Comparing C# to Java - I Code in Both. Learn about the Differences and Similarities. 

As a developer who has a lot of experience in both of these languages, I believe you did a very good job in comparing the two. That said, I strongly believe if you CAN do what you want in C#, there's almost no argument that persuades you to use Java. Basically, if you have to use Java to use a certain library, by all means, do it. But if I had to choose either of these languages I would NEVER choose Java. There are so many things wrong with it (Unicode?)

why I love C#: - Async / Await - Extension Methods - Expression Bodies - Optional Params - Ref, Out Params - Auto Properties - Events, Delegates - Linq - Structs - Interop and..... string.IsNullOrEmpty(), an important feature that java lacks😆

C# has less boilerplate, fantastic syntactical sugar features which make coding a breeze (Once you know them), extension methods are really awesome for configuring services for application startup (IServiceCollection). The new MinimalApi makes writing API endpoints super simple and fast for simple dev testing etc. All in all, it feels like a more modern language which has matured well, unlike Java. Sorry if I ruffled some feathers but it's just my opinion. :)

the LINQ feature of C# sounds amazing. It looks like an incredible new approach to deal with list manipulation. I'm astonished.

Another different is that Java developers wear glasses, because they can't C# ;)

C# only has two characters in its name, whereas Java has four. Obviously C# is faster to type. Java on the other hand takes up more of your life, two characters more to be precise, every time you need to mention it in an email or doc, etc... Of course, I only ever use C.

Amazing comparison! My main language is C# and I recently learned Java and... I don't hate Java per say, but it just seems inferior to C# in every way, especially since C# is now multiplatform (though I've only ever used Windows anyway). My typical workflow relies heavily on things like properties, events, nullables, and LINQ, so whenever I use Java I'm constantly bumping into inconvenience after inconvenience. Even if they're minor, they add up to frustrate me quite a bit, so this video kind of validates those feelings lol.

Thanks for making this video, I was curious on the differences between these languages and you explained those differences very well!

Chuck - great work, great content. Thank you for sharing your experience, your wisdom. I really like your level-headed language comparisons. Having worked with software development for 40 yrs I cherish a valuable source when I see one. You earned my subscription after just one video.

This is one of the best comparison videos i have ever come across. it cleared up lots of my doubts. Thank You

you forget about async-await. one of the most important think that java doesn't have till now and c# was one of the first languages to introduce async-await.

String-variable Interpolation is a nice syntax feature in C#

Thank God for the competition created by Java. Otherwise, there would not be such a shining and powerfull language called c#. For more than 20 years I have been coming across such comparisons. In the beginning, it was "c vs java". C# takes features from java (vm, open-source philosophy), java takes features from kotlin (records) , c# (lambdas, virtual-threads), javascript (promises, declarative programming, reactive)(and golang latest version supports generics at last). The thing you have chosen is not only the language itself, it 's also the open-source community behind the scenes. Long live open-source, even the companies have been funding foundations to drive the open-source community.

In 2008, I got the option to choose either PHP or Dotnet for my career path. But, now I am proudly saying that it was the best decision of my life forever. My current goal is to bag a C# Web Application Developer job in the USA, and I hope very soon will succeed.

Thank you for this Chuck. As someone trained on Java and C++ I'd been wondering for some time what exactly the difference was in C#. After watching this and your C++ vs C# video, I now have a much better appreciation of the differences. Going to see if you've made any videos on Kotlin now, as I'm learning that language on the side for funsies atm. Cheers.

Generics not accepting primitive types was one of the things I was shocked by when I started using Java.

4:55 C# dynamic is not a tuple. its a proper dynamic type, like a dynamic type in java script.

In Java i could not access Memory Mapped Files, also there is no unsigned, I tried c# and it was super good. Thank you.

Thanks for the video Chuck. I'm starting a new position at work and have a flexible manager willing to put me on teams that either work with java or C#. I don't have much industry experience or experience with those languges outside of a few projects. This video helped me understand things differently and has me leaning towards joining the C# developers more than I already was. Thanks again

I believe in C# supremacy ! It feels more modern and Microsoft is upgrading it a lot since NET5 open-source. Anyway, I'll always respect Java and we'll still see it around for a while, but working with C# and Typescript for frontend (also Microsoft) is a great combination!

As non programmer I enjoyed this content!

Very informative. Thanks! 😊👌👍

The best video on this war between C# and Java.

This is a great comparison dude thanks, very informative

Wow, nice video..!! Best comparison I ever saw.. Thank you for such a great content..

you forgot that C# gives you the option to write low level code. So i can just write my Application using all of C#s benefits and only write the performance critical parts in a unsafe way without having to write them in a whole other language. I also like how C# adopts so many functional features, combining the best of both worlds

A very good job at explaining things.

