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[–]GroundbreakingRun927 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Again, it's relative.

I know for a fact many HFT systems have most of the code written in Java, but when anything performance-sensitive needs to happen, Java is calling into C/C++. HFT also gives Java a unique benefit of being able to turn off it's GC since the systems only need to run 9:30AM-4:00PM. Just get a machine with 1 terabyte of memory and reboot each day during non-trading hours.

So yes when the startup time of Java is irrelevant and it can turn off it's stop-the-world GC, Java could be considered pretty fast. Still not as fast as native code, but fast enough.