Highest possible version of Java with CF2016

Short answer: no, you cannot currently go beyond Java 8 with cf2016, but you will be able to go to Java 11 after the next cf2016 update coming soon (and Adobe will be licensing it for us to use for free, which is just as important). You will not be able to go to Java 9 or 10.

Longer answer:

At this writing, that is indeed the highest jvm supported for cf2016 (1.8.0_202). Support for the short-lived Java 9 or 10 were never added to cf2016.

(FWIW, CF2018 came out last July on Java 10, which was the current/latest Java version at the time. Then Java 11 came out in late 2018 as the next long-term Java release, but CF2018 did not support it.)

As important to all this, Oracle announced in 2018 that Java 11 would NOT be free for production use, nor would updates to Java 8. One would need to pay Oracle for those, which was a rather chilling prospect for CF users.

But great new is that Adobe announced in recent weeks their plan both for an update to cf2016 and 2018 with dupport for Java 11 (due later this month) AND that they had licensed both Java 11 and updates to Java 8 for us using CF.

For more on that, see Adobe's post:

Oracle Java support for Adobe ColdFusion - ColdFusion

And for more context on the issue of Oracle's changed stance on licensing required for production use of Java 11 and updates to Java 8), see my post (written a few months before that Adobe post resolved things):

https://www.carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2018/11/15/on_production_use_of_java_going_forward

Finally, for more on CF and Java 9/10 (again from last year, explaining the oddity of these short term Java releases), see:

https://www.carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2018/5/9/on_coldfusion_and_its_support_for_Java_9_10_and_11