Than Java 1.14? Yes. Lighter is true of current Javas as well, but faster is dependent on the program. Go can often prevent garbage from being generated in the first place, but when creating garbage is a must, Java will happily handle heaps up to a terabyte in size, and its GCs are simply the state of the art.

Also, Go most definitely has a runtime, what runs the GC otherwise?

But its also faster to compile and use as a developer. And by runtime I mean there's no JVM. If you're used to Java you should probably just stick with it, but using Go is a huge relief to me.

> And by runtime I mean there's no JVM

That's an awfully restricted definition of "runtime": https://golang.org/src/runtime/