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Oracle GlassFish vs Tomcat comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Oracle GlassFish
Ranking in Application Server
12th
Average Rating
6.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 June 2026, in the Application Server category, the mindshare of Oracle GlassFish is 3.8%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tomcat is 12.6%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Server Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tomcat12.6%
Oracle GlassFish3.8%
Other83.6%
Application Server
 

Featured Reviews

it_user517413 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead Developer
Offers EE Support. I would like to see integration with MQ systems.
The products offers EE support. It offers ease of use. I would like to see integration with MQ systems.
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

"The products offers EE support."
"Apache Tomcat has become almost the defacto server for serving Java-based applications on the internet."
"The solution is convenient. It is a comfortable and easy-to-use solution for my use cases."
"Tomcat is a simple, light environment, whereas the full Red Hat Fuse solution is heavier."
"Tomcat's best feature is the open source server. It's a flexible and lightweight solution."
"It is easy to manage at a basic level."
"I love Tomcat for its scalability, reliability, availability, and steadiness."
"It's very stable. No problems at all. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"Tomcat brings the biggest benefit through its simplicity; it is not just simple in terms of interface, it is simple for managing or very quickly running this server."
 

Cons

"I would like to see integration with MQ systems."
"The product's pricing needs improvement."
"Resource configuration like JNDI and queue configuration, similar to other servers, should be provided from the admin console for Tomcat."
"Sometimes, the UI part does not run properly, or the server goes down."
"Vulnerability is one of the areas that can be considered an issue in the solution."
"The solution cannot host .NET applications."
"It's difficult to scale/cluster."
"If it could support the driver's VIN, they can run natively without the GBM. Now, we can run what we call the native cloud application that doesn't require GBM. If Tomcat can support that, it's going to improve performance and backup."
"Tomcat is not always stable and but I have not used another server yet to compare the overall stability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"Tomcat is open-source and free to use."
"We are using the open-source version."
"Tomcat is an open source solution."
"We are currently using the open-source version."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"This is an open-source product and it's free to use."
"I give the pricing an eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
21%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
10%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise28
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tomcat?
I am familiar with pricing for Tomcat. For me, it is open source. Since it is open source, I don't see any fee for that regarding whether the license for Tomcat is usually expensive or quite afford...
 

Also Known As

GlassFish
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TravelMuse, Clarity Accounting
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 Apache, Red Hat, Oracle and others in Application Server. Updated: May 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.