[cgh]

No offence, but it's clear you have no idea about the domains in which server-side Java is typically used. Very large enterprises have all kinds of weirdness and the Java ecosystem has a bunch of libraries found in no other language ecosystem that make things manageable. Java-the-language is sadly verbose and tedious but that's not why people choose it.

So server-side Java lives in a niche and I would never suggest it for, say, anything client-side or basic web apps.

[tracker1]

I'd say that NodeJS or Ruby would be decent alternatives depending on your need. npm and gem are really nice in this space and cover just about any need you might have without weighing your system down in pomp and circumstance.

The runtimes aren't that much slower, and for I/O bound tasks, odds are Node is going to run just as fast with less application complexity.