Thank you so much! My only comment is: you didn't mention database integration. I'm still a bit of a programmer newb but all my coder friends are clear: if you're going to build an application that is tied a database, go with C#. And I can't argue with that. I've done the integration in Java and it is annoying but I've seen it in C# and it was seamless.

Generic classes being generated for each generic type doesn't just matter for reflection. It also matters for performance and static fields. Java uses type erasure, which means generics are fake. Every value type is boxed to an object. C# uses real generics where value types are not boxed and can be accessed directly. C# generics are closer to C++ templates, but not exactly the same.

I would be interested on you take on Swift. Maybe in comparison to C#, which is relatively close.

learning C# for over 2 Years now and im loving it, for me, it is better as Java.

This method works perfectly .. thanks for sharing ;)

Microsoft sacrificed backwards compatibility by implementing generics from the ground up the right way. Java maintained backward compatibility by utilizing type erasure. However, there are more implications than just Reflection. The vast majority of generic programming surrounds the collection types, which use an array as their backing store, and the difference is particularly evident for primitive value types. If you wanted a Java List and the bools have to be converted to objects (boxed), they're taking significantly more space on the heap and getting scattered (your array now holds references to other heap locations). A .NET List uses an actual concrete array of bool behind the scenes, should hold the data in a contiguous block of memory, and doesn't suffer from the same inefficiencies.

The way Java handles generics has been a frustrating experience for me for many years.

I like java because it's simple. When I program in C++, it looks a lot like java, and is easier to read in my opinion than C++ code I read on the internet that makes use of all C++'s special features.

Both are good, for me it depends on what I'm doing, but I do lean toward java, thers a Order about it that helps me remember more of my code for those big projects

Small clarification: Both Java and C# offer features through classes, but C# simply offers syntax aliases for these classes, which are sometimes structs. Like with the nullable example, the question mark is removed in CL and becomes a reference to the generic Nullable struct. You may use the struct like any other and the values are interchangable with variables defined using the nullable syntax, but IDEs may detect the use of the struct and suggest the designated syntax. This also extends to LINQ for which the query syntax shown is an alias for a chain of LINQ extension method calls. This doesn't mean the lack of extension methods is preventing Java from having something comparabie to LINQ. In reality, you could always use method calls inside method calls just like you can in C# through the static Enumerable class. The reason LINQ is based on extension methods in the first place was to simplify the syntax when calling the methods. The query syntax was only added later to further, making it ressemble SQL. As for checked exceptions, although there is no way to signal potential exceptions that will have an impact on the assembly, C# does support signaling of potential exceptions through XML documentation that references the assembly. This allows for an IDE to read the documentation file and show context-sensitive documentation including possible exception at the programmer's request.

lol this is some thick material. Awesome comparison. I work in both, and I greatly greatly prefer C# and .NET. I could go on for hours why - it's just everything is already packaged for you, from a single source really - Microsoft. In Java, you, the programmer, has to sit there and configure third-party tools - it's a major nightmare! Version matching is horrendous. Yes, there is Maven, etc. But it's another thing you have to waste time and effort on, just to make it work! And any issues with that - you are on your own, good luck lol!

C# is pure comfort, compared to Java... And also MS Visual Studio is the ultimate best editor by far! I really wouldn't want to use anything else ever again.

Well done. Thank you

I got a book out of the library on Java once. The librarian said she had been there and highly recommended it.

Thanks for the video sir, great explanation!, i want to move into C# .NET environment from Java, and found this video and i could get an overview about C# development

What an excellent video👌

Please post a video between Java vs C# vs Python. It's my humble request.

Great video, could you recommend a beginner book for both Java & C#? Thanks!

Miss anonymous classes in C# which has been in Java from the beginning. C# supports anonymous methods (delegates and lambda expressions) and types (properties) but for some reason not full classes.

@ 9:00 the background music scared me! Lol.. I was watching it late night with my headphones on, suddenly the bass note goes bwooooooon! very useful information sir.. thanks for sharing.

Great video, thank you.

Having to be a ‘soft’ engineer, this is what I realized. From a C/C++ bg I moved to php and C# in a month for some projects, after a year I started Java and what exactly what you say now is what I got to know after .net5 was being realized. What I can simply say is that Csharp is clean Java.

