JNA provides Java programs easy access to native shared libraries (DLLs on Windows) without writing anything but Java code—no JNI or native code is required. This functionality is comparable to Windows' Platform/Invoke and Python's ctypes. Access is dynamic at runtime without code generation.

JNA's design aims to provide native access in a natural way with a minimum of effort. No boilerplate or generated code is required. While some attention is paid to performance, correctness and ease of use take priority.