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Magic xpa Application Platform 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Magic xpa Application Platform
Ranking in Application Server
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (17th), Mobile Development Platforms (13th)
Tomcat
Ranking in Application Server
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Server category, the mindshare of Magic xpa Application Platform is 2.4%, up from 0.2% 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
ProductMindshare (%)
Tomcat12.4%
Magic xpa Application Platform2.4%
Other85.2%
Application Server
 

Featured Reviews

Mylsamy T. - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate - IT at Himalaya Wellness Company
Enables us to develop more than 90 applications in-house, which are used across our organization
It's a bit difficult to work with purely web-based applications to get the data and display it. There have been a few times when the connection was disconnected between the server and your browser. The connectivity on browser-built applications needs to be improved. The mobile application development could be easier. They could include different external applications, like finger sensors. I'm not sure whether it's in version 3.8 or not.
Sanjay Sahu - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My employees can develop and deploy something in a matter of hours."
"Being able to make changes to existing programs to comply with last minute changes in requirements, and/or being able to fix, test, review, and deploy new code in a manner of hours instead of days, definitely gives us a huge advantage over our competitors and this is only possible thanks to Magic’s speed of programming."
"I think this is a good tool for making some nice applications independent of the operating system, database, and environment."
"Being able to make changes to existing programs to comply with last minute changes in requirements, and/or being able to fix, test, review, and deploy new code in a manner of hours instead of days, definitely gives us a huge advantage over our competitors and this is only possible thanks to Magic’s speed of programming."
"The ability to use the same development environment for both Windows and Android applications. Magic xpa also supports iOS applications."
"Speed of development and database connectivity (MS SQL, Oracle, DB2, Btrieve/Pervasive PSQL, ODBC, MySql, and SQLite)."
"Magic is rapid, it's a tool which we use to develop, change and maintain our programs. xpa has a lot more features onboard and it gives us the opportunity to do such things so that we can easily adapt and maintain our programs. It gives certain benefits to stay with our customers and the market."
"Typically an experienced Magic developer can do the work of two to three experienced C#/.NET developers. Customers are amazed at how quickly most new features can be added and bug fixes implemented. I have worked for four employers - including myself - using Magic, and in most instances, bug fixes are addressed and deployed in under six hours."
"I find the quick startup valuable, particularly the static quick startup."
"It is easy to manage at a basic level."
"The deployment process is very fast."
"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, where one is high price and ten is low price. The pricing is pretty low."
"Tomcat is a simple, light environment, whereas the full Red Hat Fuse solution is heavier."
"It is easy to set up."
"I recommend using Apache Tomcat due to its open-source nature, lightweight design, and ease of installation and configuration."
"We chose to use Tomcat because it's perfect compared to other containers that we have tested."
 

Cons

"Debugging .NET snippets is not possible, so it lacks the effects to solve problems. First you have to write and test your .NET code in VS, then you have to copy the .NET code in Magic xpa because there is almost nothing to debug it."
"Magic has a tradition, when it adds new technologies/features to the Magic development tool, to provide either no documentation or documentation that does not provide an organized approach for bringing this new technology/feature to experienced Magic programmers."
"They want to be one toolbox for everything, but primarily, we are using xpa to develop desktop applications, and in that area they're lacking functionalities, flexibility, and modern stuff."
"There is room for improvement in Magic's marketing and licensing. I would like to see more integration of web functionality."
"Throughout my career, I've encountered difficulties when integrating new technologies with Magic xpa Application Platform. In particular, when attempting to incorporate features from other development languages into earlier versions of the solution called uniPaaS. I struggled to integrate .NET components due to the limited options available. This made the process more challenging and complicated. I find it challenging to create a more user-friendly experience for users who may be comparing the system to other systems they have used outside or within the company on different platforms."
"The configuration of the xpa RIA mobile environment is complex and a discouragement to new developers."
"The configuration of the xpa RIA mobile environment is complex and a discouragement to new developers. Also, Magic's documentation can be less than complete at times which leads to frustration for new developers. (I encourage new Magic developers to join the Magic Users Group)."
"The company has now released version 4 for web development, but this new release is still pretty hard to use for mobile and web development because it was not improved as much as we expected in the areas of user-friendliness or development-friendliness."
"The cluster management and load balancing is a bit complex."
"The interface is not user-friendly."
"It will be useful if a direct report concerning a particular server configuration or application usage is readily available in the dashboard."
"The current procedure appears complex and could benefit from a more straightforward solution."
"It would be great if they offered more integration of monitoring tools."
"Tomcat is not always stable and but I have not used another server yet to compare the overall stability."
"The high availability is not as robust as the competition is such as WebLogic and Jboss."
"Tomcat's performance is less than other solutions like IBM WebSphere or JBoss."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Magic is not the cheapest IDE out there. If you are considering Magic xpa, you should do a cost-benefit analysis to feel comfortable with your decision. The Magic sales staff is very helpful in providing pricing."
"The main problem with the Magic xpa Application Platform is pricing. You have to pay a lot of money for development, and you also have to pay a lot for the deployments and runtime, while in most competitors, you have to pay a lot for one of the two and not both."
"My clients have to purchase additional licenses in order to use what I built. It's not a fair approach."
"The cost for developers is high because you have to pay for licenses as well as runtime."
"It's not cheap. The licenses are not cheap. Not at all. They cost much money. There are other tools with free licenses but Magic asks for a lot of money."
"There are different licenses, we have the application and the online application. There are two different licenses for two different program sites for the Magic xpa Application Platform."
"The licensing cost varies because nowadays Magic has tailor-made offerings for clients. I think the solution is worth the money."
"The licensing is too costly."
"Tomcat is open-source and free to use."
"The price of the solution is good."
"We are currently using the open-source version."
"We are using the open-source version."
"This is an open-source product and it's free to use."
"Tomcat is an open-source server."
"I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
"I give the pricing an eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Government
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Construction Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise28
 

Questions from the Community

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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?
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.
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...
 

Also Known As

uniPaaS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ADD, Cape plc, Adecco, Kuno Kinzoku Industry Co., GE Capital, Dove Tree, CBS Outdoor, Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Center, Allstate Life Insurance Company, Titan Software Systems
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 Magic xpa Application Platform vs. Tomcat and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.