Despite Oracle’s strong recommendation to use the latest LTS version (Java 21 or 25), legitimate use cases for archive downloads persist:
The (formerly known as the "Oracle Java Archive") is the official historical repository for all previous versions of the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE). While Oracle actively promotes the latest Long-Term Support (LTS) release (Java 17, 21, and now 25) for production use, the archive serves a critical role for developers, QA engineers, and enterprises managing legacy systems. java se archive downloads