Akka Alternatives | Akka to ZIO Migration

In September 2022, Lightbend announced the licensing change for the components of the Akka ecosystem. The change would end Akka on Apache 2 license, and with version 2.7.0, start on the Business Source License with a defined pricing scheme.

Only companies with a revenue over $25 mln will be required to pay for the license. These companies will have to analyze their situation and how Akka is critical for their operations and decide which way to go – migrating or buying the license. A similar assessment should be conducted by the companies that are under this limit but have a plan to reach it in the foreseeable future.

Akka, with the Apache 2.0 license, stops at version 2.6.9. You don’t have to switch as long as you are comfortable with running outdated Akka systems. That entails accepting the risks of missing security patches and new features and improvements for future versions. For most projects, it is essential to decide on the migration or buying the license without much delay after the 2.7.0 release. Scalac can help with both.

The unique area of expertise that your in-house team has is your business domain. It’s very specific, usually non-repeatable knowledge. On the other hand technology upgrades and migrations are independent of the business knowledge and are repeatable processes. Therefore it is beneficial for your team to focus on bringing business value to the company while letting a specialized external team do the migration in a faster, cheaper, and less risky way.

Scalac has been building Akka systems since 2014. With over 100 engineers on board and multiple Lightbend Certified Reactive Architects has a lot of experience and appreciation for the technology. On the other hand, Scalac was involved with ZIO from the beginning (around 2019) and is now partnered with Ziverge to offer development and training using this new technology.

This experience allows Scalac to compose teams with the expertise needed to perform seamless migrations.