Doesn't Java have an AOT solution too? Is it not ready for prime time?

It is, but people like to bash Java ;)

It requires heavy trade-offs.

Depends on which one, there have been several options since the Mac 2000's, which people that know their Java would know.

GraalVM for example places heavy restrictions on reflection usage. It also performs aggressive tree-shaking to include only those classes and methods that are actually going to be executed. Corresponding measures are required for several common libraries to be compatible with GraalVM.

Hotspot's AOT is promising and doesn't have those pitfalls, but has not yet been delivered.

Other posters here seem to misunderstand what AOT means in today's Java. It just means caching some state. There's still a JIT involved, it's just warmer.

There are other solutions that give you MUCH faster startup with lower memory e.g.: https://foojay.io/today/java-server-work-before-startup/

Edit: it seems I missed that 28 added the actual native code compilation phase so it will probably be closer to the GraalVM numbers in the link above.

Like yourself, because depending on which JVM we are talking about there are various kinds of AOT options.

OpenJDK, OpenJ9, Azul, PTC, Aicas, microEJ, ART (even if not Java TM), GraalVM, Bluesoft,..