Difference Between Go and Java

Both Go and Java are popular backend programming languages, and each has its own unique features. Java is an older language with a large community support, whereas Go is a comparatively newer language developed by Google. In this article, we will learn more about the differences between Go and Java.

Go Language

Go, also called Golang, is an open-source programming language developed by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson at Google. It was created to build large and complex software systems more easily. It is a statically typed and compiled programming language that has a simple and clean syntax similar to the C language. It also has a built-in garbage collector that handles memory management automatically. It is commonly used for backend development, especially in applications that require high efficiency and scalability.

Example

Following is a simple program in Golang to print hello world:

package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
    fmt.Println("Hello World!")
}

Output

Hello World!

Java Language

Java is an object-oriented programming language. It is widely used in enterprise applications and has a large collection of libraries and frameworks. Java follows the write once, run anywhere principle, which means compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java. It supports multithreading and also has automatic garbage collection.

Example

A simple Java program that displays Hello World is shown below:

public class HelloWorld {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello World!");
    }
}

Output

Hello World!

Key Differences Between Go and Java

Following table shows the important differences between Go and Java.