Yes, but for GC still must happen and sometimes even milliseconds can be a problem, depending on the use-case. It really depends on what your business does, so the OPs concerns with the JVM are very valid.

At the same time, I think (while not being an expert) that in the majority of the cases, the GC will not be a problem and that the time you can save from using Akka Cluster allows you to optimize your system more than enough to make up for any GC latency problems, in almost every system.

The only technology that might be better/comparable here is the erlang VM, but I have never used it myself.