Java is one of the most powerful programming languages in the world. It is quite popular amongst developers as well as large-scale companies and has been adopted for usage in a variety of scenarios. Java is used in web application development, network programming, consumer electronics and other Java-based projects.
There are several Java libraries available for developers to address the various programming-related issues which they encounter frequently. These libraries contain packages which allow extending functionality and cater to various types of Java applications. Besides, the core Java libraries, there are also some third-party Java libraries, which are quite useful for Java developers. Moreover, most of these libraries are open-source and free for usage. So, let us check out some important third-party Java libraries which are useful for Java developers working on various projects. The list contains popular Java libraries for game development, HTML parsing, chart designing and more.
Before moving on, you may also want to check out ways to learn Java for beginners which we have written on Codecondo. Alright, so let us take a look at the list of 10 third-party Java libraries which are useful for Java developers.
1. Commons Math
Commons Math is a useful mathematics library from Apache Commons. It features mathematics and statistics components for addressing programming problems, such as solving differential functions, solving systems of linear equations, curve fitting, machine learning and more. Commons Math features packages for numerical analysis, complex numbers, geometry, fractions, statistics, linear algebra and more.
2. LWJGL 3
LWJGL 3 (Light-Weight Java Game Library) is a cross-platform library for designing Java games. The library is used along with Java game development frameworks or game engines. LWJGL 3 provides access to major, native APIs for graphic development (OpenGL), audio (OpenAL) and parallel computing (OpenCL) applications.
Jsoup is a Java HTML parser library which parses HTML to the same DOM just like modern browsers. It allows parsing HTML from a url, file or string as well as manipulating HTML elements, text and attributes. Moreover, Jsoup allows extracting and manipulating data using DOM traversal, CSS selectors and jQuery-like methods.
SWT or The Standard Widget Toolkit is an open-source widget library designed for Java. It provides a portable, efficient access to the user interface elements of the operating system on which it is implemented. SWT provides a range of sample snippets, widgets and packages and has good documentation on using the various development tools.
FreeHEP is a useful library for reusing Java code for developing web applications which involve high energy Physics. The library provides several components, such as HepRep (Event Display Representables), vector graphics package, PostScript Viewer, AID compiler (Abstract Interface Definitions) and more.
6. Apache Log4j
Apache Log4j is a logging library for Java which allows logging at runtime without modifying the application binary. The Log4J package is designed to enable log statements to remain in shipping code without incurring heavy performance costs. Moreover, its unique feature of inheritance in loggers helps in reducing the volume of logged output and the cost of logging.
Jackson is a standard JSON parser library for Java. It provides multiple data processing tools for JAVA and the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) platform, such as JSON parser, data-binding library (POJOs to and from JSON) and other data format modules like BSON, AVRO, CBOR, CSV, XML and more.
JFreeChart is a free Java chart library which is widely used by Java developers for displaying professional charts in their applications. JFreeChart features a robust API for supporting a variety of chart types for both client-side and server-side applications. Moreover, the library supports various output formats, such as Swing and JavaFX components, image file formats and vector graphics file formats.
9. Google Guava
Google Guava is a set of open-source Java libraries consisting of basic as well as other utilities for implementing common methods and behaviors. Google’s core libraries are widely used for various Java-based projects, such as collections, functional programming, caching, primitives support, common annotations, string processing and more.
10. Hibernate ORM
Hibernate ORM is an object/relation mapping library for mapping Java classes to database tables. It enables developers to develop persistent classes using natural object-oriented idioms, such as polymorphism, inheritance and association. Hibernate ORM is used in multiple scenarios supporting Java Persistence API (JPA) specification, including Java SE applications, OSGi containers, Java EE application servers and more.
With that we have come to the end of our list. The list of third-party Java libraries is quite exhaustive. Here, I have compiled some of the most popular Java libraries which are useful for Java developers. Developers make use of these Java libraries depending upon their project requirements. But, you can add some more names to the list to make it as complete as possible. So, if you have used any useful Java library in your project then you can let others know about it by mentioning its name in the comments section below. Thank you.