A native image doesn’t have jit but can be optimized through analysis or profile guided optimization

Optimized by a human, you mean?

That's actually what I'm looking for in this case.

Producing a native image is still a very manual process yeah? I played with it a few months ago with mixed success

see docs: https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/jdk/20/docs/reference-manual/native-image/guides/optimize-native-executable-with-pgo/index.html#optimize-a-native-executable-with-profile-guided-optimizations

That makes it seem like "just call native-image"