source	Hibernate Validator 6.0.16 source	BVal 2.0.3 source	Hibernate Validator 6.1.1 source	Hibernate Validator 6.1.0 source
REST	RESTEasy 3.11 source	Jersey 2.28 source	Jersey 2.29 source	CXF 3.3.4 source	RESTEasy (for EE 9) source	Jersey 2.29.1 source
					CXF 3.3.3 (for EE 8) source
Persistence	Hibernate 5.3.5.15 source	Eclipselink 2.7.4 source	Eclipselink 2.7.6 source	OpenJPA 3.1.0 source	Eclipselink 2.7.6 source	Eclipselink 2.7.5 source
Faces	Mojarra 2.3.9.SP06 source	Mojarra 2.3.9 source	Mojarra 2.3.14 source	MyFaces 2.3.6 source	MyFaces 2.3.6 source	Mojarra 2.3.9 source
JSON Binding	Yasson 1.0.5 source	Yasson 1.0.3 source	Yasson 1.0.3 source	Johnzon 1.1.13 source	Yasson 1.0.6 source	Yasson 1.0.6 source
Expression Language	EL RI 3.0.3.jbossorg-2 source	EL RI 3.0.2 source	EL RI 3.0.2 source	Jasper EL 9.0.30 (part of Tomcat) source	Jasper EL 3.0.16(?) source	EL RI 3.0.0 source
Mail	Jakarta Mail Impl 1.6.4 source	Jakarta Mail Impl 1.6.3 source	Jakarta Mail Impl 1.6.2 source	Geronimo JavaMail	Jakarta Mail Impl 1.6.2 source	Jakarta Mail Impl 1.6.2 source
Security	Soteria 1.0.1-jbossorg-1 source	Soteria 1.0 source	Soteria 1.0 source	TomEE Security TomEE 9m7	Nameless Internal source	Soteria 1.1-b01-SNAPSHOT (modified) source
Batch	JBeret 1.3.5 source	jbatch FRI 1.0.3 source	jbatch FRI 1.0.3 source	Geronimo BatchEE 0.5-incubating source	jBatch FRI 1.0.16 (internal copy) source	jbatch FRI 1.1-SNAPSHOT source

Each color a component has reflects the vendor with that color in the header. Essentially there's four vendors creating separate and re-usable Jakarta EE components:

Red Hat

Eclipse

Apache

IBM

Oracle and TMaxSoft do create components that implement Jakarta EE APIs, but only use them within their own server products. Things are however not that clear cut. As can be seen in the previous instalment, all the components that are now Eclipse components were Oracle components before. This is because Oracle donated all of its reusable components to the Eclipse Foundation. Although IBM only directly produces one reusable component (jBatch FRI), it did not too long ago acquire Red Hat. This means all Red Hat components are essentially IBM components now, just as when the Sun components became Oracle components after Oracle acquired Sun.

If we look at the servers itself, we see that only TomEE exclusively uses components from a single vendor; its own vendor Apache. WildFly uses many components from its own vendor Red Hat, but uses components for Faces, JSON, Concurrency and Security among others from Eclipse. WildFly uses a single Apache component, namely ActiveMQ Artemis. This however used to be Red Hat's own component, HornetQ, which it donated to Apache in order to merge the existing ActiveMQ and HornetQ communities and together work on the next generation message broker.

GlassFish uses most components from Eclipse, its own vendor, two from Red Hat and one from IBM. This is however not randmom. As the former RI (reference implementation) of Java EE, it incorporated all the RI components. Since Red Hat was leading two specs, and IBM one, it used the components from those spec leaders. In Jakarta EE the concept of the RI has been done away with and has been replaced by compatible implementations, of which there always needs to be at least one. Since GlassFish is no longer an RI, its community could potentially develop Eclipse implementations of CDI, Validation and Batch. At least for the former a development that could lead to this is being considered by Payara.

Derivative servers were not included in the table, as they have the same components as the server they are derived from (albeit these components could be in different versions). This includes Payara and Cosminexus (Hitachi Application Server), and JBoss EAP. It's perhaps interesting to note that Payara and Hitachi are joint co-leaders of the GlassFish project and devote a significant amount of resources to further the upstream GlassFish project together with former owner Oracle.

Also excluded is our own Jakarta EE runtime, Piranha. This is because at the time of writing Piranha is far from ready. Via the OmniFaces project Piranha does introduce new reusable Jakarta EE components; for Jakarta Authentication and Jakarta Authorization, which until so far hadn't been produced by anyone (JOnAS however once did start development for a reusable Jakarta Authentication/JASPIC component).

Arjan Tijms