This list of JVM languages comprises notable computer

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

s that are used to produce computer

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

that runs on the

Java virtual machine A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally descr ...

(JVM). Some of these languages are interpreted by a

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

program, and some are compiled to

Java bytecode Java bytecode is the instruction set of the Java virtual machine (JVM), the language to which Java and other JVM-compatible source code is compiled. Each instruction is represented by a single byte, hence the name bytecode, making it a compact ...

and just-in-time (JIT) compiled during execution as regular Java programs to improve performance. The JVM was initially designed to support only the language Java. However, over time, additional languages were adapted or designed to run on the

Java platform Java is a set of computer software and specifications that provides a software platform for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform computing environment. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms fr ...

JVM languages

High-profile languages

As of 2024, according to the TIOBE index of the top 100 programming languages, and PyPL, the top JVM languages are: *

(#3, at one point at #1; #2 at PyPL), a

statically-typed In computer programming, a type system is a logical system comprising a set of rules that assigns a property called a ''type'' (for example, integer, floating point, string) to every '' term'' (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Usuall ...

object-oriented Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of '' objects''. Objects can contain data (called fields, attributes or properties) and have actions they can perform (called procedures or methods and impleme ...

language * Kotlin (#21, at one point at #18; #13 at PyPL), a statically-typed language from

JetBrains JetBrains s.r.o. (formerly IntelliJ Software s.r.o.) is a Czech software development private limited company which makes tools for software developers and project managers. The company has its headquarters in Amsterdam, and has offices in Ch ...

, the developers of

IntelliJ IDEA IntelliJ IDEA () is an integrated development environment (IDE) written in Java for developing computer software written in Java, Kotlin, Groovy, and other JVM-based languages. It is developed by JetBrains (formerly known as IntelliJ) and is a ...

and

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

's preferred language for Android * Scala (#26, at one point at #20; #22 at PyPL), a statically-typed object-oriented and

functional programming In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by Function application, applying and Function composition (computer science), composing Function (computer science), functions. It is a declarat ...

language *

Groovy ''Groovy'' (or, less commonly, ''groovie'' or ''groovey'') is a slang colloquialism popular during the 1960s and 1970s. It is roughly synonymous with words such as "excellent", "fashionable", or "amazing", depending on context. History The word ...

(no longer in top 50, is one of 51–100, at one point at #15; #26 at PyPL), a

dynamic programming language A dynamic programming language is a type of programming language that allows various operations to be determined and executed at runtime. This is different from the compilation phase. Key decisions about variables, method calls, or data types are ...

(also with static typing) and

scripting language In computing, a script is a relatively short and simple set of instructions that typically automation, automate an otherwise manual process. The act of writing a script is called scripting. A scripting language or script language is a programming ...

Clojure Clojure (, like ''closure'') is a dynamic programming language, dynamic and functional programming, functional dialect (computing), dialect of the programming language Lisp (programming language), Lisp on the Java (software platform), Java platfo ...

(no longer in top 50, is one of 51–100, at one point at #47), a dynamic, and functional

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

of the

Lisp Lisp (historically LISP, an abbreviation of "list processing") is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish notation#Explanation, prefix notation. Originally specified in the late 1950s, ...

( ClojureScript doesn't make TIOBE's index separately, its stats are included under Clojure, and it's an implementation targeting the web with

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

, not the JVM.) Python is TIOBE's top language;

Jython Jython is an implementation of the Python (programming language), Python programming language designed to run on the Java (programming language), Java platform. It was known as JPython until 1999. Overview Jython programs can import and use any ...

, its JVM implementation, doesn't make the list (of 100 languages) under that name (is syntax compatible with Python 2.7, now an outdated Python version).

(6th),

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...

, R and others, also make top 20 and have JVM implementations;

Ruby Ruby is a pinkish-red-to-blood-red-colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapph ...

is ranked 18th, while

JRuby JRuby is an implementation of the Ruby programming language atop the Java Virtual Machine, written largely in Java. It is free software released under a three-way EPL/ GPL/LGPL license. JRuby is tightly integrated with Java to allow the embeddi ...

