There are many scripting languages implemented in Java, including Netscape’s Rhino implementation of ECMAScript, Jacl and JPython. While each of these is embeddable in Java and provides the ability to interact with Java from the language, using a specific scripting language binds an application to that single language.

The Java world currently does not have a well-defined scripting architecture that allows Java applications to incorporate scripting easily - BSF is such an architecture. The BSF architecture allows an application to be scripted from any BSF supported language, without any scripting language dependencies.

BSF supports both directions of scripting: in one case where the Java-side is in charge and runs/evaluates scripts at will, and in the other case the script runs and controls Java beans or any Java Object for that matter.