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Installation

To build native Java apps, GraalVM needs to be installed on the local machine, or runs in containers.

There are several GraalVM distributions to use, see the table below:

DistributionDescriptionLicense
Oracle GraalVMNew product name after Oracle contributing GraalVM to OpenJDKFree to use in production and free to redistribute, at no cost, under the GraalVM Free Terms and Conditions.
GraalVM Community Edition (CE)Community edition on GitHubVersion 2 of the GNU General Public License with the “Classpath” Exception
Oracle GraalVM Enterprise Edition (EE)Subscription required for productionOracle Technology Network License Agreement for GraalVM Enterprise Edition for developing, testing, prototyping, and demonstrating
Liberica Native Image KitBased on GraalVM CEEULA
MandrelQuarkus specific distribution of GraalVM CESame as GraalVM Community Edition

This website uses GraalVM Community Edition as the base version.

Local Installation​

There are different versions of GraalVM CE based on the OpenJDK versions.

  • Java 21 based (LTS)
  • Java 17 based (LTS)
  • Java 20 based (Latest non-LTS)
GraalVM Version

GraalVM Community Edition 21.0.1 is used in this website.

GraalVM Versioning​

After GraalVM 22.3.3 release, GraalVM switched to a different versioning schema which aligns with OpenJDK versions. There are no specific GraalVM versions, only OpenJDK versions. For each OpenJDK version, there will be a matching GraalVM version. Old GraalVM releases can still be downloaded.

GraalVM itself still has a version to track changes. This version should be used for GraalVM SDK dependencies.

Install​

Linux / macOS​

with SDKMAN!​

Oracle GraalVM and GraalVM CE can be installed with SDKMAN!.

sdk install java 21.0.1-graal
Manual​

Depends on the GraalVM version,

  • Download Oracle GraalVM releases from GraalVM.org and extract files to a proper location.
  • Download GraalVM CE releases from GitHub and extract files to a proper location.

Windows​

Depends on the GraalVM version,

  • Download Oracle GraalVM releases from GraalVM.org and extract files to a proper location.
  • Download GraalVM CE Windows releases from GitHub and extract files to a proper location.
Using WSL

Another option is to install WSL first, then install Ubuntu. This can make installation of GraalVM much easier.

Configure GraalVM​

Set the GRAALVM_HOME environment variable to the location of extracted GraalVM release.

export GRAALVM_HOME=<graalvm_directory>

Add GraalVM bin directory to the PATH environment variable.

export PATH=${GRAALVM_HOME}/bin:$PATH
Use GraalVM as the default JDK

If you want to use GraalVM as the default JDK, the JAVA_HOME environment variable can be set to GraalVM's directory.

Install Native Image​

GraalVM 21 already has Native Image feature bundled.

For old versions, Native Image feature needs to be installed with GraalVM Updater using gu install native-image.

The native-image executable can be found in the ${GRAALVM_HOME}/bin directory.

native-image requires the local toolchain to run.

xcode-select --install

To verify the installation of native-image, run the command below to check the version.

native-image --version

Output likes below should be printed:

native-image 21.0.1 2023-10-17
GraalVM Runtime Environment Oracle GraalVM 21.0.1+12.1 (build 21.0.1+12-jvmci-23.1-b19)    
Substrate VM Oracle GraalVM 21.0.1+12.1 (build 21.0.1+12, serial gc, compressed references)

Run in Containers​

GraalVM container images are published to GitHub Container Registry. There are different packages and tags to choose for different GraalVM versions. GraalVM CE packages have the -community suffix.

To use Native Image, packages native-image or native-image-community should be used.

The command below pulls container image of Oracle GraalVM CE 21.0.1.

docker pull ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image-community:21.0.1

A container can be started using the pulled image.

docker run -it --rm ghcr.io/graalvm/native-image-community:21.0.1 bash