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IIS vs Tomcat comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Organizations found IIS provided positive ROI, cost savings, and accessibility, particularly benefiting security and cloud-based pay-as-you-go models.
Sentiment score
8.7
Tomcat delivers quick ROI with minimal investment, offering scalability, ease of deployment, and significant time and cost savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Many users find IIS support satisfactory but face delays, relying on community resources and Microsoft documentation for help.
Sentiment score
6.3
Tomcat's support relies heavily on community and documentation, with limited formal assistance but effective community engagement and consultation services.
Microsoft provides a lot of online documentation to consult before speaking to an expert.
There are typically no significant issues.
They are proactive in looking into the tickets we create in case we have unresolved queries.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
IIS scalability depends on setup and configuration, supporting thousands but requires careful planning for large deployments.
Sentiment score
7.6
Tomcat offers high scalability and adaptability, excelling in cloud environments with positive user feedback on its reliability.
I would rate the scalability of IIS as a six, mainly due to integration issues since it cannot integrate with other environments.
It depends on the server environment and the presence of a UPS for power backup.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
IIS is stable and reliable, though compatibility with non-Microsoft technologies presents occasional performance issues and improvement suggestions exist.
Sentiment score
7.9
Tomcat is stable and reliable for small applications, needing careful configuration and updates for optimal performance with high traffic.
I would give it a nine out of ten for stability.
I would rate IIS's stability as an eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

IIS faces compatibility, setup, monitoring, and cost issues, needing enhancements in scalability, security, UI, and open-source support.
Tomcat struggles with compatibility, scalability, speed, unfriendly interface, high memory use, and needs better security, documentation, and performance.
It's influenced by the server's service performance.
If I compare IIS to other web servers such as Apache, which can be deployed in other environments like Linux, I find IIS is mostly used for simple things.
Tomcat needs a more robust logging error details feature; the current logging feature is available, but it should be more user-friendly.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find IIS cost-effective with Windows Server, appreciating licensing flexibility despite some complaints about overall expense.
Tomcat is cost-effective, open-source, with potential additional costs for licenses and optional paid support services.
If you have a Windows license, there is no additional cost for IIS.
 

Valuable Features

IIS is valued for its integration, security, and reliability, offering seamless web hosting for Microsoft applications.
Tomcat is popular for its lightweight, high performance, scalability, and open-source compatibility, ideal for Java-based applications.
It is easy to publish websites with SSL, and it integrates well within the local environment and cloud.
The configurations are simple, making it very easy to use and to set up everything.
The advantages of Tomcat include its flexibility; we can increase the heap memory and the size of sessions as per our custom needs.
 

Categories and Ranking

IIS
Ranking in Application Server
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (1st)
Tomcat
Ranking in Application Server
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Server category, the mindshare of IIS is 7.1%, up from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tomcat is 19.9%, down from 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Server
 

Featured Reviews

DanielWildermuth - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides integration with Eggplant but problems with stability
We use Windows Server only for Eggplant Manager. Otherwise, I'm not using it   At the moment, we have big problems with stability, and I'm not very happy at the moment. So, the stability could be improved. I have been using it for a few years.  The initial setup is complex.  We have an…
Erick  Karanja - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers high availability, straightforward deployment and easy to use
Tomcat could be a little bit more innovative. Tomcat could come up with a framework that's more lightweight and purely targeted at Java applications. Some other solutions are doing better right now, maybe because they have come up with MicroProfile, which I think is moving forward. It may actually beat Tomcat because of the lightweight nature of the framework, the MicroProfile. They're coming up with new solutions. So, for the future of Tomcat and to maintain the market share they might be looking for, they need to come up with initiatives to ensure that several of us have a lightweight framework to deploy applications on.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
41%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - IIS or NGINX Plus?
IIS is a flexible, secure, and manageable web server to host anything on the web. IIS’s scalable and open architecture can handle the most demanding tasks. From media streaming to web applications,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IIS?
If you have a Windows license, there is no additional cost for IIS. However, you may need to pay for SSL publishing at times.
What do you like most about Tomcat?
Tomcat's ease of use has positively impacted project timelines. Tomcat already has high availability – it doesn't go down so often and doesn't require a lot of maintenance. As long as your applicat...
What needs improvement with Tomcat?
Resource configuration like JNDI and queue configuration, similar to other servers, should be provided from the admin console for Tomcat. Currently, it is done manually. The server config file must...
What is your primary use case for Tomcat?
I am using the solution at running level three. It is for running web applications.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Windows Server IIS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Erste Bank Group, NJVC, Samsung Electronics, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe, Urban Software Institute
1. Adobe Systems 2. Amazon 3. Apple 4. AT&T 5. Bank of America 6. Boeing 7. Cisco Systems 8. Citigroup 9. Dell 10. eBay 11. Facebook 12. General Electric 13. Google 14. Hewlett-Packard 15. IBM 16. Intel 17. JPMorgan Chase 18. Microsoft 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. PayPal 22. Salesforce 23. Samsung 24. Sony 25. Target 26. Twitter 27. Uber 28. Verizon 29. Visa 30. Volkswagen 31. Walmart 32. Yahoo
Find out what your peers are saying about IIS vs. Tomcat and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.