Java Platform, Enterprise Edition or Java EE (formerly known as Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition or J2EE up to version 1.4), is a programming platform—part of the Java platform—for developing and running distributed multi-tier architecture Java applications, based largely on modular software components running on an application server. The Java EE platform is defined by a specification. Java EE is also considered informally to be a standard because providers must agree to certain conformance requirements in order to declare their products as Java EE compliant; albeit with no ISO or ECMA standard.

Java EE includes several API specifications, such as JDBC, client-side applets, RPC, CORBA, and defines how to coordinate them. Java EE also features some specifications unique to Java EE for components. These include Enterprise Java Beans, servlets, portlets (following the Java Portlet specification), JavaServer Pages and several web service technologies. This allows the developer to create an enterprise application that is portable between platforms and scalable, while integrating with legacy technologies.