Evaluating Memory Management and Garbage Collection Algorithms with Virtual Threads in High-Concurrency Java Applications

Garbage collection (GC) is a critical memory management mechanism within the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) responsible for automating memory allocation and reclamation. Its performance affects the computational efficiency, scalability, and responsiveness of Java applications, particularly in high-concurrency environments with demanding resource utilization patterns. Optimizing memory management of highly concurrent applications can enhance performance by reducing latency, improving throughput, and ensuring efficient resource utilization. With the introduction of a JVM-based lightweight threading model named Virtual Threads, the dynamics between concurrency constructs and GC algorithms have gained renewed importance. Virtual Threads enable the creation of millions of threads, imposing unique demands on memory management systems. This paper presents a comparative analysis of several modern GC algorithms, focusing on their performance in Virtual Thread-enabled environments. With a set of benchmarks simulating real-world workloads, we evaluated key performance metrics, including CPU usage, heap efficiency, latency, and throughput, thus encompassing both computationally intensive and I/O-bound tasks that reflect scenarios encountered in modern applications. The results reveal the trade-offs in GC performance, particularly handling the rapid thread creation, memory allocation, and high task-switching rates characteristic of Virtual Threads. Our findings offer insights into optimizing memory management and performance of contemporary high-concurrency Java applications using Virtual Threads.