OpenJDK 18 Released With A Simple Web Server, UTF-8 By Default

Oracle today announced the general availability of JDK/OpenJDK 18 as the reference implementation of Java 18.

OpenJDK 18 is now ready for production use and includes a handful of new features along with "hundreds of smaller enhancements and over a thousand bug fixes."

Noticeable with OpenJDK 18 is that UTF-8 is finally the default charset for Java SE APIs. This update also includes the latest work on Java's Vector API that at run-time allows using the optimal vector instruction usage for a given processor like AVX or NEON.

Another noteworthy addition with OpenJDK 18 is including a simple web server as part of the package. Jwebserver is a new command-line tool for starting a minimal static web server based on Java that is included as part of the JDK.

OpenJDK 18 also adds support to the G1 garbage collector heap for regions up to 512MB in size and a variety of other additions and improvements.

Downloads and more details on today's JDK 18 GA release via jdk.java.net.