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IIS vs Tomcat comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

IIS
Ranking in Application Server
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (1st)
Tomcat
Ranking in Application Server
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Server category, the mindshare of IIS is 7.0%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tomcat is 19.8%, down from 21.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Server
 

Featured Reviews

VikramSingh6 - PeerSpot reviewer
A simple and easy-to-use solution but not recommended for public apps
I would rate the overall solution a six out of ten. We have around five to six developers and engineers for the solution’s deployment and maintenance. You can use the solution if your website is not too big or complicated. However, if it is big and complicated, then you need to use Apache or Red Hat. This tool can be used for internal purposes. But if you plan to host a public app, then I wouldn’t recommend the tool.
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

"The product is scalable."
"We use Windows Server only for Eggplant Manager."
"IIS is stable."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution has been reliable."
"The most valuable feature of IIS is that it's free, and it works."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to use and easy to understand."
"It has an intuitive user interface and provides a lot of options for building reports."
"The product's initial setup phase was simple."
"I love Tomcat for its scalability, reliability, availability, and steadiness."
"It's very stable. No problems at all. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"Tomcat is a simple, light environment, whereas the full Red Hat Fuse solution is heavier."
"Tomcat is a lightweight application server, which makes it easy to deploy and install small applications."
"I like the solution’s ease of use."
"It is a scalable platform."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it supports Java Enterprise."
 

Cons

"The solution is slow and could have better performance."
"The solution should improve the cluster environment and load balancing."
"Having no support for other than a Microsoft environment and programming languages limits the usage of IIS in many cases."
"The documentation of IIS could be better. They are not easily accessible. I had to use YouTube and other online resources to learn how to use the solution properly."
"The cost is a bit too high."
"Sometimes if you are using IIS in large-scale scenarios, meaning that if you are deploying an application within IIS service and you are expecting a large number of users to use this application, you can sometimes find some problems, meaning that the service can shut down by itself unexpectedly if you don't configure your IIS with the correct configuration that can handle this number of users."
"The solution's stability needs improvement."
"The initial setup could be made easier."
"If Apache can come up with a better solution to provide better security, that would be ideal."
"I would also like to see a dashboard with some integrations in order to see the logs and trace performance easier."
"The solution cannot host .NET applications."
"If it could support the driver's VIN, they can run natively without the GBM. Now, we can run what we call the native cloud application that doesn't require GBM. If Tomcat can support that, it's going to improve performance and backup."
"Security integration in Tomcat is complicated. We need to use another tool to solve the security issues."
"Java functions should be built better into the solution."
"The current procedure appears complex and could benefit from a more straightforward solution."
"Vulnerability is one of the areas that can be considered an issue in the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I was using the trial version of IIS inside my virtual machines."
"There is an annual license to use this solution and the price could be better."
"The yearly licensing cost is very high. The solution is very expensive."
"IIS's pricing is reasonable."
"The tool's pricing is on a yearly basis."
"The cost for IIS is already included in Windows services. We don't have to pay anything extra."
"There is a license needed for the solution."
"The solution provides multiple licensing options."
"If it is a community version of the solution, no payment is required. However, if it is a Linux version, we must buy the solution from JBoss."
"This is an open-source product and it's free to use."
"Tomcat is open-source and free to use."
"Tomcat is an open source solution."
"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."
"It is an open-source tool and is free of cost."
"Tomcat's pricing is very cheap."
"It's open-source. We don't pay for the license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
47%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - IIS or NGINX Plus?
IIS is a flexible, secure, and manageable web server to host anything on the web. IIS’s scalable and open architecture can handle the most demanding tasks. From media streaming to web applications,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IIS?
They offer a one-time payment model for the product license, and we pay annually for support. I rate the pricing an eight out of ten.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Windows Server IIS
No data available
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Erste Bank Group, NJVC, Samsung Electronics, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe, Urban Software Institute
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 IIS vs. Tomcat and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
830,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.