Understanding Java Synchronizers: Semaphores, CountDownLatch
Jul 16, 2025 am 02:40 AMSemaphore is used to control the number of concurrent accesses, suitable for resource pool management and flow-limiting scenarios, and control permissions through acquire and release; CountDownLatch is used to wait for multiple thread operations to complete, suitable for the main thread to coordinate child thread tasks. 1. Semaphore initializes the specified number of licenses, supports fair and non-fair modes, and when used, put release in the finally block to avoid deadlocks; 2. CountDownLatch initializes the count, call countDown to reduce the count, await blocks until the count returns to zero, and cannot be reset; 3. Select according to the requirements: use Semaphore to limit concurrency, and wait for all to complete use CountDownLatch. The two are used in combination with actual scenarios to improve concurrent programming efficiency.
Java's synchronization tool class plays a very important role in multi-threaded programming, especially when coordinating behaviors between multiple threads. Among them, Semaphore
and CountDownLatch
are two very commonly used synchronizers. Although they are different in purpose, they can all help us control concurrency processes more efficiently.

Let’s talk about the scenarios these two classes are suitable for use in and the key points that need to be paid attention to when using them.
What is Semaphore? What is it suitable for?
Semaphore
is a counting semaphore used to control the number of threads accessed simultaneously. You can think of it as a pool of resources, such as parking spaces in a parking lot. If there are 5 parking spaces, up to 5 cars are allowed to enter at the same time, and other cars have to wait.

Typical uses:
- Control access to resource pools (such as database connection pools)
- Implement current limiting function
- Simulate mutex (when the permission number is 1)
Key points to use:

- Call
acquire()
to obtain permission, if it cannot be obtained, it will block - Call
release()
to return the permission after using - Can be set whether it is fair (default is not fair)
For example:
Semaphore semaphore = new Semaphore(3); // Allow up to 3 threads to execute semaphore.acquire() at the same time; try { // Perform a controlled operation} finally { semaphore.release(); }
Note: Be sure to put
release()
infinally
block to prevent deadlock.
The role and applicable scenarios of CountDownLatch
CountDownLatch
is like a countdown latch. It sets a count when initializing. Whenever an event occurs, countDown()
method is called once. Until the count returns to zero, all waiting threads will continue to execute.
Typical uses:
- The main thread waits for multiple child threads to complete before continuing
- Unified notification after multiple services are started
- Simulate concurrent request testing
Example of usage:
CountDownLatch latch = new CountDownLatch(3); new Thread(() -> { // Do some work latch.countDown(); }).start(); latch.await(); // Wait for the count to return to zero
Special note:
await()
will block until the count returns to zero. If you are not sure if you will miss a certaincountDown()
, you can consider adding a timeout mechanism.
How to choose Semaphore and CountDownLatch?
Although both are synchronization tools, they solve different types of problems.
- If you need to limit the number of threads running simultaneously, or implement traffic control for some resource access, then choose Semaphore
- If you want some threads to wait for a set of operations to complete before continuing, use CountDownLatch
A brief comparison:
Function | Semaphore | CountDownLatch |
---|---|---|
Is it reusable | Yes (resettable) | No (once zeroing cannot be restored) |
Main uses | Control the number of concurrency | Wait for multiple events to complete |
Core Methods | acquire/release | await / countDown |
Basically that's it. Understanding each application scenario clearly and using it in combination with actual needs can make Java concurrent programming clearer and more organized.
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