IIS vs Tomcat comparison

Microsoft and Apache are both solutions in the Application Server category. Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.5, while Apache is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.0. Microsoft holds a 7.4% mindshare in AppS, compared to Apache’s 12.4% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Apache users who would recommend it.

IIS

Read 61 IIS reviews

4,891 Views
2,005 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Tomcat

Read 53 Tomcat reviews

4,088 Views
4,088 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IIS

Tomcat

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

IIS and Tomcat compete in the web server and application server category. IIS seems to have the upper hand in environments that require seamless integration with Windows, while Tomcat stands out in cross-platform flexibility and cost-effectiveness.

Features: IIS offers seamless compatibility with Microsoft applications, robust security features, and high performance. In contrast, Tomcat is lightweight, open-source, and excels in cross-platform capabilities, providing easy configuration for Java applications.

Room for Improvement: IIS struggles with compatibility beyond Microsoft platforms and has complex advanced configurations. Tomcat faces challenges with performance in handling static content and scalability for high-traffic applications, along with documentation complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IIS is integrated with Windows Server, providing straightforward on-premises deployment and decent technical support. Tomcat's deployment is flexible across platforms, yet support mainly relies on its strong open-source community.

Pricing and ROI: IIS is bundled with Windows Server, offering cost benefits to Microsoft users but can be expensive with additional licensing. Tomcat is free and open-source, providing a low-cost solution for Java applications, though enterprise support may lead to additional expenses.

To learn more, read our detailed IIS vs. Tomcat Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IIS vs. Tomcat

April 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 893,244 peers since 2012

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

5.7

Network authentication improved, offering affordability and ROI, though user-friendly enhancements for IIS novices are needed.

Sentiment score

8.3

Tomcat ensures rapid ROI with minimal costs, offering scalability, simplified server management, and reduced infrastructure expenses for businesses.

It should be more user-friendly overall, because unless you know how IIS works as a Microsoft product, a system admin cannot just manage it.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

Developing any kind of web application server is time-consuming and expensive, and I can use Tomcat as a commodity, which is an existing tool that everybody uses.

reviewer1289778

Freelance at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Tomcat report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.5

Users report mixed experiences with Microsoft support, often favoring community resources, but praise premium plan responsiveness.

Sentiment score

6.3

Tomcat's support relies on community forums and documentation, with varied ratings and many users resolving issues independently.

There are typically no significant issues.

Ibrahim Sherif

IT System Administrator at Bouri

Microsoft provides a lot of online documentation to consult before speaking to an expert.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

I would rate the support from Microsoft very high because I definitely got all the help during the testing time of the development kit while we were configuring features on our on-premises server.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

Everything regarding technical support from Apache is in the documentation or in some discussion portal.

reviewer1289778

Freelance at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

The technical support from Apache is responsive; if we have any ticket, that prompts a response.

Sanjay Sahu

Project Manager at Capgemini

For more quotes and insights, download the Tomcat report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

IIS scalability is mixed; effective with clustering and load balancing, but larger scales may need extra infrastructure or cloud migration.

Sentiment score

7.6

Tomcat is highly scalable, supporting large user bases, cloud deployment, and adapts well with Docker and Kubernetes integration.

Cloud solutions may have better scalability options compared to IIS.

Juan Pablo Lauterio

Chief Technology Officer at EVtech

It depends on the server environment and the presence of a UPS for power backup.

Ibrahim Sherif

IT System Administrator at Bouri

I would rate the scalability of IIS as a six, mainly due to integration issues since it cannot integrate with other environments.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Tomcat report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.8

IIS is praised for enterprise stability, though occasionally challenged by application pool interactions and non-Microsoft technology compatibility.

Sentiment score

7.8

Tomcat is highly stable, integrates with Apache, yet may need tuning for performance under heavy loads or resource-intensive tasks.

It was secured for us, as we launched the product, and people were accessing it from India and Virginia, and we had no problem.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

I would give it a nine out of ten for stability.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

You can check the memory consumption and the number of crashes.

Frederic Hautecoeur

Senior System Integrations Architect at bs-team

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Tomcat report

Room For Improvement

IIS struggles with compatibility, security, usability, and integration issues, inconsistent performance, costly licensing, and limited technical support.

Tomcat struggles with scalability, speed, and usability, needing improvements in security, interfaces, documentation, and enterprise features.

