Java is a great language, and the JVM a great platform. I think that the thing which makes Java underrated isn't the language, but rather Java Developers. There are tons of great Java developers, but they are probably great developers in any language. But Java being the language of choice at so many enterprises results in a large number of very low skilled and inadequate Java programmers, who would be bad developers in any language, but specialize in Java.

The JVM is awful. In 2025, it still arm wrestles with the OS on which it runs for memory management and still completely loses its shit should the OS decide to send any portion of its precious memory allocation to swap.

The language, is beautiful.