I know this is probably a horrible analogy, but it almost feels like when you compare C# and Java. It sounds like the same arguments the C and C++ camps debate over. But to be honest? If I had to choose, I think I would go with C# and .NET for the simple fact everything you need is all together under the .NET framework. Java feels all over the place. Don't get me wrong? I like Java as well; they feel like the same language even though they aren't. Basically, finding learning material for C# seems to be so far easier to find in comparison to Java. For example, for Java to set up my environment was such a difficult task. I had to download from Oracle I think they call it an SDK. Next, I forgot what they call it I had to download some file. finally, I downloaded IntelliJ which is a cool IDE and finally when I tried to run Java on VSCode, my code wouldn't run. I found the C# ecosystem a little bit easier to find material to learn from. Also, there are different versions of Java which isn't recommended to use? I found this confusing. For example, what is Java FX? With C# I downloaded Visual Studio and I quickly found lots of material for how to get started and had an easier time figuring things out. At the moment I stopped this, and I am purely focused on JavaScript. But after I learned React, I will pick up most likely Java because of the huge job market. I am in NYC, and I can tell you that from indeed.com there were only 237 jobs post for C# and .NET and over 1,227 jobs post for Java. Despite what my personal feelings are if you want to find your first job you have to go where everyone fishing to catch fish. Sorry for the horrible analogies but I hope you get the point. This is from a newbie's perspective I am not a professional. This was my struggle as a newbie so far. Also, I would like to thank everyone for providing me with such insightful advice throughout my learning path. It has given me much needed guidance throughout these past couple of months.

Hey you should have warned me… That slap got me by surprise.

Is your benchmark with our without warm-up? (That the JVM is slow before warm-up would not be that surprising, I think.)

Newer languages stand on the shoulders of the great languages that preceded them. Java is great and we would not be here in software programming without Java. There would definitely be no C#. Microsoft took a lot of ideas from Java and added their own stuff to make it better and that's how C# was born. Initially, the languages were very similar but they are quite different now because of the effort put into developing it by Microsoft. It doesn't feel like there was enough effort and innovation put into the language after Java gained popularity. For this reason, Java feels quite outdated to me despite being a great language.

C# allows C++ inside the code (with the proper compiler settings). I prefer C# over Java, and recently played around with Kotlin for the first time (Android relies on it heavily). They both work, but I found C# just prettier, feels better, makes more sense to me. Java feels like it's somewhere between C++ and C# and with all the 3rd party libraries, I often find myself lost in the maze of different (and often terrible) naming conventions and bad documentation. Kotlin doesn't have that problem (as much), but that's probably for the same reason C# doesn't have that problem (as much); A big and solid enough foundation, support and use by others for the time and effort put into making great documentation. I'm not against Java by any means, but it just doesn't work for me 😅

This is the first Java v C# video that is up to date, and does a wonderful comparison of the two languages. Too bad it doesn't mention async await.

This video is actually pretty good and informational. I wish it was a little bit more entertainment. You should consider changing background and add couple of modern jokes. Otherwise, definitely subscribe and like!

Thanks Chuck

For sane and comfy ecosystem: c# For more jobs: Java.

Don't get worried if people say one language is better than the other. Learn whatever language that is most in demand in your area and after you land a job and gather enough experience and knowledge you can easily jump to any other language as you please

amazing, very good!

Thank you so much for interesting video! You approved that I made right choice when I started to learn C# and not Java or JavaScript (they said it’s easier!). I like how strict C# is and how convenient Visual Studio is. Just a simple opinion of me being noob. Guys! Can you tell me if it’s worth it to learn WPF nowadays?

Superb.....

If It wasn't for Java I probably would have gave up programming as I hated C at Uni. Then Java doing android games got me interested in game engines so Unity and C# never looked back since! A sprinkle of Html/css/js, tiny bit of python but don't get the hype and I use some C++/Blueprints on UE4/5, but C# is my fav language...so far will take something special to beat C# for me anyway. ✌

Hi McCullough, I know Java and C# are both OOP languages but the language I am learning at the moment JavaScript isn't? JavaScript is prototypically written. I find this very confusing. What exactly is prototypical? Would this hinder my learning or understanding of what real OOP is in comparison to Java or C#? Which is real OOP? I am at the stage where I understand the fundamentals and I am trying to learn more advance topics with JavaScript like recursive functions and gain a better understanding of pure functions versus class-based functions. Eventually I will migrate to either Java or C# for a back-end language. I am trying to learn JavaScript on a deep level so that I am able to better understand other languages with better ease when I move onto the next one. Or would it be best if I gained a deeper knowledge of languages like C# and Java versus learning from a prototypical language like JavaScript since Java and C# are true OOP languages? What would be your recommendations? Thanks McCullough most appreciative.

Do you have a video comparing Java or C# to Delphi?

I am a C# fan. Easy to learn syntaxes. Programmers are well 'spoonfeeded' with built-in algorithms and data structures through its rich libraries, which helps speed up function implementations of the app.

Great video

Your video helped narrow it down a bit more, thank you. I never touched C# but I played with Java for 3 weeks. At the moment I am 4 months into learning JavaScript. I have time to think about this but I figured in 8 to 12 months from now I would like to learn either C# or Java. From what you mentioned in this video could it be said that Java is light weight where C# is overly complex? My end goal is to learn one of these languages for backend and mobile. But I don’t want to spend years learning to many technologies or something overly complex, what is your opinion? Thank-you.

