Java is a programming language and a platform. Java is a high level, robust, secured and object-oriented programming language. Platform: Any hardware or software environment in which a program runs, is known as a platform. Since Java has its own runtime environment (JRE) and API, it is called platform.
Standalone Application: It is also known as a desktop application or window-based application. An application that we need to install on every machine such as media player, antivirus etc. AWT and Swing are used in java for creating standalone applications.
Web Application: An application that runs on the server side and creates dynamic page, is called web application. Currently, servlet, jsp, struts, jsf etc. technologies are used for creating web applications in java.
Enterprise Application: An application that is distributed in nature, such as banking applications etc. It has the advantage of high level security, load balancing and clustering. In java, EJB is used for creating enterprise applications.
Mobile Application: An application that is created for mobile devices. Currently Android and Java ME are used for creating mobile applications.
Java SE (Java Standard Edition): It is a java programming platform. It includes Java programming APIs such as java.lang, java.io, java.net, java.util, java.sql, java.math etc. It includes core topics like OOPs, String, Regex, Exception, Inner classes, Multithreading, I/O Stream, Networking, AWT, Swing, Reflection, Collection etc.
Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition): It is an enterprise platform which is mainly used to develop web and enterprise applications. It is built on the top of Java SE platform. It includes topics like Servlet, JSP, Web Services, EJB, JPA etc.
Java ME (Java Micro Edition):It is a micro platform which is mainly used to develop mobile applications.
JavaFx: It is used to develop rich internet applications. It uses light-weight user interface API.
