What Do OpenSSF Criticality Scores Reveal About Top Java Backend Tools?

OpenSSF has released criticality scores for popular open‑source projects on GitHub, providing a more meaningful metric than star counts for assessing project value.

The data are categorized by programming language, covering Java, C, C++, Go, JavaScript, PHP, Python and many others.

Each project receives a score based on a set of weighted parameters, making the scoring algorithm crucial.

created_since

: project age in months

updated_since

: months since the last update

contributor_count

: number of contributors

org_count

: number of distinct contributing organizations

commit_frequency

: average weekly commits last year

recent_releases_count

: number of releases last year

closed_issues_count

: issues closed in the past 90 days

updated_issues_count

: issues updated in the past 90 days

comment_frequency

: average comments per issue in the past 90 days

dependents_count

: number of dependent projects mentioned in commit messages

Using these parameters, a score between 0 and 1 is calculated; the calculation rules are available on the project’s homepage (https://github.com/ossf/criticality_score).

Below is a look at Java projects.

For Java backend development, the top 15 projects include:

Gradle : a powerful build tool often associated with Android but equally suitable for Java projects.

Spring Boot : the go‑to framework for Java backend development, offering a rich ecosystem.

JDK : specifically OpenJDK; Oracle JDK is a proprietary implementation.

Jenkins : a Java‑based CI tool that automates build and deployment pipelines.

Netty : the leading Java network‑programming framework, essential for high‑performance communication.

PMD : a static code analysis tool commonly integrated to enforce code quality.

Spring Security VS Shiro

Spring Security ranks 29th among Java projects, while Shiro does not appear on the list. Spring Security, backed by the Spring ecosystem, offers robust authentication and authorization capabilities, though its learning curve is steeper than Shiro’s.

Fastjson vs Jackson

Both are popular Java JSON libraries. Fastjson has more GitHub stars, but Jackson scores higher on criticality due to better code quality and fewer security vulnerabilities. Jackson is the default in Spring MVC for good reasons.

Flyway vs Liquibase

Flyway ranks 70th among Java projects, whereas Liquibase does not appear on the list.

Guava vs Hutool

Guava (by Google) and Hutool (a Chinese library) are both useful utility libraries. Guava ranks 78th, while Hutool is at 196th.

ShardingSphere vs MyCat

Both are distributed database middleware. ShardingSphere (including Sharding‑JDBC, Sharding‑Proxy, Sharding‑Sidecar) is now an Apache project maintained by JD.com, while MyCat originated from Alibaba’s Cobar. ShardingSphere ranks 72nd, and MyCat does not appear on the list.