Groovy is an “agile dynamic language for the Java Virtual Machine, builds upon the strengths of Java but has additional power features inspired by languages like Python, Ruby and Smalltalk” - from their site. It’s quite interesting, so i decided to write about it. On RailsEnvy blog we can find more features about it from this: article. Many informations also were on last Dynamic Languages World Conference. What is more, Groovy has a brilliant Grails framework inspired by Ruby On Rails. It all looks nifty huh ? but … there is a “little” problem with Groovy - low performance You can find tests and quick comparison here. UPDATE! (may 2008 test but isnt still truly - JRuby 1.1.2 is faster still, thay compared 1.1.1 version). Why it is so ? explanation you can find in headius (Charles Nutter) blog in this article. Generally speaking if you want to power of Java in beautiful language choose JRuby - its much much better (faster and more powerful) - this is my opinion