JBoss vs Tomcat

Some people will argue that it’s not worthy comparing Tomcat and JBoss, because one of them is a superset of the other. In fact JBoss is bundled with a forked version of Tomcat. So JBoss is Tomcat plus:

• JMS messaging provider
• Web Services engine (JAX-WS and/or JAX-RS)
• Management capabilities like JMX and a scripted administration interface
• A powerful data grid solution (Infinispan)
• Advanced security, e.g. out-of-the-box integration with 3rd party directories
• A dynamic and powerful clustering engine
• Transaction management service

Still many decision makers have to choose between these two, so lets’ take a deeper look at them.

The JBoss AS is an application server based on Java. It is an open source server and is usable in any operating system supported by Java.

Apache Tomcat, or its more widely known name Tomcat, is a servlet container (meaning it is a Java class that operates under the strictures of the Java Servlet API – a protocol by which a Java class responds to an http request). This is an open source server, providing a ‘pure Java’ HTTP web server environment in which code written in Java is capable of running.

Tomcat is only a servlet engine and JBoss offers many more functionalities out of the box. Still JBoss is no longer a heavyweight monolithic container, but a modular application server featuring true classloading isolation, modules loaded on demand, domain management and exceptionally lightweight container. It has a pluggable architecture and if required, you can unplug features from JBoss to make it essentially a Tomcat servlet container.

At the same time the plus going in favour of Tomcat is that it is fairly lightweight, and it means less memory requirement and a faster response. At the same time if you need certain JEE features beyond the Servlet API, you can easily enhance Tomcat. For example, if you need JPA features you can include Hibernate or OpenEJB and JPA works nearly out of the box.

Tomcat is hassle free and might be the right choice when you are not using much of Java features. It is a very good fit if it comes to web centric, user facing applications.

In case backend integration comes into play, a JEE application server should be considered. Last but not least, migrating a WAR developed for Tomcat to JBoss should be a 1 day exercise.

Some people still argue that instead of using application servers, one can still deliver a full stack application using Tomcat + Spring adding the right frameworks and writing the Spring integration layer with these frameworks. That’s for sure true. Still the logical question is what price you will have to pay for that. The JBoss project can be focused around average – to junior developers. Mastering the same complex stack of technologies with Tomcat and Spring requires skilled and well paid developers.

To make it short, Tomcat is merely an HTTP server and Java servlet container. JBoss is a full-blown JEE application servers, including an EJB container and all the other features of that stack. On the other hand, Tomcat has a lighter memory footprint (~60-70 MB), while JBoss weigh in at hundreds of megs. Tomcat is very popular for simple web applications, or applications using frameworks such as Spring that do not require a full JEE server. Administration of a Tomcat server is arguably easier, as there are fewer moving parts.
However, for applications that do require a full JEE stack (or at least more pieces that could easily be bolted-on to Tomcat) JBoss is one of the most popular open source offerings. JBoss has a larger and deeper user community, and a more mature codebase.

So, we should not really care anymore about which is better, but focus on the application requirements. However, you can still use the best of these two worlds in your enterprise applications.

It would be great if your could share your opinions on this topic 🙂 Thanks in advance for your comments!