Fork of Oracle's GlassFish application server after Oracle dropped commercial support, creating a successful enterprise Java business.
Payara Server is a Java EE / Jakarta EE application server forked from GlassFish 4.1. It supports the full Jakarta EE specification, MicroProfile for microservices, and includes Payara Micro for containerized deployments. Features include automatic clustering, health checks, and integrated monitoring.
GlassFish was Sun Microsystems' open-source Java EE application server and the reference implementation of the Java EE specification. When Oracle acquired Sun in 2010, GlassFish users worried about the project's future — and those worries proved justified. In November 2013, Oracle announced it would discontinue commercial support for GlassFish Server, effectively telling enterprise customers to migrate to Oracle WebLogic.
Steve Millidge, a UK-based Java consultant who had built his career around GlassFish, saw both a crisis and an opportunity. In 2014, he founded Payara Services and released Payara Server — a fork of GlassFish 4.1 Open Source Edition that offered the commercial support, regular security patches, and bug fixes that Oracle had abandoned. The name 'Payara' comes from a predatory fish found in the Amazon — fitting for something that ate GlassFish's lunch.
Payara quickly differentiated itself beyond mere maintenance. The team added clustering improvements, monitoring integrations, Docker support, and MicroProfile compatibility for microservices. They built a real business with paying enterprise customers who needed a supported Java EE server but didn't want Oracle's pricing or vendor lock-in.
The story took another twist in 2017 when Oracle donated the GlassFish source code and Java EE specifications to the Eclipse Foundation, creating Jakarta EE. Payara became a leading contributor to the Eclipse GlassFish project while maintaining their own commercially supported fork.
In a further turn, Azul Systems (known for their JVM implementations) acquired Payara, combining Java runtime and application server expertise under one roof. The acquisition validated Millidge's bet that a fork born from corporate abandonment could build lasting enterprise value.
Oracle acquires Sun Microsystems, inheriting GlassFish
Oracle discontinues commercial GlassFish support
Payara Server released as a supported GlassFish fork
Oracle donates Java EE and GlassFish to Eclipse Foundation
Azul Systems acquires Payara
“Organizations running GlassFish in production needed someone to pick up where Oracle left off.”
Payara proved that a fork can become a successful commercial product when the original vendor abandons their user base. It helped ensure enterprise Java users had a viable open-source application server option during a critical transition period and contributed significantly to the Jakarta EE ecosystem at Eclipse.