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Apache Camel 4.16 has just been released.

This release introduces a set of new features and noticeable improvements that we will cover in this blog post.

Camel Core

You can now add note(s) to EIPs in the DSL. The notes have no impact on running Camel, but makes it consistent to include code comments or other notes that are valuable for developers for maintaining. You can of course still use code comments, but note make them available for Camel tooling.

The Rest DSL now supports using camel-jacksonxml for XML binding (JAXB is default).

Camel Telemetry tracing info in headers

From this version onward you will be able to include the trace (and span) generated by any of the camel-telemetry concrete component used. It does not matter which is the implementation chosen, you can now get this information into the Exchange Headers. For example, if you’re using camel-opentelemetry2:

camel.opentelemetry2.enabled=true
camel.opentelemetry2.traceHeadersInclusion=true

Each exchange will now provide the a CAMEL_TRACE_ID amd CAMEL_SPAN_ID that you can use for any scope. Typically you want to use that information for troubleshooting. Together with the new MDC service released in version 4.15, you can now show the different traces flowing in your log:

camel.mdc.enabled=true
camel.mdc.customHeaders=CAMEL_TRACE_ID,CAMEL_SPAN_ID

In your logging configuration:

appender.stdout.layout.pattern = ... %m [%X{CAMEL_TRACE_ID}, %X{CAMEL_SPAN_ID}]%n

and the output will be like:

2025-10-21 12:33:01.685  INFO 272555 --- [ - timer://java] route-main: timer: 796EDDB6DA9896F-0000000000000000 [b75bce5a51264a80b9bd0055ffa61754, cb3a21e2224e483d8e3354890c6ef30a]
2025-10-21 12:33:01.688  INFO 272555 --- [ - timer://java] route-a: directa: 796EDDB6DA9896F-0000000000000000 [b75bce5a51264a80b9bd0055ffa61754, e6661d02e92e46219018e23c64c68552]
...
2025-10-21 12:33:02.664  INFO 272555 --- [ - timer://java] route-main: timer: 796EDDB6DA9896F-0000000000000001 [107cf86699bc483b95a22092db647ef9, 4315098cc33d415c92eb6f5590226bda]
2025-10-21 12:33:02.668  INFO 272555 --- [ - timer://java] route-a: directa: 796EDDB6DA9896F-0000000000000001 [107cf86699bc483b95a22092db647ef9, 29638a34b3904e359480151d762107fc]

Camel JBang

Camel JBang is improved to detect kamelets in use by dynamic EIPs such as toD to include these kamelets during exporting.

The camel get route-dump is now printing precise source code line numbers. And the route dumper is now dumping in YAML format by default.

Camel JBang now detects Spring Boot/Quarkus Java imports when running Java routes, and include the JAR dependencies containing those classes.

Camel Spring Boot

camel-spring-boot is upgraded to the latest Spring Boot 3.5.7 release.

Camel now works again with JDK17 on Spring Boot (was not working in previous 4.15 release).

Java 25

We continue to prepare the code-base for the upcoming Java 25 release. However, this release does not officially support Java 25, but we are not aware of any issues (feedback is welcome). We will work on official Java 25 support in the following releases.

There are some 3rd-party libraries that are not yet Java 25 compatible, and we are waiting for those to release compatible versions.

Miscellaneous

Upgraded many third-party dependencies to the latest releases at the time of release.

The camel-aws-s3 component now includes more bucket operations in the producer.

New Components

  • camel-ibm-cos - Store and retrieve objects from IBM Cloud Object Storage.
  • camel-ibm-watson-discovery - Perform document understanding and search using IBM Watson Discovery
  • camel-ibm-watson-language - Perform natural language processing using IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding
  • camel-pqc - Encrypt and decrypt messages using Post-Quantum Cryptography Key Encapsulation Mechanisms (KEM).

Upgrading

Make sure to read the upgrade guide if you are upgrading from a previous Camel version.

If you are upgrading from, for example, 4.4 to 4.8, then make sure to follow the upgrade guides for each release in-between, i.e. 4.4 -> 4.5, 4.5 -> 4.6, and so forth.

The Camel Upgrade Recipes tool can also be used to automate upgrading. See more at: https://github.com/apache/camel-upgrade-recipes

Release Notes

You can find additional information about this release in the list of resolved JIRA tickets:

Roadmap

The following 4.17 release is planned for December 2025 or January 2026.

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