Java EE 5 (Enterprise Edition version 5) is a web development platform for creating and deploying enterprise applications. The original specification was prepared by Sun Microsystems, then transferred to public committees in the Java Community Process (JCP) to guide the development and approval of Java technical specifications. Because of the community process toward standardization, there is a broad adoption of Java by web development companies, including Oracle, IBM, BEA, JBoss, etc.

Little or no cost is needed to start a custom web development project in Java, since there are no licensing fees for the platform. Also, there is strong vendor and 3rd party support for areas ranging from e-mail to database transactions. The technical approach behind Java (cross-platform support) enables custom web and software developers to develop Java code on a desktop computer and expect it to run on other operating systems for other computers, routers, and even mobile phones, as long as those devices are Java-enabled.

Java EE 5 includes several components, such as Enterprise Java Beans (specification for server side components), Java Persistence API (for mapping Java business objects to relational database tables), and JavaServer Faces (for developing user interfaces). Note that JavaServer Faces uses a component tag library, which can encapsulate JavaScript code, such as XMLHttpRequest to simplify Ajax development. The Java API for XML services supports the notion of Service-Oriented Architecture, which supports integration through the exchange web services calls. The latest version of Java is intended to simplify web services, transactions, security and other capabilities through the concept of annotations or metadata.