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Java Atomic vs Volatile vs Synchronized

Last Updated : 23 Jul, 2025

In Java, multithreading can lead to challenges related to thread safety and data consistency. Java provides concurrency mechanisms like Atomic, Volatile, and Synchronized to address these issues and ensure thread safety. These mechanisms offer unique advantages and limitations.

Features

Applies to

Purpose

Performance

Concurrency

The synchronized keyword in Java is used to control access to shared resources among multiple threads. It can be applied to methods or blocks of code. When a method or block is declared as synchronized, only one thread can execute it on a given object at a time. This ensures data consistency and prevents race conditions.

• It can be applied to methods or blocks of code.
• When a method or block is synchronized, only one thread can execute it on a given object at any time.
• Every object in Java has an intrinsic lock associated with it. A thread must acquire this lock before entering a synchronized method or block.
• Synchronized code blocks may lead to thread contention, which can negatively impact performance, especially with excessive synchronization.

Example:

// Java program to demonstrate 
// the synchronized modifier
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

class CounterThread extends Thread {
    private int count;

    // Synchronized method to prevent race conditions
    @Override
    public synchronized void run() {
        try {
            TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.sleep(100);  // Simulate work with sleep
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        count++; // Increment the count
    }

    public int getCount() {
        return count;
    }
}

public class Geeks {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
        CounterThread t1 = new CounterThread();
        CounterThread t2 = new CounterThread();

        t1.start();
        t2.start();
        t1.join();
        t2.join();

        // Expected output is 1 because only 
        // one thread can increment at a time
        System.out.println("Count: " + t1.getCount());
    }
}

Explanation: In the above example, the synchronized method ensures that only one thread can execute the run() method at a time, preventing race conditions. Though two threads attempting to increment the count concurrently, the synchronization ensures they are executed sequentially.

The volatile keyword in Java ensures that all threads have a consistent view of a variable's value. It prevents caching of the variable's value by threads, ensuring that updates to the variable are immediately visible to other threads.

• It applies only to variables.
• volatile guarantees visibility i.e. any write to a volatile variable is immediately visible to other threads.
• It does not guarantee atomicity, meaning operations like count++ (read-modify-write operations) can still result in inconsistent values.

Example:

// Java program to demonstrate the 
// volatile modifier with non-atomic increment
class Counter {
    private volatile int count;   // Volatile variable

    public void increment() {
        count++;   // This operation is not atomic
    }

    public int getCount() {
        return count;
    }
}

public class Geeks {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Counter c = new Counter();

        Thread t1 = new Thread(() -> {
            for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
                c.increment();
            }
        });

        Thread t2 = new Thread(() -> {
            for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
                c.increment();
            }
        });

        t1.start();
        t2.start();

        try {
            t1.join();
            t2.join();
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }


        System.out.println("Count: " + c.getCount());
    }
}

Explanation: In the above example, the volatile variable is count. While volatile ensures visibility of changes across threads and the increament operation is non-atomic, race condition can still occur. The expected result may be less than or equal to 2000.

Atomic classes, such as AtomicInteger, are part of the java.util.concurrent.atomic package. These classes provide thread-safe operations on variables without the need for synchronization. They use low-level atomic operations like compare-and-swap (CAS) to ensure thread safety.

• Atomic operations ensure atomicity of the read-modify-write actions on variables.
• These classes are lock-free and more efficient than synchronized blocks because they avoid the overhead of acquiring locks.
• Atomic operations are performed using methods like incrementAndGet(), compareAndSet(), and getAndSet().

Example:

import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger;

class CounterThread extends Thread {
    private AtomicInteger count = new AtomicInteger();  // Atomic variable

    @Override
    public void run() {
        for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
            try {
                Thread.sleep(i * 50);  // Simulate work with sleep
                count.incrementAndGet();  // Atomic increment operation
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }

    public int getCount() {
        return count.get();    // Get current value of count
    }
}

public class Geeks {
    public static void main(String[] args) 
      throws InterruptedException {
        CounterThread t1 = new CounterThread();
        CounterThread t2 = new CounterThread();

        t1.start();
        t2.start();
        t1.join();
        t2.join();

        // Expected output is 10 because 
        // each thread increments 5 times.
        System.out.println("Count: " + (t1.getCount() + t2.getCount()));
    }
}

Explanation: In the above example, the AtomicInteger class ensures that the incrementAndGet() operation is atomic across multiple threads. Each thread increments the count 5 times, so the final output will always be 10 (5 increments per thread). 

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