Microsoft Build of OpenJDK: Free LTS Java for Azure and Beyond

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Java API usage in Android, Microsoft announced the preview of Microsoft Build of OpenJDK.

The preview can be downloaded from https://www.microsoft.com/openjdk and was promoted on Twitter as “Hello Microsoft Build of OpenJDK!”.

Having shifted its focus to cloud computing with Azure, Microsoft joined the OpenJDK community in 2019 and observed growing Java usage in its cloud services and developer tools, prompting the creation of its own OpenJDK distribution.

Microsoft Build of OpenJDK is a free, long‑term‑support (LTS) OpenJDK distribution that can be deployed anywhere.

It bundles OpenJDK 11.0.10 + 9 (Java 11) binaries for x64 servers and desktop environments on macOS, Linux and Windows.

Microsoft also offers early‑access binaries of Java 16 for Windows on ARM, built from OpenJDK 16+36 and tested with the Eclipse Adoptium build scripts, quality‑assurance suite, and the Java Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK).

According to Microsoft, this distribution is a simple alternative to any other OpenJDK release.

Azure users can try it directly in a browser or via the Azure Cloud Shell in Windows Terminal.

Internally, Microsoft runs over 500,000 Java Virtual Machines, with more than 140,000 based on Microsoft Build of OpenJDK.

Microsoft plans to support Java 11 and Java 17, with OpenJDK 17 binaries slated for release by the end of the year, and to make Microsoft Build of OpenJDK the default Java 11 runtime for all Azure‑managed services in 2024.

Reference: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/java/announcing-preview-of-microsoft-build-of-openjdk/