, its JVM implementation is not listed separately.

JVM implementations of existing languages

New languages with JVM implementations

* Ateji PX, an extension of Java for easy parallel programming on multicore, GPU, Grid and Cloud *

Ballerina A ballet dancer is a person who practices the art of classical ballet. Both females and males can practice ballet. They rely on years of extensive training and proper technique to become a part of a professional ballet company. Ballet dancer ...

, a language for cloud applications with structural typing; network client objects, services, resource functions, and listeners; parallel concurrency with workers; image building; configuration management. *

BeanShell BeanShell is a small, free, embeddable Java source interpreter with object scripting language features, written in Java. It runs in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), dynamically executes standard Java syntax and extends it with common scripting c ...

, a scripting language whose

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

is close to Java * EPL (Event Processing Language), a domain-specific, data manipulation language for analyzing and detecting patterns in timed event streams, which extends SQL 92 with event-oriented features. It is implemented by Esper: up to version 6 EPL was mostly a language interpreted by a Java library; since version 7 it is compiled to JVM bytecode.
Concurnas
an open source JVM language designed for building reliable, scalable, high performance concurrent, distributed and parallel systems. *

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

, a Java competitor from

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...

CFML ColdFusion Markup Language, more commonly known as CFML, is a scripting language for web development that runs on the Java virtual machine (JVM), the .NET framework, and Google App Engine. Several commercial and free and open-source software imp ...

, ColdFusion Markup Language, more commonly known as CFML, is a scripting language for web development that runs on the JVM, the .NET framework, and Google App Engine. * Quark Framework (CAL), a

Haskell Haskell () is a general-purpose, statically typed, purely functional programming language with type inference and lazy evaluation. Designed for teaching, research, and industrial applications, Haskell pioneered several programming language ...

-inspired functional language * E-on-Java, object-oriented language for secure distributed computing * Eta, pure, lazy, strongly typed functional language in the spirit of Haskell *

Fantom Fantom is a Swedish velomobile with four wheels, two in the front and two in the rear. It has no front suspension, but has suspension in the rear. Fantom was never sold as a finished product. Instead it was sold as a set of drawings. The drawin ...

, a language built from the base to be portable across the JVM, .NET

Common Language Runtime The Common Language Runtime (CLR), the virtual machine component of Microsoft .NET Framework, manages the execution of .NET programs. Just-in-time compilation converts the managed code (compiled intermediate language code) into machine instr ...

(CLR), and JavaScript * Flix, a functional, imperative, and logic language with first-class

Datalog Datalog is a declarative logic programming language. While it is syntactically a subset of Prolog, Datalog generally uses a bottom-up rather than top-down evaluation model. This difference yields significantly different behavior and properties ...

constraints and a polymorphic effect system. * Flow Java *

Fortress A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from L ...

, a language designed by Sun as a successor to Fortran, mainly for parallel scientific computing. Product development was taken over by Oracle when Sun was purchased. Oracle then stopped development in 2012 according to Dr. Dobb's. * Frege, a non-strict, pure functional language in the spirit of Haskell * Golo, a simple, dynamic, weakly-typed language for the JVM developed at

Institut national des sciences appliquées de Lyon The Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon (; "Lyon National Institute for Applied Sciences") or INSA Lyon is a French grande école and engineering school. The university is located on the La Doua – LyonTech campus, in a cluster o ...

, France, now an incubating project at the

Eclipse An eclipse is an astronomical event which occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ...

Software Foundation. * Gosu, an extensible type-system language compiled to Java bytecode *

Haxe Haxe is a high-level cross-platform programming language and compiler that can produce applications and source code for many different computing platforms from one code-base. It is free and open-source software, released under an MIT License. ...