You Can make pretty blazing fast applications in C#, but it's no magic bullet you'll need to put in the same effort into the code and algorithms as you would in a lower level language to achieve it.

I’m a complete beginner and about to start school for a bachelors in software engineering. I have the option to choose a Java or c# route. Anyone wanna help me on what to choose? I’m so torn about which one!

Very cool video

Sun's Java, like the referent one, has been running generational GC since late nineties. Technically speaking, GC is not mandatory part of JVM, and varius JVM implementations have completly different GC algorithms at any point of time. Being "generational" is also not a significat benefit or a failure, as implementation details are far more important than "generational", "copy", "segmented", "precise", "stop-the-world", "realtime" or whatever else comes.. Also for running server code, the most important aspect of GC, is ability of allocator to reuse unused "holes" within memoryspace as not using those leads to memory leak because of fragmentation. A classic C problem. The remedy for that is usually "copy collector", or in modern times, segmented one. Many "generational" GC algorithms are often also "copy collectors", but they don't have to be.

C# > Java (oops forgot.. subjective warning applied)

im pretty sure they ve added records in later versions of the jdk

I am really missing async/await in Java

If a developer asked me which the learn, one of my first questions would be what kinds of companies do you want to work for? If you want to work on line of business apps in established companies, C#. If you want to work in west coast startups or big tech, Java. I definitely like the C# language and tool stack better, but because C# started out life as Windows-dependent, Java ended up dominant in cultures that didn’t want to depend on Windows. Thankfully the dependency went away, but the inertia from that history remains

Kotlin worth to be compared too! It's very similar to both of them.

Java was designed for Internet Applets. The Windows Team wanted it for Business Apps. It catches errors better than C++.

The funny thing is all that semantic abstraction turns out to be just bytes that were put in memory in a logical arrangement wich are sequentially read by the CPU wich reacts to them in a certain manner depending on their values and, in turn, outputs signals in certain ways as to control devices such as video cards, sound cards etc. so that we can see or hear the result of all that and use it to our advantage. LOL.

Java doesn’t support unsigned numeric types which can be a rather significant omission depending on the application requirements

Good video.

thank you ton

I wouldn't mind a deep explanation of checked exceptions and why they are an anti pattern.

No se trata si uno es mejor que el otro, se trata que si es empleable una persona que sabe del lenguaje... al final todo se reduce a la empleabilidad, si existe o no trabajo....

Great video, but there is one thing missing here - comparing the project structure. In modern C# you have 5 lines in a csproj for, and you already are able to build, run and debug the program both by running "dotnet build" command, and in Visual studio. For Java, at least in templates, it's by far way more complicated. First of of all, you need to know me syntax, groovy (while everyone knows basic XML). Secondly, you cannot use javac, if you want to have any maven dependency, you need Gradle to compile. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I tried to replicate few programs in Java to compare them myself and got stuck at the setup part - I just wanted single Java file with ability to add dependencies and to be able to F5 debug in InteliJ. Never got there, either in Java nor Kotlin, just a simple console app. I admit, it was only one evening of trying, but in other evenings I managed to setup Zig, Rust, node.js, Go without any issues

The power of Java is it’s JVM. You need traditional programming there is regular java. You need a cloud oriented solution for fintech there’s scala. You need rapid prototyping on the web there’s groovy. When I say web I refer to traditional web pages on the internet not intranet applications. You need RPC front end solution for front end web there’s GWT or Vaadin. Kotlin for mobile applications.

After many years of C#, I thought it would be a cakewalk to work in Java. After all, they are virtually identical languages aren't they?? NO!!! I had a very tough time trying to actually work in Java. There were numerous technical quirks and annoyances that were difficult for me to surmount. I gave up!!

Does the dotnet vm take less time to spin up than the jvm?

the fact i can do this similar to js/ts makes me pick c#: var foo = new { // Some object props } Thats just one thing without a LinQs example or any of that and C# 12 is on another level.

Just a correction, Java recently added records.

Please do a similar video comparing both languages to Javascript/typescript.

The question is so ridiculous. 😂 C# > Java

Yes,much much better.

Java spring boot enterprise world microservices just asking any language beat java in this department? Forget about boiler plat code lombok dynamic proxy spring boot autoconfig lambda stream making easy now what other option for microservices enterprise and scalability???

i think java's remained current thank to spring, spring is used in a lot of big companies and it's a great framework, i would say the best in the industry

Issues with running .NET anywhere? Been developing in Windows .NET that run in a Linux server. Never had any issue during deployment. That comment confused me.

The best thing Java has going for it is how relatively easy it is to port to C# ;)

讲得有道理

I wonder why chacked exceptions are a bad Idea? Because without being a Java Dev, it sounds really great. It always bothered me in C# that you never know when a method could throw.

C# every day and twice on Sunday.