Java has been dominating the distributed and cloud application industry for several years. Since its inception, 25 years back, Java programming language never faced a challenge of this magnitude like today. And the challenger is none other than Python. Even though Python is an older language than Java, very few enterprises like Google used Python in its early days. In general, Python was not the language of choice to develop enterprise applications for IT Consultancy farms until the late 2020 decade. But python has appeared on such a massive and promising scale that the industries are in serious doubt. When it comes to Technology choice for any new application development, Python is preferred. In this Python vs Java comparison article I will pinpoint 5 major reasons why I feel Java is gradually losing the game.

 

As per Oracle’s latest License Agreement, Standard version of JDK by Oracle is no longer free. If you are making decision on Technology choice, you probably already know it. Oracle JDK is free for development and testing. But you have to pay for it if you use it in production. Which has forced several enterprises to unwillingly move towards Oracle OpenJDK. Moreover, this move of Oracle was not well accepted by the users, overall. On the other hand Python SDK, Runtime and IDEs remain to be free for all usages. This recent move has given Python a good boost in the Python vs Java battle.

 

 

Needless to say, when Big Data became the Big Thing in IT Consultancy farms, Java seemed to be the language of choice. But gradually Java was superseded by Scala. Even though Big Data developers are expected to have a Java background, but they don’t really write anything in Java. The traditional flavor of Java is not there anymore in Big Data, like before. Python on the other hand, steadily maintained its foothold on the platform. Python evolved as the primary programming language for Data Science. In the Python vs Java race Data Science, Modelling and Decision Analytics has given an enormous biased boost to Python.

 

All major Cloud Platform enabled full featured Python Support. As of today, Amazon AWS, Google GCP, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, RedHat Openshift – all of these platforms support Python application deployment. The monopoly of Java in Web Applications and Web services are gradually fading out and are being replaced by robust and powerful Python based Web Apps and REST APIs. Python is more popular for IoT implementations, than high level resource-hungry languages like Java.

 

Often developers jumping in from a scripting background find Python a lot easier to learn and adopt than Java. Architecture and Project Management teams lean towards Python more than ever before just because it’s easier to train newcomers and junior developers in Python. As a developer, you need very few resources and tools to kick start Python development compared to the old and outdated standards, conventions and toolkits of Java. Off late Python got equipped with a very strong free/open source Library base which can very well compete with Java Library platforms like Maven.

 

When we talk about Python vs Java, the recent craze of Artificial Intelligence plays the most critical role. Python is far ahead than Java when it comes to AI based Application development. Handful of developers have done the groundwork of AI in Python so well, that when enterprises need Artificial intelligence in their system, they pre-select the winner in the Python vs Java battle. Comprehensive library support, large AI development communities, ease of implementing Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Natural Language Processing, custom decisioning models, analytics makes Python the preferred Programming Language for developers.

 

 

With these being said, Java is not going to fade out anytime soon. Old and complex systems are already built with Java. These stable systems are serving half of the IT needs of the industries. Even though periodic upgrades happen on these systems, nobody insists to throw out Java and implement the complex systems all over from scratch, using Python. Thus, Python is playing a big role in the development of new, modern and Data-driven analytical systems. Many Indian IT professionals are upskilling in Python just for this reason. India is one of the largest IT exporters in the world, and Python is becoming a necessary skill for professionals.

 

In the Python vs Java race, I define Python as the winner. But I do not hesitate to applaud the fantastic journey Java has taken us through in the last couple of decades. This is my opinion on the Python vs Java comparison. If you have a different viewpoint, I’d love to hear that in comments.