, a cross-platform statically typed language that targets Java and the JVM. * Ioke, a prototype-based language somewhat reminiscent of Io, with similarities to

, and

Smalltalk Smalltalk is a purely object oriented programming language (OOP) that was originally created in the 1970s for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, but later found use in business. It was created at Xerox PARC by Learni ...

* Jelly * Join Java, a language that extends Java with

join-calculus The join-calculus is a process calculus developed at INRIA. The join-calculus was developed to provide a formal basis for the design of distributed programming languages, and therefore intentionally avoids communications constructs found in other pr ...

semantics *

Joy Joy is the state of being that allows one to experience feelings of intense, long-lasting happiness and contentment of life. It is closely related to, and often evoked by, well-being, success, or good fortune. Happiness, pleasure, and gratitu ...

* Manifold is a Java compiler "plugin." (I.e., instead of being a stand-alone language and compiler, it hijacks and extends javac.) Its features include Metaprogramming, Properties, Extension Methods, Operator Overloading, Templates, a Preprocessor, and more. *

Mirah Mirah (born Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn) is an American musician and songwriter based in Brooklyn, New York. After getting her start in the music scene of Olympia, Washington, in the late 1990s, she released a number of well-received solo albums on ...

, a customizable language featuring

type inference Type inference, sometimes called type reconstruction, refers to the automatic detection of the type of an expression in a formal language. These include programming languages and mathematical type systems, but also natural languages in some bran ...

and a highly Ruby-inspired syntax *

NetLogo NetLogo is a programming language and integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a Application software, software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE no ...

, a multi-agent language * Noop, a language built with testability as a major focus *

Pizza Pizza is an Italian cuisine, Italian, specifically Neapolitan cuisine, Neapolitan, dish typically consisting of a flat base of Leavening agent, leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomato, cheese, and other ingredients, baked at a high t ...

, a superset of Java with

function pointer A function pointer, also called a subroutine pointer or procedure pointer, is a pointer referencing executable code, rather than data. Dereferencing the function pointer yields the referenced function, which can be invoked and passed arguments ...

s and

algebraic data type In computer programming, especially functional programming and type theory, an algebraic data type (ADT) is a kind of composite data type, i.e., a data type formed by combining other types. Two common classes of algebraic types are product ty ...

s * Pnuts * Processing, a visualization and animation language and framework based on Java with a Java-like syntax
Prompto
a language "designed to create business applications in the cloud". It is part of the namesake platform to design business applications directly in the cloud. The Prompto language includes three "dialects": Engly, Monty, and Objy. Engly "mimics English as much as possible", Monty "tries to follow as much as possible the syntax of the Python 3 language", and Objy "tries to follow as much as possible the syntax of OOP languages such as C++, Java or C#". All three dialects seamlessly translate to one another. *

RascalMPL Rascal is a domain-specific language for metaprogramming and language oriented programming, such as static code analysis, program transformation, program generation and implementation of domain-specific languages. It is a general meta language in ...

, a source and target language independent (parameterized) meta language *

Whiley Whiley is the surname of: * Manning Whiley (1915–1975), British actor * Richard Whiley (born 1935), English cricketer * Jo Whiley (born 1965), English DJ * Matthew Whiley (born 1980), English cricketer * Jordanne Whiley (born 1992), British w ...

* X10, a language designed by IBM, featuring constrained types and a focus on concurrency and distribution * Xtend, an

, functional, and

imperative programming In computer science, imperative programming is a programming paradigm of software that uses Statement (computer science), statements that change a program's state (computer science), state. In much the same way that the imperative mood in natural ...

language built by the

foundation, featuring tight Java interoperability, with a focus on extension methods and lambdas, and rich tooling
Yeti
an ML style functional language
Yirgacheffe
a language that aims to simplify and extend the object oriented paradigm. * Yoix, general purpose, non-object-oriented, interpreted dynamic language
ZoomBA
a dynamic declarative interpreted language.

Comparison of these languages

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:List of JVM languages

JVM A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally descri ...