Difference Between C and Java

Last Updated : 14 Jan 2026

C Language

C is a middle-level, compiled and general-purpose programming language that follows a top-down approach for developing applications. It was developed at Bell Labs by Dennis Ritchie in 1970 for the Unix Operating System 1970. It is ideal for developing firmware and portable applications.

Example

#include <stdio.h>  // Preprocessor directive for input/output functions
int main() {
    printf("Hello, World!\n");  // Prints Hello, World! to the console
    return 0;  // Indicates successful program execution
}

Compile and Run

Output:

Hello, World!

Java

In 1991, Sun Microsystems developed the Java programming language. The team behind Java is known as the Green Team. When Sun Microsystems launched Java, it was originally named OAK. In 1995, the name was changed to Java. Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle Corporation in 2009, at which point Java became an Oracle product.

Java is a high-level, object-oriented, interpreted, and general-purpose programming language that follows the bottom-up approach. The primary goal of developing this language was to create applications for hand-held devices.

Example

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello, World!");  // Prints Hello, World! to the console
    }
}

Compile and Run

Output:

Hello, World!

What is the Difference Between C and Java

Differences Between C and Java

The following table describes the key differences between C and Java.

S. N.	Basis	C	Java
1	Language Level	C is a middle-level language.	Java is a high-level language.
2	Paradigm	C is a structural and procedure-oriented programming language.	Java is an object-oriented programming language
3	Approach	It follows the top-down approach to designing the application.	It follows the bottom-up approach to designing the application.
4	Translation	It is a compiled language.	It is an interpreted language.
5	Platform Dependency	It is platform-dependent.	It is platform-independent.
6	Keywords	There are 32 keywords in C.	Java has 50 keywords.
7	OOPs Concepts	It does not follow OOP concepts.	It follows OOP concepts.
8	File Extension	The file is saved with the extension .c.	The file is saved with the extension .java.
9	Building Block	Function-driven.	Object and Class driven.
10	Comment Style	/ comment/	//comment or /comment/
11	Security	It is not secure.	It is a fully secured language.
12	Translation Type	It translates the code into machine language so that the machine can understand the code.	It translates the code into a bytecode that the JVM executes.
13	Pointers	It supports the concept of the pointer.	It does not support the concept of pointers because of security.
14	Exception Handling	Exception handling is not present in the C language.	Exception handling is present in Java.
15	Inheritance	It does not support inheritance, which is useful for code reusability.	It supports inheritance, which provides code reusability.
16	Threading	There is no concept of threading.	It supports the concept of threading.
17	Memory Management	It does not maintain memory internally.	It maintains memory internally.
18	File Generation	It generates an .exe file.	It generates a .class file.
19	Code Execution	It directly executes the code.	It executes code with the help of the JVM.
20	Call by value/ Call by reference	It supports both call-by-value and call-by-reference.	It supports only call-by-value.
21	Portability	It is not portable.	It is portable.
22	goto Statement	It supports the goto statement.	It does not support the goto statement.
23	Preprocessors Directives	Preprocessors are supported in C.	Preprocessors are not supported in Java.
24	Robustness	It is not robust.	It is robust due to strong memory management.
25	Used For	It is mainly used to develop system applications and firmware.	It is primarily used to build enterprise applications and web-based applications.
26	Polymorphism/ Virtual Function/ Operator Overloading	It does not support these features and concepts.	Java supports all these features and concepts.
27	Popularity	It is less popular in comparison to Java.	It is the most popular programming language.
28	Memory Management	It usages manual memory management using malloc() and free().	It usages automatic memory management via Garbage Collection.
29	Standard Library	It provides a smaller standard library focused on system-level functions.	It offers a rich and extensive standard library supporting data structures, networking, GUI, etc.
30	Multithreading Support	It does not provide built-in support for multithreading.	It has built-in multithreading support via the Thread class.
31	Compilation Process	It usages a simple compile-link-execute process.	It compiles to bytecode, then interpreted or compiled to native by the JVM.
32	Pointer Arithmetic	It allows pointer arithmetic.	It does not allow pointer arithmetic for security reasons.
33	Namespace Support	No support for namespaces can lead to naming conflicts.	Packages provide namespace management.
34	Class Support	It does not support classes or objects.	It fully supports classes and objects.
35	Dynamic Linking	It provides limited support for dynamic linking.	It supports dynamic loading of classes at runtime.
36	Exception Specification	It does not provide a mechanism to specify or handle exceptions.	It allows specifying exceptions using try, catch, and finally.
37	Constructor/Destructor	There is no concept of constructors or destructors.	It supports both constructors and destructors (via the finalize() method, although deprecated).
38	Access Modifiers	There are no access modifiers.	It supports access modifiers like public, private, protected, and default.
39	Syntax Strictness	It is relatively lenient with syntax and type safety.	It is very strict about syntax and type-checking.
40	Platform Execution	It executes on a specific platform.	Write once, run anywhere - executes on JVM across platforms.

Although Java has become a popular programming language for developing applications, Android apps, IoT applications, etc, still, C has not lost its popularity because it is used to develop firmware, operating systems, and other system utilities.

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