--- title: How Gradle Is Javamaxxing | daily.dev description: Gradle is aggressively adopting newer JDK releases to improve build performance, a strategy they call 'Javamaxxing.' Gradle 9.0 raised the minimum daemon JVM... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-gradle-is-javamaxxing-knrrqwz9d twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How Gradle Is Javamaxxing | daily.dev og:description: Gradle is aggressively adopting newer JDK releases to improve build performance, a strategy they call 'Javamaxxing.' Gradle 9.0 raised the minimum daemon JVM... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-gradle-is-javamaxxing-knrrqwz9d og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/knrrqwZ9d.png og:image:alt: How Gradle Is Javamaxxing og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How Gradle Is Javamaxxing **[Gradle Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/gradle-blog)** · 6 min read · 28 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary Gradle is aggressively adopting newer JDK releases to improve build performance, a strategy they call 'Javamaxxing.' Gradle 9.0 raised the minimum daemon JVM to Java 17, and Gradle 10 will require Java 21. Newer JDKs bring free performance gains through better GC, JIT compilation, and new APIs like Compact Object Headers (JEP 519) and the Class-File API (JEP 484). Critically, upgrading the JDK that runs Gradle does not force projects to target newer Java versions — JVM toolchains fully decouple the daemon JVM from the compilation and test JVMs, so you can run Gradle on JDK 26 while still producing Java 8 bytecode. About 80% of Gradle 9 users are already on Java 21+, making it a reasonable new minimum floor. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@ivan0x9** · 0 upvotes > Javamaxxing yet no love for Kotlin :( ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Bumping the minimum officially supported GraalVM version to 25.0](https://daily.dev/posts/bumping-the-minimum-officially-supported-graalvm-version-to-25-0-2l2adlbwa) · Quarkus · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Java News Roundup: OpenJDK JEPs for JDK 26, Spring RCs, Quarkus, JReleaser, Seed4J, Gradle](https://daily.dev/posts/java-news-roundup-openjdk-jeps-for-jdk-26-spring-rcs-quarkus-jreleaser-seed4j-gradle-ed8topfng) · InfoQ · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#java](https://daily.dev/tags/java), [#jvm](https://daily.dev/tags/jvm), [#gradle](https://daily.dev/tags/gradle) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-gradle-is-javamaxxing-knrrqwz9d) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How Gradle Is Javamaxxing","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-gradle-is-javamaxxing-knrrqwz9d","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-gradle-is-javamaxxing-knrrqwz9d"},"datePublished":"2026-05-28T14:54:10.184Z","dateModified":"2026-08-24T06:50:13.160Z","description":"Gradle is aggressively adopting newer JDK releases to improve build performance, a strategy they call 'Javamaxxing.' 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