Every object in Java has something like three words of overhead; also since it doesn't have value semantics (yet) objects are typically allocated out-of-line, so an ArrayList makes a linear number of allocations, whereas a Go slice makes a constant number.
Plus the binary sizes are typically much smaller; not really an expert but our observataion at work is non-trivial Java services allocate a lot of memory through classloading / JITing whereas a Go binary will typically be very small.
Basically, agreed on the GC tradeoff, but the higher memory footprint of Java mostly comes from other areas.
Every object in Java has something like three words of overhead; also since it doesn't have value semantics (yet) objects are typically allocated out-of-line, so an ArrayList makes a linear number of allocations, whereas a Go slice makes a constant number. Plus the binary sizes are typically much smaller; not really an expert but our observataion at work is non-trivial Java services allocate a lot of memory through classloading / JITing whereas a Go binary will typically be very small.
Basically, agreed on the GC tradeoff, but the higher memory footprint of Java mostly comes from other areas.
> Better memory usage always implies worse performance
That isn't really true. Better memory usage implies better cache-friendliness (and possibly better locality too).