It should be more user-friendly because unless you know how IIS works as a Microsoft product, a system admin cannot just manage it.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

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.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Integrating Copilot could help automate processes or assist in identifying where to make actions or take actions on the server.

Juan Pablo Lauterio

Chief Technology Officer at EVtech

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

I would like a visual tool for configuration to be added to Tomcat.

reviewer1289778

Freelance at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Tomcat needs a more robust logging error details feature; the current logging feature is available, but it should be more user-friendly.

Sanjay Sahu

Project Manager at Capgemini

For more quotes and insights, download the Tomcat report

Setup Cost

Enterprise users find IIS cost-effective within Windows but some see high licensing fees compared to Linux alternatives.

Enterprise buyers value Tomcat's low cost and open-source model, though extra services can increase expenses.

If you have a Windows license, there is no additional cost for IIS.

Ibrahim Sherif

IT System Administrator at Bouri

We never had any pricing issue, but I don't know if it is competitive or not.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

Since it is open source, I don't see any fee for that regarding whether the license for Tomcat is usually expensive or quite affordable.

reviewer1289778

Freelance at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Tomcat report

Valuable Features

IIS offers seamless Microsoft integration, robust management, enhanced security, resource efficiency, user-friendly interface, and robust web hosting support.

Apache Tomcat is a lightweight, reliable, and scalable open-source server favored for easy deployment, robust performance, and user-friendliness.

It is easy to publish websites with SSL, and it integrates well within the local environment and cloud.

Ibrahim Sherif

IT System Administrator at Bouri

IIS is free.

Frederic Hautecoeur

Senior System Integrations Architect at bs-team

The configurations are simple, making it very easy to use and to set up everything.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

It is not just simple in terms of interface; it is simple for managing or very quickly running this server.

reviewer1289778

Freelance at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

The advantages of Tomcat include its flexibility; we can increase the heap memory and the size of sessions as per our custom needs.

Sanjay Sahu

Project Manager at Capgemini

For more quotes and insights, download the Tomcat report

Categories and Ranking

IIS

Ranking in Application Server

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (1st)

Tomcat

Ranking in Application Server

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Server category, the mindshare of IIS is 7.4%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tomcat is 12.4%, down from 19.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Server Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Tomcat	12.4%
IIS	7.4%
Other	80.2%

Application Server

Featured Reviews

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

Designs and manages multiple websites while ensuring data backup and disaster recovery

I have experience with AWS, and I am most familiar with the server environment, as we just use the server environment and then use Microsoft products on an AWS environment. I have experience with Windows Server IIS, which I ran on my own on-premise data center. The website was developed and then hosted, and through IIS, we managed the servers. The manageability within the IIS environment is not very difficult. For server management, you need to ensure data backup, data restore, and you have a DR configured to keep the database intact. It was done on-premises, so I had no problem doing that. If you have to go to the cloud, then you should have the storage connected to the IIS server and also have a DR set up for that. I didn't use Microsoft Azure tools, but since it is a Microsoft product, Azure has all the portability, so you don't have to worry about compatibility on the cloud. On a scale of 1-10, I would rate this solution a 10.

Read full review

Sanjay Sahu

Project Manager at Capgemini

Customization and flexibility enhance web applications while support effectively resolves queries

Regarding improvements in Tomcat, I personally haven't used it very extensively, but all Apache products are very useful for our web applications. Although the web server setup is a little different, it has everything we have been using, and as of now, everything is good with no deficiencies that need improvement. I think that Tomcat needs a more robust logging error details feature; the current logging feature is available, but it should be more user-friendly. This improvement would make error handling more user-friendly.

Read full review

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Server solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

22%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Government

11%

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	29
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	22

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	28

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,...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IIS?

For the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for IIS, as a Microsoft product, I didn't think much about separately purchasing an IIS product as it is part of Microsoft Windows. We bought a developmen...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IIS?

I see that IIS has maintained the same interface for a long time, so they could potentially use more automation or integrate Copilot into it to make it easier to use. I have not accessed or checked...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Tomcat?

Tomcat lacks a visual tool for configuring. Everything is from the command line. I would like a visual tool for configuration to be added to Tomcat, as I see this feature missing.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Tomcat?

I work with Tomcat as a programmer, but not as an administrator. My major use case involves using Tomcat, mostly enclosed in any Java image for a Java application for REST API. I do not work with t...

