Oracle Java SE costs per employee, not per server: what leaving costs

The free window on Java 25 has an end date

Oracle's support roadmap states that since September 2025 it provides Oracle JDK 25 under a free use license for all users, the Oracle No-Fee Terms and Conditions License. That license permits free use for all users, including commercial and production use, and the licensing FAQ says there is no click-through, so automated downloads are straightforward. The same FAQ sets the limit: Oracle JDK 25 updates are planned to be made available under the NFTC until September 2028, one year after the planned Java 29 LTS release in September 2027.

After that date Oracle intends to use the OTN License for subsequent JDK 25 updates, the license it already uses for Java 8, 11, 17 and 21. The roadmap is explicit that Oracle JDK 17 releases from 17.0.13 and later, and Oracle JDK 21 releases from 21.0.13 and later, are already under the OTN license. The OTN license permits personal use, development, testing, prototyping, demonstrating and some other limited uses at no cost, which is not the same as running a production estate.

The pattern repeats on the next cycle. Oracle plans JDK 29 updates under the NFTC until September 2030, one year after Java 33 in September 2029, then moves them to the OTN license. Non-LTS releases such as JDK 27 stay under the NFTC for their whole six-month life. So an estate that standardises on the newest LTS gets roughly three years of free updates from release, and then the licence question returns.

The subscription is priced per employee, and Oracle publishes no rate

The roadmap defines Oracle Customers as those with an active Java SE Subscription product, a support contract for Java SE Advanced, Advanced Desktop, Suite or Java SE Support, an OCI entitlement, or an entitlement to use Java SE solely with another Oracle product. That is the gate: without one of those, an estate running Java 8, 11, 17 or 21 in production is outside the supported set, whatever it downloaded.

The licensing FAQ points buyers to the Oracle Store for a Java SE Universal Subscription that includes commercial use licence and support, and to Oracle Sales for volume discounts and larger purchases. Neither page prints a per-employee rate, a minimum seat count or a term length. The per-employee unit is the one the brief names, and it is the number a procurement team has to ask for rather than read.

What to ask for in the call: the per-employee rate for the Universal Subscription at the estate's headcount, the minimum employee count the contract assumes, whether the count is all employees or only Java users, the term and renewal uplift, and whether Java Management Service is included or licensed separately. The FAQ states that separately downloaded and separately licensed Java SE Subscription features such as Java Management Service are not available under the NFTC and are licensed separately or with a Universal Subscription. That sentence is the one to hold the vendor to when the quote arrives.

What leaving actually costs is support, not licence fees

Oracle OpenJDK releases have been available since Java 9 under the GNU General Public License v2 with the Classpath Exception, and Oracle has provided Oracle OpenJDK releases under a free open source license since September 2017. Availability and community support of those releases is listed separately on jdk.java.net. Nothing in the roadmap charges for the code, so the migration budget is the cost of replacing what Premier Support provides.

Premier Support is the thing being bought. The roadmap says Oracle provides Customers with Oracle Premier Support on Java SE products as described in the Oracle Lifetime Support Policy, and that Java SE 8, 11, 17, 21 and 25 are LTS releases with future LTS releases planned every two years. A team that moves to a third-party OpenJDK build is buying patch delivery, a security advisory channel and someone to call when a quarterly update breaks a production service.

The deployment stack is a separate trap. The roadmap states that the Java Plugin and Java Web Start have only five years of Premier Support, that Java SE 11 and later do not include the deployment stack, and that Java SE 8 is the sunset release for it. Oracle does not plan to migrate desktops from Java SE 8 to later versions via auto update, and encourages developers to repackage applications as stand-alone applications with their own custom runtimes. An estate still running Web Start applets is not choosing between Java licences; it is choosing between a rewrite and an extended-support bill.

Where the migration breaks: the versions already past the permissive line

The cleanest exit is Java 25 while the NFTC applies. An estate that can move to JDK 25 before September 2028 gets commercial production use at no licence cost and buys time to choose a support provider. The roadmap says users wanting to continue with permissively licensed versions of Java should move to Oracle JDK 25 or later, which is Oracle's own instruction and the strongest argument for scheduling the upgrade now.

The harder case is an estate pinned to Java 8, 11, 17 or 21. Those releases are under the OTN license for anything beyond personal, development and testing use, and Oracle JDK 17 from 17.0.13 and JDK 21 from 21.0.13 are already there. A team that cannot upgrade has two routes: buy the subscription and keep My Oracle Support access, or move to an OpenJDK build and contract support elsewhere. The roadmap does not price either route, so the comparison is between a quote and a quote.

GraalVM adds a third migration. The roadmap states that GraalVM for JDK 24 was the final version licensed and supported as part of Oracle Java SE Products, and that customers are encouraged to transition to the Oracle JDK for all Java workloads. Entitled customers seeking patches for previously released GraalVM versions download them through My Oracle Support. Any team that standardised on GraalVM for JDK 24 has a forced move in the same renewal window, and the roadmap gives no date beyond the release that ended it.

One more limit worth naming before signing: the roadmap says Oracle intends to provide at least 18 months notice on the page if an end of availability date is set for Java SE 8 free public updates, and that Oracle does not plan to migrate desktops from Java SE 8 to later versions via auto update. An 18-month notice period is the planning horizon a desktop estate gets, and it is shorter than most Windows or macOS refresh cycles.

The decision rule for this renewal

Choose the Oracle Java SE Subscription if the estate runs Java 8, 11, 17 or 21 in production and cannot complete an upgrade to JDK 25 before the next audit, because the OTN license does not cover commercial production and Premier Support is the only route to My Oracle Support updates for those releases. Ask Oracle Sales for the per-employee rate, the minimum employee count and the renewal uplift in writing, since none of the three appears on the pages above.

Choose a move to Oracle JDK 25 under the NFTC if the applications can be rebuilt or repackaged onto a current LTS, because that buys commercial production use at no licence cost until September 2028 and pushes the support decision out by roughly three years. Budget the repackaging work for any Java Web Start or applet dependency, since the deployment stack ends at Java SE 8 and Oracle does not plan to carry desktops forward through auto update.

Wait only if the estate is already on JDK 25 and has no GraalVM for JDK 24 dependency, because the NFTC covers production use until September 2028 and there is nothing to buy before then. Any team holding GraalVM for JDK 24 should not wait, because that release was the last one licensed and supported as part of Oracle Java SE Products and the transition to Oracle JDK is the only documented path.