Amazon Corretto 26 is now generally available
Posted on:
Mar 17, 2026
Amazon Corretto 26, a Feature Release (FR) version, is now available for download. Amazon Corretto is a no-cost, multi-platform, production-ready distribution of OpenJDK. You can download Corretto 26 for Linux, Windows, and macOS from our downloads page. Corretto 26 will be supported through October 2026.
- HTTP/3 Support - Java applications can now use the latest HTTP/3 protocol, which is faster and more efficient than older HTTP versions (JEP 517)
- Ahead-of-Time Object Caching - Applications can start up faster by pre-caching commonly used objects, working with any garbage collector (JEP 516)
- Enhanced Pattern Matching - Developers can write cleaner code when checking types and values, now including support for primitive types like int and boolean (JEP 530)
- Making Final Mean Final - Starts warning when code uses reflection to modify final fields, preparing for a future release where final fields will truly be immutable. This change improves both program safety and enables better optimizations like constant folding (JEP 500)
- Structured Concurrency (continued preview) - Introduces API for structured concurrency, treating groups of related tasks running in different threads as single units of work, streamlining error handling and cancellation, improving reliability, and enhancing observability (JEP 525)
- Vector API (continued incubator) - Improved support for high-performance mathematical operations that can take advantage of modern CPU capabilities (JEP 529)
- Lazy Constants (continued preview) - Provides API to defer initialization of immutable data until it is actually needed, combining the performance benefits of final fields with the flexibility of lazy initialization (JEP 526)
A detailed description of these features can be found on the OpenJDK 26 Project page. Amazon Corretto 26 is distributed by Amazon under an open source license.