See all answers

Comparisons

NGINX Plus vs IIS

Compared 15% of the time

Apache Web Server vs IIS

Compared 14% of the time

Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP) vs IIS

Compared 6% of the time

Windows Server AppFabric vs IIS

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle WebLogic Server vs IIS

Compared 5% of the time

More IIS Competitors

Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP) vs Tomcat

Compared 13% of the time

Oracle WebLogic Server vs Tomcat

Compared 12% of the time

IBM WebSphere Application Server vs Tomcat

Compared 12% of the time

IBM WebSphere Liberty vs Tomcat

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Open Liberty vs Tomcat

Compared 9% of the time

More Tomcat Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IIS

May 2026

Download IIS product report

Buyer's Guide

Tomcat

April 2026

Download Tomcat product report

Also Known As

Windows Server IIS

No data available

Overview

IIS is a web server platform recognized for strong security, high performance, and seamless Windows integration. It offers an intuitive setup, emphasizing resource efficiency, scalability, and robust performance.

Internet Information Services provides a comprehensive solution for hosting and managing web applications. Known for its security and integration capabilities, it features a user-friendly interface that simplifies server management. Its application pool isolation and performance make it highly reliable. However, configuration challenges, lack of detailed documentation, and difficulties in integrating with non-Windows environments are noted. Large-scale deployments sometimes encounter clustering and scalability issues, and improvements are needed in memory management and monitoring tools. Despite these areas for improvement, compatibility with Microsoft products and zero need for separate licensing are convincing benefits for many users.

What features make IIS stand out?

Security Features: Enhances security with single sign-on and SSL support.
Performance: Designed for high efficiency and reliability.
Integration: Seamless compatibility with Windows and Microsoft products.
User Interface: Straightforward setup aids in easy management.
Scalability: Able to efficiently scale with resource demands.

What benefits should be reviewed?

Resource Efficiency: Provides cost-effective resource management.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing application demands.
No Licensing Cost: Eliminates additional licensing expenses.
Microsoft Integration: Offers seamless use with Microsoft ecosystems.

Organizations employ IIS for a range of applications. These include hosting web applications accessible externally, managing internal projects, and supporting infrastructure such as DNS and DHCP. Companies leverage its database management capabilities, integration with Active Directory, and secure communication via SSL. In fields like healthcare, IIS supports internal information systems and on-premise deployments.

Microsoft

Tomcat is an open-source Java application server known for its lightweight design, stability, and scalability. It provides reliable performance, comprehensive documentation, and compatibility with major development environments. Its efficient handling of web traffic makes it ideal for Java-based applications.

Apache Tomcat is widely used for deploying Java applications and web services, offering fast deployment and strong performance. Its lightweight setup and flexibility make it popular among healthcare, banking, and government sectors. Tomcat is also favored for compatibility with Spring Boot for microservices and supporting diverse environments like Linux and Windows. It handles web traffic efficiently and offers database management capabilities. While Tomcat is valued for its simplicity, areas for improvement include performance and memory management for large-scale applications. The interface may require advanced knowledge for configuration and security needs better integration. Logging, documentation, and deployment automation are also areas for enhancement. Users seek improved scalability and high availability, along with centralized management tools.

What are Tomcat's most important features?

Lightweight and Easy-to-Use: Simple setup and fast deployment.
Stability and Scalability: Reliable performance for various enterprises.
Open-Source Foundation: Strong community support and integration with tools.
Java Compatibility: Supports major environments and Java applications.
Efficient Web Traffic Handling: Manages databases effectively.

What benefits or ROI should users consider?

Fast Deployment: Quickly host and deploy applications.
Reliable Performance: Trusted for stable operation.
Cost Efficiency: Open-source nature reduces expenses.
Diverse Environment Support: Works on Linux and Windows.
Microservices Integration: Compatible with Spring Boot.

Organizations in healthcare, banking, and government sectors implement Tomcat for its robust capabilities in hosting and deploying Java applications. Its lightweight and cloud-friendly design make it a suitable choice for microservices. Tomcat supports integration with scheduling tools and REST services, making it versatile for enterprise-scale deployments while efficiently running on both small and large systems.

Apache

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

Buyer's Guide

IIS vs. Tomcat

April 2026

Free Report: IIS vs. Tomcat

Find out what your peers are saying about IIS vs. Tomcat and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IIS vs. Tomcat report.

See our list of best Application Server vendors.

We monitor all Application Server reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.