We're excited to announce that the first Alpha release of Payara Server 5 is now available for download! We highly encourage you to give it a go, test it out and let us know what further improvements are needed.

This release focuses on updating all Java EE components to their Java EE 8 versions.This includes, among others:

Servlet 4.0

JSF 2.3

JAX-RS 2.1

CDI 2.0

JPA 2.2

Bean Validation 2.0

Java EE Security 1.0

JSON-B 1.0

JSON-P 1.1

A number of samples demonstrating some features of the new versions of these technologies can be found on the Java EE 8 Samples GitHub page. All of those have been tested against Payara Server 5 Alpha 1.

A number of internal components were updated as well, such as:

* Maven Bundle Plugin 3.3.0 (used to build Payara Server)

* Felix 5.6.6 (Payara Server’s OSGi runtime)

* Derby 10.13

Please note that Payara Server 5 is an *alpha* release and as such it is not recommend for use in production! We really appreciate your feedback so please report any issues and bugs for this Alpha release on GitHub.

Moving forwards toward Alpha 2 and beyond, we would like to modernise Payara Server further by removing some (internal) legacy components, such as replacing Jettison by Jackson, potentially replacing Mojarra 2.3 with the Mojarra 2.4 master (same features as 2.3 but with refactoring and a more modern build), integrating Java EE security into the admin console, providing a new “legacy free” profile, and more.

Payara Server 5 Alpha 1 has Payara Server 4.1.2.173 as baseline, with additionally a number of changes that will also be included in Payara Server 4.1.2.174.

A list of all changes that went into Payara Server 5 Alpha 1 can be found on GitHub.

Enjoy the testing!