Payara Platform Enterprise 4 vs. 5 and 6: Which Version Is Right for You?

A Practical Path Forward for Legacy Systems  

Payara Platform Enterprise 4 is End-of-Life, Long Live Payara Platform Enterprise 5 (and 6) 

If you are a subscriber, it is likely you already know from our extensive resources available on the Payara Tech Blog that Payara Platform Enterprise 6 offers our most modern and up to date Jakarta EE and MicroProfile runtimes. However, there are still workloads running on older releases of the Payara Platform, namely Payara Platform Enterprise 4. If you use Payara Platform Enterprise 4 for mission-critical applications in production environments, this blog post is for you. 

Payara Platform 4 is reaching its End of Life, with the end of its Extended Support scheduled for the first quarter of 2025. To support anyone that cannot immediately transition to newer versions, we introduced the Lifetime Support model to give them time to plan and move to the latest Payara Platform releases, in line with our ongoing commitment to our customers. The Lifetime Support is designed to provide enterprise level support to business-critical applications in order to help these remain stable and secure as companies prepare for the adoption of more recent Payara Platform versions.  

The Benefits of Migrating to Payara Platform Enterprise 5 and 6 

Upgrading existing mission-critical applications and their supporting technologies can feel daunting, but the benefits far outweigh the risks. Here’s why it is a valuable investment to move to solutions within Payara Platform Enterprise 5 or 6, such as Payara Server Enterprise and Payara Micro Enterprise.  

Up-to-date platform with state-of-the-art capabilities 

By using more recent versions of Payara Platform Enterprise, you can make sure you are running on a state-of-the-art platform that can offer top performance, monitoring capabilities and cyber resilience while leveraging the latest technologies and Java APIs.  

More precisely, our versions 5 and 6 are optimized for modern cloud and containerized environments, making it easy to deploy, manage and scale applications across different infrastructures. Besides, by using Payara Platform Enterprise 5 and 6 you can reduce your reliance on legacy components and third-party libraries, enhancing the robustness of your applications. Finally, you can maximize the security of your software through the latest cryptographic algorithms and certificates, including top authorisation and authentication APIs, such as Open ID Connect, OAuth2, JWL Tokens, OIDC and Keycloak. 

Unrestricted, free JDK support 

Payara Platform Enterprise support contract includes access to builds of Azul Platform Core OpenJDK 8 and above. However, Payara Platform Enterprise 4 Lifetime Support can be provided until the End of Life of the related Java (and JDK) versions, which are beyond Payara’s control. When these versions reach their End of Life, you can receive support only if you upgrade to the next active major JDK version.  

Java 8 / JDK 8, used by many applications on Payara Platform Enterprise 4, is expected to reach its End of Life by 2030. Thus, by doing JDK and runtime upgrades at once as part of your move to Payara Platform Enterprise 5 or 6, you can optimize resource utilization and cost for your modernization project while ensuring long-term compatibility with the latest standards. 

Access to new features 

Upgrading to Payara Platform Enterprise 5 or 6 gives you access to features that are designed for modern, cloud-native architectures, such as Jakarta EE 10 and MicroProfile 6.1. In particular, by offering you a solution to seamlessly integrate with popular cloud environments and platform, you can scale dynamically, optimize infrastructure use and improve cost efficiency.  

Scalability is also supported by the integrated data grid included in our latest offering. This simplifies the creation of clusters, empowering your applications gain high availability, enhanced performance and uptime, even under heavy load.  

Even more, thanks to key features, it is possible to build multi-paradigm, enterprise-grade applications that leverage advanced monitoring and diagnostic tools. These help you gain in-depth visibility into application metrics and performance, offering valuable, actionable insights for proactive management as well as continuous improvement. 

Access to any bug fix 

Payara Platform Enterprise's version handling differs between version 4 and newer releases: 

For Payara Platform Enterprise 4 (Lifetime Support): 

• Only security fixes are prioritized 

• Bug fixes are selective, addressing only critical issues 

For newer versions of Payara Platform Enterprise: 

• All issues reported through Zendesk are processed 

• No selective evaluation process is required 

• Your application receives all improvements, helping to ensure:  

• Optimal performance 

• Enhanced reliability 

• Better availability 

• Full feature capabilities 

This comprehensive approach for newer versions ensures your application gets all the updates needed to meet your business requirements. 

Access to hotfixes or backported fixes for older minor versions 

Through the Lifetime Support for Payara Platform Enterprise 4, neither hotfixes nor backported fixes will be delivered for minor versions. Conversely, Payara Platform Enterprise 5 and 6 users will be able to benefit from regular hotfixes and backported patches for any version. As a result, you can reduce any potential downtime while improving application reliability and stability by addressing issues in your current environment. Ultimately, these frequent updates and improvements are key to keep your system secure and compliant with minimal disruption to operations. 

Optimized CAPEX and OPEX 

If you are still using Payara Platform Enterprise 4, upgrading to Payara Platform Enterprise 5 or 6 is a valuable investment that can lead to substantial cost savings over time, in terms of both capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operational expenses (OPEX). Staying on Payara Platform Enterprise 4 requires a 25% surcharge for Lifetime Support. Moving to Payara Platform Enterprise 5 or 6 not only avoids this added expense but also reduces development and maintenance costs, freeing up resources to focus on more valuable projects and tasks.  

Extensive upgrade and modernization support 

We want to reassure you that we will support your work in maintaining the robustness and security of your application infrastructure. As a customer-centric organization, our expert Services team is committed to guiding you through upgrading to Payara Platform 5 or 6 and all the necessary reconfigurations to help you ensure a smooth transition and successful modernization of your Java applications. To this end, we offer dedicated, comprehensive guidance, documentation and resources every step of the way, so that your team can improve your existing systems and benefit from a future-oriented platform that is equipped for modern enterprise demands. 

Futureproof your Enterprise Java Application now 

While you may be reluctant to upgrade your runtime while Lifetime Support is available, you can actually gain a lot by migrating from Payara Enterprise 4 to modern versions now. With Payara Platform Enterprise 5 and 6 designed with modern application needs in mind, upgrading to these editions isn't just about keeping up—it's about enhancing the performance, security and scalability of your mission-critical applications. 

Don’t delay your modernization journey, start it today by downloading a free trial of Payara Platform Enterprise 5 to see the difference for yourself.