This week's Java roundup for April 20th, 2026, features news highlighting: updates on OpenJDK JEPs; JDK 27 release schedule finalized; the Oracle Critical Patch Updates for April 2026 and corresponding patch updates from BellSoft and Azul; the April 2026 edition of Open Liberty; and maintenance releases of Testcontainers, Multik and IntelliJ IDEA.
OpenJDK
JEP 532, Primitive Types in Patterns, instanceof, and switch (Fifth Preview), has been elevated from its Candidate status to Proposed to Target for JDK 27. This JEP proposes a fifth preview, without change, after four rounds of preview delivered in JDK 23 through JDK 26. This feature enhances pattern matching by allowing primitive types in all pattern contexts, and extending the instanceof and switch constructs to work with all primitive types. The review is expected to conclude on April 30, 2026.
JEP 535, Shenandoah GC: Generational Mode by Default, has been elevated from its JEP Draft 8379682 to Candidate status. This JEP, already planned to be delivered in JDK 28, proposes to designate the Shenandoah Garbage Collector to generational mode by default. The non-generational mode will be deprecated with the intent to remove it in a future release.
Oracle has released versions 25.0.3, 21.0.11, 17.0.19, 11.0.31 and 8u491 of the JDK as part of their quarterly Critical Patch Update Advisory for April 2026. More details on this release may be found in the release notes for version 25.0.3, version 21.0.11, version 17.0.19, version 11.0.31 and version 8u491.
JDK 27
Build 19 of the JDK 27 early-access builds was made available this past week featuring updates from Build 18 that include fixes for various issues. Further details on this release may be found in the release notes.
After its review has concluded, Mark Reinhold, Chief Architect, Java Platform Group at Oracle, formally declared the release schedule for JDK 27 as follows:
- Rampdown Phase One (fork from main line): June 4, 2026
- Rampdown Phase Two: July 16, 2026
- Initial Release Candidate: August 6, 2026
- Final Release Candidate: August 20, 2026
- General Availability: September 14, 2026
For JDK 27, developers are encouraged to report bugs via the Java Bug Database.
Jakarta EE
The second milestone release of Jakarta Persistence 4.0 delivers notable changes since the first milestone release such as: new specialized expression types that include the ComparableExpression, and NumericExpression interfaces; new corresponding metamodel attribute types that include the ComparableAttribute and NumericAttribute interfaces; and a new FetchOption interface for improved control over fetching data with the EntityGraph interface.
BellSoft
Concurrent with Oracle's Critical Patch Update (CPU) for April 2026, BellSoft has released CPU patches for versions 25.0.2.0.1, 21.0.10.0.1, 17.0.18.0.1, 11.0.30.0.1, 8u491 7u501 and 6u501 of Liberica JDK, their downstream distribution of OpenJDK, to address this list of CVEs. In addition, Patch Set Update (PSU) versions 26.01, 25.0.3, 21.0.11, 17.0.19, 11.0.31 and 8u492, containing CPU and non-critical fixes, have also been released.
With an overall total of 954 fixes and backports, BellSoft states they have participated in eliminating 63 issues in all releases.
Azul
Also concurrent with Oracle's Critical Patch Update (CPU) for April 2026, Azul has released their quarterly update featuring versions 26.0.1, 25.0.3, 21.0.11, 17.0.19 and 11.0.31 of Zulu, their downstream distribution of OpenJDK, to address this list of CVEs. More details on this release may be found in the release notes.
Spring Framework
It was a busy week over at Spring as the various teams have delivered the first release candidates of: Spring Boot, Spring Security, Spring Integration, Spring Modulith, Spring AMQP, Spring for Apache Kafka and Spring Vault. Further details may be found in this InfoQ news story.
Open Liberty
The GA release of Open Liberty 26.0.0.4 ships with notable changes such as: support for JDK 26; enhanced authentication by selecting the JWT signature algorithm from the Javascript Object Signing and Encryption (JOSE) header; and removal of the default Lightweight Third Party Authentication (LTPA) keys password that resolves CVE-2025-14917, a vulnerability in Open Liberty 17.0.0.3 through 26.0.0.3 that could provide weaker than expected security when administering security settings.
Multik
Version 0.3.1 of Multik, the multidimensional array library for Kotlin, provides: one bug fix, dependency upgrades and a breaking change that removes the Kotlin/Native macosX64 target from all modules due to Apple having declared Intel MacBooks as obsolete. More details on this release may be found in the release notes.
Testcontainers
The release of Testcontainers for Java 2.0.5 delivers bug fixes, documentation improvements, dependency upgrades and new features such as: support for the apache/artemis Docker image in the ArtemisContainer class; new methods, getHttpPort() and getGrpcPort(), added to the WeaviateContainer class to obtain the defined ports of 8080 and 50051, respectively; and support for !override tag in Docker Compose. Further details on this release may be found in the release notes.
JetBrains
The release of IntelliJ IDEA 2026.1.1 ships with notable changes such as: a resolution a ClassCastException due to an unsuccessful synchronization with Gradle related to the InternalIdeaModule class and the Gradle ProjectModel interface; and a resolution to an error connecting to a WildFly administration process after server startup resulting in a restoration of normal application deployment. More details on this release may be found in the release notes.