Apache Tomcat vs. IBM WebSphere Hybrid Edition

Tomcat is more than enough to deploy most of the mid-end web applications without any problem but for the high-end applications which require high scalability and high availability, which might need some tune-ups with the support of expertise in this regard. Otherwise, you may realize numerous performance issues, memory leaks, server crashes etc.

Incentivized

IBM WebSphere Hybrid edition is well-suited for the development and deployment of large enterprise-level applications such as Electronic Health Records that are used in our organization. IBM WebSphere is appropriate for organizations that require strong security and compliance as it provides a high level of security and compliance features. This works well with organizations that are subject to strict regulatory requirements, such as hospitals.

Incentivized

• Fast to start up, which is useful when we need to just check that our changes are working correctly.
• Free, which allows us to not be involved with the finance/legal team about using it.
• Bundled with Spring Boot, which makes it even more convenient for our testing.

Incentivized

• It works out of the box. Its basic functionality is all there and everything works with no adjustments.
• The functionality is there for fine tuning, to allow applications to be easier to access and quicker with some tweaks, but again, these aren't necessary for basic running.

Incentivized

• tomcat is just part of the J2EE specification implementation, majorly focusing on the servlet (front-end) part. If you requires the full J2ee stack, like EJB support, you need consider other containers like Weblogic
• tomcat's cluster level support is very limited
• tomcat's admin/configuration is not so intuitive, and default logging needs a lot of improvement

Incentivized

• In this era of cloud technology, Websphere Application Server required Integration with cloud technology.
• Troubleshooting tools need to included in Websphere Application Server package for better troubleshooting of issues.
• Websphere Application Server comes with some basic performance tools and these troubleshooting and performance tools need to be enhanced.
• It's available in all operating systems like Windows AIX Unix Solaris Zos etc.

Incentivized

We have a huge knowledge of the product within our company and we're satisfied with the performance.

Incentivized

Mostly we will be renewing unless the strategic direction changes drastically or there are other complelling external circumstances. We've been on a multi year project to modernize our legacy applications and that effort will continue for the foreseeable future.

Incentivized

Tomcat has a very rich API set which allows us to implement our automation script to trigger the deployment, configure, stop and start Tomcat from the command line. In our projects, we embedded Tomcat in our Eclipse in all of the developer's machines so they could quickly verify their code with little effort, Azure Webapp has strong support for Tomcat so we could move our application to Azure cloud very easy. One drawback is Tomcat UI quite poorly features but we almost do not use it.

Incentivized

WebSphere Application Server is used across our organization. Most projects use this for Java products and applications. Being robust and scalable makes it even more usable. We love using WebSphere Application Server due to its configuration management ability made simple and vast across all java related parameters. It is dependent on the features and upgrades and IBM releases some great upgrades to WebSphere Application Server.

Incentivized

Tomcat doesn't have a built-in watchdog that ensures restart upon failure, so you have to provide it externally. A very good solution is java service wrapper. The community edition is able to restart Tomcat upon out of memories exceptions.

Incentivized

Tomcat support to customize memory used and allow us to define the Connection pool and thread pool to increase system performance and availability, Tomcat server itself consume very little memory and almost no footprint. We use Tomcat in our production environment which has up to thousands of concurrent users and it is stable and provides a quick response.

Incentivized

Deploys fairly quick enough and like the roll-out update feature decreasing the downtime and also plays well with other integration tools as well.

Incentivized

Well, in actuality, I have never needed support for Apache Tomcat since it is configured and ready-to-go with no configuration needed on my end.

Incentivized

IBM was quick to respond when we had an issue with our specific infrastructure. We raised a PMR, which they picked up quickly and updated us about every step of the way. We had an appropriate fix for quite a business critical issue within a fortnight, which was impressive!

Incentivized

Commercial application servers are available that support enterprise application needs, but many times this is overkill for most web applications running in the cloud, particularly for independent software vendors. The capabilities and management tools provided with these applications are superior to Tomcat, but most times unnecessary for the vast majority of web applications developed in Java.

Incentivized

I did not choose IBM WAS, it was a coporate decision. We are glad that we have been using this for a number of years and are quite happy as a corporation. However, it does take more time to learn WAS because of its complexity in terms of installation, various features and special deployment and packaging needs.

Incentivized

It's very easy to add instances to an existing deployment and, using apache with mod proxy balancer, to scale up the serving farm

Incentivized

• It has simplified administration efforts, thus saving much time to focus on other projects and issues.
• It saves us in costs, as there are no licensing requirements.
• It gives us the ability to manage all of our java applets in one place, so as to be able to host both development and production systems on one server.

Incentivized

• It has security features that has enhanced security of our enterprise and its data.
• WebSphere Hybrid Edition has improved performance making it easier for our organization to fix any problem that might occur.
• It has improved collaboration enhancing team work making the work efficient.
• WebSphere Hybrid Edition can be complex to individuals who are not familiar with it.

Incentivized