We performed a comparison between IBM WebSphere Application Server and Tomcat based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Application Server solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."IBM WAS is the backbone for our enterprise content management suite which delivers the primary processes for our customers. Without a good application server, it would be hard to provide a secure layer of midddleware upon which the other applications run. IBM WAS improves the stability of the entire solution and provides a high quality platform for running web-based solutions."
"It does integrate well with the Tivoli Federated Identity Management system."
"The most valuable features are its user-friendliness and reliability in terms of application hosting."
"Starting with version 8, WAS provides a special folder called monitor deployment. Once you put the .war or .ear file in there, it is deployed automatically without human intervention. This greatly helps us in our continuous integration server. Once the deployment binary is ready, we write a script to copy it to that folder and then, voila! The application is up and running and accessible from its context root."
"WebSphere Application Server's best features include the data subscription and connection viewer."
"The solution is very stable and robust."
"The thing about WebSphere, as opposed to other ones that I am aware of such as JBoss and Liberty, is that WebSphere has the most comprehensive scaffolding available to it."
"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."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the general web server features."
"I like the solution’s ease of use."
"Tomcat is easy to handle, its installation process does not take much time, and its server speed is also very good compared to other servers."
"The most valuable feature of Tomcat is its ability to export libraries into different instances so that I can use it not only in one application but in multiple applications."
"It's very stable. No problems at all. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"The scalability overall is good."
"It is a robust solution."
"We can use Apache Tomcat for Java server applications."
"The current trend is to move to Liberty because of the portability of its cloud and its Kubernetes, which containerize the application."
"Sometimes, I feel WebSphere runs a bit slow. It might be loading unnecessary libraries, impacting its performance compared to other application servers."
"In spite of the solution's robustness, it is expensive and a bit difficult to support."
"The availability of the solution needs improvement."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server hasn't changed much. It's still a heavyweight for any company compared to what you get. Unless your code base is deeply linked with it, I don't think it's a great idea to go with this solution. The current trend is toward modularity and containerization, and given the product's requirements, containerization will be difficult. There is a memory requirement as well."
"WebSphere Application Server doesn't have an automated deployment option, forcing us to use third-party tools like Jenkins UCD and Palo Automated Deployment."
"The installation has room for improvement."
"They should make the solution more lightweight and not bundle everything into a single product."
"Tomcat needs to improve its user interface."
"If Apache can come up with a better solution to provide better security, that would be ideal."
"Technical support is limited."
"Vulnerability is one of the areas that can be considered an issue in the solution."
"Our biggest challenge is that the Tomcat servers are not hosted locally."
"The setup is complex and could be improved."
"Performance optimization is an area of concern in Tomcat that should be made better."
"The product's pricing needs improvement."
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IBM WebSphere Application Server is ranked 5th in Application Server with 26 reviews while Tomcat is ranked 2nd in Application Server with 45 reviews. IBM WebSphere Application Server is rated 7.8, while Tomcat is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of IBM WebSphere Application Server writes "Compatible, stable, and scalable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tomcat writes "A lightweight tool that offers efficiency in terms of memory and resource usage". IBM WebSphere Application Server is most compared with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, JBoss, Oracle WebLogic Server, IBM BPM and IBM DataPower Gateway, whereas Tomcat is most compared with Oracle WebLogic Server, JBoss, IIS, Caucho Resin and Oracle GlassFish. See our IBM WebSphere Application Server vs. Tomcat report.
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