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HCL Digital Experience vs IBM WebSphere Application Server comparison

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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

HCL Digital Experience
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (11th)
IBM WebSphere Application S...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (5th), Application Infrastructure (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

HCL Digital Experience and IBM WebSphere Application Server aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. HCL Digital Experience is designed for Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) and holds a mindshare of 4.0%, down 7.0% compared to last year.
IBM WebSphere Application Server, on the other hand, focuses on Application Server, holds 7.3% mindshare, down 11.1% since last year.
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HCL Digital Experience4.0%
Adobe Experience Manager11.1%
Liferay Digital Experience Platform9.5%
Other75.4%
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)
Application Server Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM WebSphere Application Server7.3%
Tomcat12.8%
Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP)9.8%
Other70.1%
Application Server
 

Featured Reviews

it_user677694 - PeerSpot reviewer
Responsable Technique IT at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
It's easy to customize security access for all resources or content.
Design which contents do you want integrate to your IBM portal. Evaluate constraints for each integration and solve them by technology choices included in this product. They are a lot of solution proposed by IBM portal products Choose if you want a premise solution or a cloud solution ( 2 solutions are advantages and disadvantages)
CF
Senior Manager, MW & DB Automation at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Has worked seamlessly in complex clustered environments and supports long-term development efforts
IBM WebSphere Application Server is currently at version 9.0.5.23. In recent months, they released fix 23, as they periodically release fixes. Previously, they frequently increased versions, but now they maintain 9.0.5 with different releases. It's based on Java J2EE 7 and Java SDK 1.8. Oracle announced that 2030 will be the last year when Java SDK 1.8 will be supported. Oracle currently deploys Java 2.x in parallel, with the latest being version 25. The future of IBM WebSphere Application Server remains uncertain since it's based on Java 1.8 and Java 7. I haven't found any white papers or official documentation from IBM outlining their trajectory post-2030.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Workflow to manage page and content with validation step is great and it's easy to customize security access for all resources or content."
"The product offers good performance."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server is the best in terms of scalability and performance, as well as the support for managing distributed transactions."
"The technical support from IBM is very good and responsive."
"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."
"They offer good help to help resolve the issue."
"We needed this type of integration and WebShepere is the best tool for it."
"It has good stability of the application server in the long term compared to other solutions."
"We have about 3,000 users concurrently using this application, and it has achieved more than 99.9% up time which has resulted in increased productivity and efficiency."
 

Cons

"Customer service is medium for quality and answer, low for resolving problem."
"The availability of the solution needs improvement. The product should be more enhanced and responsive."
"I find the server okay, however, using the Maker instance, the Moving instance, and the Change instance is a little bit complicated without WebSphere knowledge."
"The installation is not straightforward and it can take three days."
"I would note that the response time is something IBM's support team needs to improve."
"The solution is very expensive compared to an open-source stack."
"While WebSphere mostly supports IBM HTTP Server (IHS) as the web server plugin, I think it would be beneficial if it also supported Apache and NGINX web servers. That would give customers more flexibility in their choices."
"Stability is frustrating. It goes down after a specific number of user connections."
"As the license cost is quite expensive, I'm rating it two out of five."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"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."
"It's expensive."
"The pricing is a little expensive."
"The licensing cost is 1,000 of euros for a 30-year table."
"WebSphere Application Server is expensive, so it may not be a good option for small companies."
"When you purchase Maximo, you get WebSphere for free."
"The price of IBM WebSphere Application Server could be less expensive and there is an annual license required for this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Application Server?
At Royal Bank, which is a major IBM customer with mainframes and numerous IBM products, they have a specific agreement regarding pricing. The pricing structure for large enterprise customers differ...
What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Application Server?
IBM WebSphere Application Server is currently at version 9.0.5.23. In recent months, they released fix 23, as they periodically release fixes. Previously, they frequently increased versions, but no...
What is your primary use case for IBM WebSphere Application Server?
I was part of an application where I integrated IBM WebSphere Application Server with Node.js and Blue Prism. I did a lot of REST applications because at my core, I'm a developer. Currently, I'm an...
 

Also Known As

IBM Digital Experience Manager, IBM WebSphere Portal
WebSphere Application Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Skypicker, Inventive, Factor-y S.r.l., Meander Medical Center, Intesa S.p.A., Deutsche Lufthansa AG, CinePostproduction, UnipolSai Assicurazioni S.p.A, Jyske Bank, Swiss Export Risk Insurance
TalkTalk, Property management group, E.SUN Bank, Ohio National Financial Services, Aviarc, Cincom Systems, FJA-US, D+H, Staples, Michigan Municipal League
Find out what your peers are saying about Adobe, ContentSquare, Liferay and others in Digital Experience Platforms (DXP). Updated: August 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.