J9:
time ./jdk-9+181/bin/java -client -jar l2i-0.1.0-SNAPSHOT-standalone.jar
real 0m1.987s user 0m3.383s sys 0m0.161s
time ./jdk-9+181/bin/java -server -jar l2i-0.1.0-SNAPSHOT-standalone.jar
real 0m2.949s user 0m5.452s sys 0m0.167s
OpenJDK 8:
[root@localhost ~]# time java -server -jar l2i-0.1.0-SNAPSHOT-standalone.jar
real 0m1.545s user 0m2.510s sys 0m0.175s
time java -client -jar l2i-0.1.0-SNAPSHOT-standalone.jar
real 0m1.456s user 0m2.309s sys 0m0.182s
----
For whatever it means, this is a repeated execution of 10 runs together for J9:
real 0m17.341s user 0m26.783s sys 0m1.344s
And this is the same thing for openjdk version "1.8.0_144"
real 0m15.169s user 0m24.573s sys 0m1.711s
So I'd say that the answer to your question is is no, they are in the same class for a short-running Clojure app dominated by startup times, unless there is some special tweak.