---
title: "Which came first, Facebook or Java?"
description: "Facebook vs Java: Java came first, by 9 years — 1995 against 2004. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/facebook-vs-java/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Facebook or Java?

**Which came first, Facebook or Java?: Java**

1995 — 9 years before Facebook

Java came first, by 9 years. Sun Microsystems announced Java publicly.

## Side by side

|  | Facebook | Java |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 2004 | 1995 |
| Date | 2004-02-04 | 1995-05-23 |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | TheFacebook launched for Harvard students only. | Sun Microsystems announced Java publicly. |

## Facebook

Facebook launched on 4 February 2004 restricted to Harvard email addresses, opened to other universities through 2004 and 2005, and to anyone over 13 with an email address in September 2006. It is six years younger than Google and a year older than YouTube. Its predecessor Facemash, which compared students' photographs, was shut down by the university within days in 2003.

## Java

Java was announced in May 1995, having started in 1991 as a project called Oak aimed at interactive television — a market that did not exist yet. Its promise was "write once, run anywhere", achieved by compiling to bytecode for a virtual machine rather than to a specific processor. JavaScript arrived seven months later and was named after it purely as a marketing decision; the two languages are unrelated.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Facebook or Java?

Java, by 9 years — 1995 against 2004.

### When did Facebook start?

2004. TheFacebook launched for Harvard students only.

### When did Java start?

1995. Sun Microsystems announced Java publicly.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]