Java is pretty greedy with the memory it claims. Especially historically it was pretty hard to get the JVM to release memory back to the OS.
replyTo an outsider, that looks like the JVM heap just steadily growing, which is easy to mistake for a memory leak.
> Especially historically it was pretty hard to get the JVM to release memory back to the OS.
replyThis feels like a huge understatement. I still have some PTSD around when I did Java professionally between like 2005 and 2014.
The early part of that was particularly horrible.
This only really ends up being a problem on windows. On systems with proper virtual memory setups, the cost of unused memory is very low (since the the OS can just page it out)
replyJava has a quite strict max heap setting, it's very uncommon to let it allocate up to 25% of the system memory (the default). It won't grow past that point, though.
replyBaring bugs/native leaks - Java has a very predictable memory allocation.