Java as developed by the OpenJDK Project, owned and primarily employed by Oracle, has been on a 6-month rapid-release cycle since the release of Java 10, and starting with Java 11, has new LTS releases every six releases, or three years. Java 8 is the last release on the old cycle methodology still in active support. Non-LTS releases are supported for 6 months. The latest supported release in each release cycle can be found at https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/java-se-glance.html.

Official builds and support from Oracle come in two varieties: open source under the GNU GPL, and a proprietary license that must be purchased. Only the very latest Java release is available pre-built with the open source license, one must purchase support to get builds from Oracle for 8 or 11. Other projects such as AdoptOpenJDK or Linux distributions may provide builds external of Oracle and are governed under the open source license.