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Supported technologiesedit

The Elastic APM Java agent automatically instruments various APIs, frameworks and application servers. This section lists all supported technologies.

If your favorite technology is not supported yet, you can vote for it by participating in our survey. We will use the results to add support for the most requested technologies.

Another option is to add a dependency to the agent’s public API in order to programmatically create custom transactions and spans.

If you want to extend the auto-instrumentation capabilities of the agent, the contributing guide should get you started.

If, for example, the HTTP client library of your choice is not listed, it means that there won’t be spans for those outgoing HTTP requests. If the web framework you are using is not supported, the agent does not capture transactions.

Java versionsedit

Vendor	Supported versions	Notes
Oracle JDK	7, 8, 9, 10, 11	`--module-path` has not been tested yet
Open JDK	7, 8, 9, 10, 11	`--module-path` has not been tested yet

Web Frameworksedit

Framework	Supported versions	Description	Since
Servlet API	3+	A transaction will be created for all incoming HTTP requests to your Servlet API-based application. See also Application Servers/Servlet Containers	1.0.0
Spring Web MVC	4.x, 5.x	If you are using Spring MVC (for example with Spring Boot), the transactions are named based on your controllers (`ControllerClass#controllerMethod`).	1.0.0
JavaServer Faces	2.2.x, 2.3.x	If you are using JSF, transactions are named based on the requested Facelets and spans are captured for visibility into execution and rendering	1.0.0
Spring Boot	1.5+, 2.x	Supports embedded Tomcat, Jetty and Undertow	1.0.0
JAX-RS	2.x	The transactions are named based on your resources (`ResourceClass#resourceMethod`). Note that only the packages configured in `application_packages` are scanned for JAX-RS resources. If you don’t set this option, all classes are scanned. This comes at the cost of increased startup times, however. Note: JAX-RS is only supported when running on a supported Application Server/Servlet Container.	1.0.0
JAX-WS		The transactions are named based on your `@javax.jws.WebService` annotated classes and `@javax.jws.WebMethod` annotated method names (`WebServiceClass#webMethod`). Note that only the packages configured in `application_packages` are scanned for JAX-WS resources. If you don’t set this option, all classes are scanned. This comes at the cost of increased startup times, however. Note: JAX-WS is only supported when running on a supported Application Server/Servlet Container and when using the HTTP binding.	1.4.0

Application Servers/Servlet Containersedit

The Elastic APM Java agent has generic support for the Servlet API 3+. However, some servers require special handling. The servers listed here are tested by an integration test suite to make sure Elastic APM is compatible with them. Other Servlet 3+ compliant servers will most likely work as well.

Server	Supported versions
Tomcat	7.x, 8.5.x, 9.x
WildFly	8-16
JBoss EAP	6.4, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2
Jetty (only the `ServletContextHandler` is supported)	9.2, 9.3, 9.4
WebSphere Liberty	8.5.5, 18.0.x
Undertow Servlet	1.4
Payara	4.x, 5.x
Oracle WebLogic	12.2

Data Storesedit

Database	Supported versions	Description
JDBC	4.1+	The agent automatically creates DB spans for all your JDBC queries. This includes JDBC queries executed by O/R mappers like Hibernate. Note: Make sure that your JDBC driver is at least compiled for Java 1.5. For example, commons dbcp versions before 1.4 are not supported. IBM DB2 db2jcc drivers are also not supported. Please update to db2jcc4.
Elasticsearch	5.0.2+	The agent automatically creates Elasticsearch spans for queries done through the official REST client.

Database

Supported versions

Description

JDBC

4.1+

The agent automatically creates DB spans for all your JDBC queries. This includes JDBC queries executed by O/R mappers like Hibernate.

Note: Make sure that your JDBC driver is at least compiled for Java 1.5. For example, commons dbcp versions before 1.4 are not supported. IBM DB2 db2jcc drivers are also not supported. Please update to db2jcc4.

Elasticsearch

5.0.2+

The agent automatically creates Elasticsearch spans for queries done through the official REST client.

Networking frameworksedit

Distributed tracing will only work if you are using one of the supported networking frameworks.

For the supported HTTP libraries, the agent automatically creates spans for outgoing HTTP requests and propagates tracing headers. The spans are named after the schema <method> <host>, for example GET elastic.co.

Framework	Supported versions	Note	Since
Apache HttpClient	4.3+		0.7.0
Apache HttpAsyncClient	4.0+		1.6.0
Spring RestTemplate	4+		0.7.0
OkHttp	2, 3		1.4.0 (synchronous calls via `Call#execute()`) 1.5.0 (async calls via `Call#enquene(Callback)`)
HttpUrlConnection			1.4.0
JAX-WS client		JAX-WS clients created via `javax.xml.ws.Service` inherently support context propagation as they are using `HttpUrlConnection` underneath.	1.4.0
AsyncHttpClient	2.x		1.7.0

Asynchronous frameworksedit

When a Span is created in a different Thread than its parent, the trace context has to be propagated onto this thread.

This section lists all supported asynchronous frameworks.

Framework	Supported versions	Description	Since
ExecutorService		The agent propagates the context when using the `java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService` methods of any `ExecutorService` implementation.	1.4.0

Messaging frameworksedit

When using a messaging framework, sender context is propagated so that receiver events are correlated to the same trace.

Framework	Supported versions	Description	Since
JMS	1.1, 2.0	The agent propagates the context when using `javax.jms.MessageProducer#send` and `javax.jms.JMSProducer#send` methods through a `Message` property. On receiver side, the agent reads the context from the Message property through `javax.jms.MessageConsumer#receive`, `javax.jms.MessageConsumer#receiveNoWait`, `javax.jms.JMSConsumer#receive`, `javax.jms.JMSConsumer#receiveNoWait` or `javax.jms.MessageListener#onMessage` and uses it for enabling distributed tracing.	1.7.0 - Incubating (off by default). In order to enable, set the `disable_instrumentations` config option to an empty string

Caveatsedit

Certain OSGi containers need the following configuration setting in case you see exceptions like java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: co/elastic/apm/jdbc/StatementInstrumentation: org.osgi.framework.bootdelegation=co.elastic.apm.agent.*
Other JVM languages, like Scala, Kotlin and Groovy have not been tested yet.
The agent does currently not support running on JVMs with an enabled SecurityManager. You may see exceptions like this: java.security.AccessControlException: access denied ("java.lang.RuntimePermission" "getProtectionDomain"). Try to grant java.security.AllPermission to the agent.