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IBM Open Liberty vs Spring Boot comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

IBM Open Liberty
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
2.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (7th)
Spring Boot
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Java Frameworks (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Open Liberty and Spring Boot aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Open Liberty is designed for Application Server and holds a mindshare of 4.6%, up 1.6% compared to last year.
Spring Boot, on the other hand, focuses on Java Frameworks, holds 25.3% mindshare, down 39.9% since last year.
Application Server Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Open Liberty4.6%
Tomcat12.6%
Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP)9.8%
Other73.0%
Application Server
Java Frameworks Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Spring Boot25.3%
Jakarta EE16.6%
Apache Spark11.8%
Other46.3%
Java Frameworks
 

Q&A Highlights

PA
Global Delivery Head, Global Banking Technology at Bank of America
Aug 20, 2023
 

Featured Reviews

FABIO LUIS VELLOSO DA SILVA - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner at SouJava
Has enabled flexible deployment of modular services with high availability and smooth dynamic updates
The best features of IBM Open Liberty are the implementation of MicroProfile and Jakarta EE, along with fault tolerance and high availability. It's easy to use and deploy new features. The profile is easy to configure and set up features. For example, using fault tolerance from MicroProfile or using servlets or JAX-RS allows for easy configuration and creation of modular applications. The configuration is modular. The main point for us in this project was high availability, high performance, and the implementation of MicroProfile and Jakarta EE. We utilized the modular architecture of IBM Open Liberty by creating different microservices using different environments. We created different configurations for different services using the configuration of IBM Open Liberty. This was very beneficial. We created different environments only by changing the configuration, depending on the functionality we needed. It was good and very flexible for us. I used the dynamic updates feature of IBM Open Liberty and different configurations in different services and servers, based on the functionality we provided for our clients. The flexibility to create different services in different environments using IBM Open Liberty was important. The high availability is guaranteed by the architecture of IBM Open Liberty, Java, and MicroProfile. The architecture guaranteed high availability, and the flexibility comes from being able to configure needed features. There's no need to load all WebSphere or functionalities in all environments. I can configure it and create a more highly available and scalable process. I implemented monitoring tools for IBM Open Liberty using Grafana and OpenTracing using the functionalities from MicroProfile and IBM Open Liberty. The monitoring tools helped with managing system performance.
reviewer2759913 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Software Developer at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees
Has improved application monitoring and supports modular development with built-in configuration features
Spring Boot has many valuable features. First, it requires less coding and less configuration. The configurations are already in-built. The security features in Spring Boot are in-built, so we don't need to use any external third-party applications for security. In Spring Boot, the robust configuration capabilities help in adapting to diverse deployment scenarios because there is a minimum configuration required for developing any applications. The auto-configuration feature is available in Spring Boot. When we start any application, there is a property file where we mention the keys, securities, DB connections, and all other configurations. When we start any application, it loads the application properties first, which include the credentials and security files. I am using Spring Boot starter projects. I assess Spring Boot's auto-configuration feature as highly efficient in managing application setup. The application.properties file allows us to specify the server settings, such as the port we want to start the server on. For example, the default is 8080, but we can configure it to 8081. Additionally, we can store connection details such as the driver class, data source URL, username, and password in the application.properties file.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The flexibility to create different services in different environments using IBM Open Liberty was important."
"It is a stable solution compared to other vendors."
"It gives you confidence in a readily available platform."
"Spring Boot's main feature is that it's great for DevOps because you can write your own application. You don't need to install Apache Tomcat. You can create your project easily with a few clicks."
"It's very easy to get started. It's very quick. Most of the configurations are already available. So not much time is spent on setting up things. One can quickly set up and then get rolling."
"The community surrounding Spring Boot is really good. If you face any issue with Spring Boot, you will get the answer from the community."
"I have found the starter solutions valuable, as well as integration with other products."
"The initial setup is very straightforward using the Spring Initializr, and you can configure any project in a matter of seconds, creating an executable JAR that will run automatically with a single command."
"The solution's framework is stable."
"Spring Boot favors convention over configuration so there are no big challenges when it comes to setting it up."
 

Cons

"Its support documentation could have detailed information on database integration."
"To improve IBM Open Liberty, more integration with Kafka and message systems, and asynchronous messaging would be beneficial."
"They should include tutorial videos for learning new features."
"Spring Boot could improve the interface, error handling, and integration performance."
"There are tons of improvements that we can do in Spring Boot."
"Spring Boot is okay right now, but my team is looking for some integration where you can make a call to the JMS messaging service and other types of third-party integrations. If the integration with Spring Boot is improved, that would make the tool better. What I'd like to see in the next release of Spring Boot is its integration or tie-up with messaging servers and third-party EFPs, as that would make it very good and more competitive versus other new solutions in the market."
"It's difficult to explain to junior developers what it does under the hood."
"I would like to see more integration in this solution."
"This is not a tool for beginners; you need to know and understand it well, and it needs to be simplified and more user-friendly."
"Building a new product in Spring Boot can take a long time since the solution uses reflection. This is one area the solution could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is less costly than one of its competitors."
"Spring Boot is an open source solution, it is free to use."
"Spring Boot is open source. It's a free tool and free framework."
"The solution is free."
"Spring Boot is free; even the Spring Tools Suite for Eclipse is free."
"As Spring Boot is an open-source tool, it's free."
"This is an open source solution."
"Spring Boot is an open-source solution."
"Spring Boot is open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
40%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Open Liberty?
To improve IBM Open Liberty, more integration with Kafka and message systems, and asynchronous messaging would be beneficial. Having more integration with Kafka, Mongo, and middleware systems that ...
What is your primary use case for Open Liberty?
I used IBM Open Liberty for an application for financial services using IBM Open Liberty and MicroProfile to process data for financial services work.
What advice do you have for others considering Open Liberty?
I used IBM Open Liberty in the past in a project, but today I'm not using it anymore. I had a good experience working with it in a financial services company. This was very beneficial. My review ra...
What do you like most about Spring Boot?
1. Open Source2. Excellent Community Support -- Widely used across different projects -- so your search for answers would be easy and almost certain.3. Extendable Stack with a wide array of availab...
Which is better - Spring Boot or Eclipse MicroProfile?
Springboot is a Java-based solution that is very popular and easy to use. You can use it to build applications quickly and confidently. Springboot has a very large, helpful learning community, whic...
Which is better - Spring Boot or Jakarta EE?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Spring Boot or Jakarta EE application creation software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Spring Boot. Spring Boot offe...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Apache, Oracle and others in Application Server. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.