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IBM Open Liberty vs Spring Boot comparison

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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
44
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 4.4%, up 2.6% compared to last year.
Spring Boot, on the other hand, focuses on Java Frameworks, holds 24.4% mindshare, down 38.0% since last year.
Application Server Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Open Liberty4.4%
Tomcat13.1%
Oracle WebLogic Server10.2%
Other72.3%
Application Server
Java Frameworks Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Spring Boot24.4%
Jakarta EE14.3%
Apache Spark11.7%
Other49.599999999999994%
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.
Akash Surwase - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Developer at Systems Plus Solutions
Microservices have empowered efficient API development and simple monitoring for teams
Spring Boot's most valuable features include its ability to provide a microservice environment. Microservices can be created using Spring Boot, allowing simple APIs to be bundled together and deployed to servers as small chunks of APIs. The framework is tightly coupled, enabling the creation of multiple APIs. Spring Boot provides numerous features such as security and monitoring capabilities. Spring Boot's starter projects allow for project creation within the spring.io initializer. Once a project is created, dependencies can be added according to requirements. For example, SQL dependencies are available for SQL and MS SQL databases, and Camel dependency is available for the Camel framework. REST APIs can be called using HTTP dependencies, which can be added to the POM to write code. Spring Boot provides numerous annotations for managing application setup efficiently. Examples include @Component and @Value annotations. The SpringBoot @SpringBootEnableConfiguration annotation can be used in the main application for configuration purposes. Spring Boot's robust configuration capabilities allow applications to be deployed using a JAR, which is a bundle. Lightweight JARs can be deployed to servers by creating a JAR in the target folder once the application is run. Applications can be deployed to any environment, whether cloud or on-premises. The Actuator for monitoring has benefited application management. A common actuator endpoint called actuator/health provides the status of the application and information about applications by simply hitting the APIs. HTTP traces and requests can be obtained as needed. Positive impacts have been observed since starting to use Spring Boot in the company because it is a framework that allows for easy creation of microservices. Multiple APIs can be created easily. Annotations in Spring Boot make it straightforward to use and write code. The framework is set with a controller, model, entity, and security, requiring only the writing of business logic, and deployment is very straightforward.

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."
"The solution reduces our development time."
"This is a pretty light solution. It's not too heavy."
"Spring Boot's configuration is easy, and it has an out-of-the-box deployment."
"My company relies on Spring Boot and uses it extensively as it's an open-source tool and so much has been added to it in terms of Java."
"Anything which is to do with enterprise scale, as far as Java is concerned, Spring Boot has all the best practices factored in."
"This solution is really user friendly. In terms of prototyping, it's really fast to build the applications we want to test to complete a proof of concept."
"It's great because it simplifies development, and together with MyBatis they make a beautiful pair for Java development."
"The most valuable feature of Spring Boot is all the interactions to various applications happen using Spring Boot."
 

Cons

"To improve IBM Open Liberty, more integration with Kafka and message systems, and asynchronous messaging would be beneficial."
"Its support documentation could have detailed information on database integration."
"In terms of the Spring Boot application, the application's startup time needs to be improved."
"Spring Boot is based on convention over configuration. Therefore, sometimes it seems that everything happens magically."
"Perhaps an even lighter-weight, leaner version could be made available, to compete with alternative solutions, such as NodeJS."
"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."
"If you want to have multiple integrations, the setup phase will become complex."
"Spring Boot could improve the interface, error handling, and integration performance."
"The security could be simplified."
"The tool's documentation could be improved, especially by tying it back to frequently asked questions and issues users have. A feedback loop in which the documentation targets the most commonly asked user questions would make using the solution easier. Essentially, I want a more user-centered approach to documentation rather than a purely technical focus."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is less costly than one of its competitors."
"As Spring Boot is an open-source tool, it's free."
"It's open-source software, so it's free. It's a community license."
"The solution is free."
"Spring Boot is free; even the Spring Tools Suite for Eclipse is free."
"I am using a free version of Spring Boot."
"This solution is free unless you apply for support."
"It's an open-source solution."
"The solution is an open-source tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
37%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
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: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.