Overview: GlassFish and Tomcat
GlassFish is the open source application server delivered by Sun Microsystems for the Java EE platform. which was originally launched by Sun in 2005. On 4 May 2006, Project GlassFish released the first version that supports the Java EE 5 specification.Currently it is avaiable for versions 3.0.1, 3.1, 3.2 and 4.0 with themes revolving around clustering, virtualization and integration with Coherence and other Oracle technologies. It is a fast, in security, production-quality, high expansibility, industry-leading Java EE containers.
Overview is free software, which under two free software licences: the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) and the GNU General Public License (GPL).Also commercially supported to adds an enterprise-quality app server to the options available to the open source community and builds on the foundation set by Sun Java System AppServer.
Apache Tomcat(or Jakarta Tomcat or simply Tomcat) is an open source software implementation of the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies. The Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages specifications are developed under the Java Community Process.it is very popular in java commiunty. In general, applications that run on Tomcat will also run unchanged on GlassFish. Tomcat is supported Native Windows and Unix wrappers for platform integration.
GlassFish vsTomcat difference
Glassfish, JBoss, Websphere, etc. are heavy weight application servers that support the EJB standard and many more advanced features out of the box, GlassFish is a collection of Java EE containers, one of which is a Web container, Tomcat is only a Web container .
Web Container Feature Alignment: GlassFish vs Tomcat
Compounding the advantages of GlassFish Server and GlassFish Web Container over Tomcat, the GlassFish Community has provided support for well-known features of Tomcat within GlassFish. The table below summarizes the Tomcat features that are provided by GlassFish and the additional GlassFish capabilities not currently provided by Tomcat. Here is a table with ClassFish vs tomcat features.
| Pri | Standard features | Tomcat | GlassFish v2 | GlassFish v3 |
| 1 | Tomcat valves | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2 | mod_jk support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 3 | Tomcat valves | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 4 | Webdav support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 5 | CGI support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 6 | Tomcat bug ixes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 7 | Java EE certiied | Yes | ||
| 8 | Servlet 2.5, JSP 2.1 | Yes | Yes | |
| 9 | JSF 1.2 | Yes | Yes | |
| 10 | Metro Web Services stack(NET interoperability) | Yes | Yes | |
| 11 | jMaki (AJAX framework) | Yes | Yes | |
| 12 | Jersey/JAX-RS 1.0 (RESTful Web Services) | Yes | Yes | |
| 13 | Sophisticated Admin console and CLI | Yes | Yes | |
| 14 | JMX | Yes | Yes | |
| 15 | Node Agent and Cluster Management | Yes | ||
| 16 | Upgrade Tool | Yes | ||
| 17 | Application client container | Yes | ||
| 18 | Java Webstart support | Yes | Yes | |
| 19 | Tomcat bug ixes | Yes | Yes | |
| 20 | JDBC Connection Pooling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 21 | JTA/JTS | Yes | