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IBM WebSphere Application Server vs Tomcat comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM WebSphere Application S...
Ranking in Application Server
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (5th)
Tomcat
Ranking in Application Server
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Application Server category, the mindshare of IBM WebSphere Application Server is 12.0%, up from 11.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tomcat is 19.9%, down from 22.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Server
 

Featured Reviews

Saleem Shar - PeerSpot reviewer
Compatible, stable, and scalable
IBM WebSphere Application Server is one of the best servers due to its stability and paid license. I have never encountered any issues when installing and deploying applications, as it never goes down. Currently, there are two versions of WebSphere Application Server: the old version, known as WebSphere Application ND, and the newer version, Liberty, which is Docker-based. I have experience with both and have never encountered any issues. I believe that WebSphere Application Server is a great feature.
Damian Bukowski - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, protects applications, and the support team is responsive
The tool is deployed on the cloud. We do maintenance when certificates need updating, but we don't do the maintenance of the servers. We have about 20 engineers and administrators in our technical team. The deployment was very simple. We got a guide from Apache. Everything was explained very clearly. The deployment took a couple of days.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"What's most valuable in IBM WebSphere Application Server is its resilience. When you use the solution, you know that after the communication has been done, there will be no doubt that the data has reached its destination."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server is the best in terms of scalability and performance, as well as the support for managing distributed transactions."
"Security: It is compatible with the latest Java 8 security features, supports FIPS 140-2 and NIST SP 800-53 with strong ciphers and cryptography keys, and supports TLS 1.2 completely. Also, configuring client and server certificates is relatively easy."
"High availability, alert management, and deployments are the most valuable features for us. We have the ND version so we can do deployments."
"The solution is robust. The connection management and the scalability, which IBM provides to the Stack, are also valuable."
"Ease of administration: It has an Integrated Solutions Console, what we call the administrative console, with very detailed configurations and Help pages for each configurable item."
"IBM WAS is extremely scalable. It is easy to add additional servers and to divide the load over servers in all kinds of ways."
"We needed this type of integration and WebShepere is the best tool for it."
"The solution is convenient. It is a comfortable and easy-to-use solution for my use cases."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it supports Java Enterprise."
"Tomcat's best feature is the open source server. It's a flexible and lightweight solution."
"I love Tomcat for its scalability, reliability, availability, and steadiness."
"Tomcat is a simple, light environment, whereas the full Red Hat Fuse solution is heavier."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the general web server features."
"Our company doesn't face any stability issues while using Tomcat."
"The most valuable feature is how simple it is to deploy the solution."
 

Cons

"The solution consumes hardware."
"The installation has room for improvement."
"When compared with WebLogic, Weblogic is lighter and consumes less memory."
"Based on the field and based on the build that was provided, we've noticed a lot of constraints in terms of the performance now."
"The footprint could be reduced so that we can use a smaller virtual machine to run the application. We could also use more scripts. I would like this solution to be more script oriented, rather than GUI oriented."
"When we run into memory or locking issues, we resort to using third-party tools. However, it would be preferable to have native tools for debugging this type of problem."
"In the next release of this solution, I would like to see support for the Arabic language."
"Some things are very difficult to do, so the interface and usage could be more intuitive for those."
"Deployment in Tomcat should be done through a GUI. We deploy applications from the backend using commands."
"The solution's interface and backup features could be better."
"The current procedure appears complex and could benefit from a more straightforward solution."
"Tomcat needs to improve its user interface."
"Tomcat is a polished product that has been around for a long time. It should be simple and high-performing, with the ability to grow and maintain stability. The fewer features it has, the more stable it will be."
"Sometimes, the UI part does not run properly, or the server goes down."
"I would also like to see a dashboard with some integrations in order to see the logs and trace performance easier."
"The product needs to have more updates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If your application is just a web app that does not need to scale big, you can obtain a single core license of WAS Express edition, which has almost the same features with limited processing cores. If you manage a very big application farm (i.e. need to run 10 or more WAS servers) it is better to get IBM WAS Hypervisor Edition."
"It is very expensive."
"WebSphere Application Server is expensive, so it may not be a good option for small companies."
"We used to pay about $100,000-$120,000 US or somewhere around there. That was a bit cost-prohibitive for us to continue."
"The pricing is a little expensive."
"It costs more than some of the others, but, you get what you pay for."
"Room for improvement would only be in the licensing. As with all IBM products the licensing can be complex and expensive. Bargain well and try to get as much discount as possible. Discounts of 85% are possible. Without the discount, I think the product is overrated."
"My company is on a perpetual or permanent license agreement with IBM WebSphere Application Server. There's also a pay-per-use option, but customers rarely choose that option. Most of the customers are on the perpetual license deal that's all-inclusive. As the license cost is quite expensive, I'm rating it two out of five."
"Tomcat is an open-source server."
"The solution is free."
"We are currently using the open-source version."
"Tomcat's pricing is very cheap."
"I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
"We are using the open-source version."
"Tomcat is not costlier than other solutions."
"There are no additional costs apart from the standard license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
46%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM WebSphere Application Server?
Network Deployment is the most useful feature for scalability. It has many features within the standard WebSphere Application Server edition.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Application Server?
The product is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Application Server?
I think in some moments, the security was a little bit more complex to configure when it was delegated to other systems, making it an area where improvements are required.
What do you like most about Tomcat?
Tomcat's ease of use has positively impacted project timelines. Tomcat already has high availability – it doesn't go down so often and doesn't require a lot of maintenance. As long as your applicat...
What needs improvement with Tomcat?
Tomcat's stability could be improved, especially when handling more memory-intensive, large-scale applications. It tends to break and requires restarts with such applications. This can be difficult...
What is your primary use case for Tomcat?
We use Tomcat as an application server to deploy our developed applications. It's used for deploying applications on Tomcat servers and is suitable for small, lightweight applications.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere Application Server
No data available
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TalkTalk, Property management group, E.SUN Bank, Ohio National Financial Services, Aviarc, Cincom Systems, FJA-US, D+H, Staples, Michigan Municipal League
1. Adobe Systems 2. Amazon 3. Apple 4. AT&T 5. Bank of America 6. Boeing 7. Cisco Systems 8. Citigroup 9. Dell 10. eBay 11. Facebook 12. General Electric 13. Google 14. Hewlett-Packard 15. IBM 16. Intel 17. JPMorgan Chase 18. Microsoft 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. PayPal 22. Salesforce 23. Samsung 24. Sony 25. Target 26. Twitter 27. Uber 28. Verizon 29. Visa 30. Volkswagen 31. Walmart 32. Yahoo
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM WebSphere Application Server vs. Tomcat and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.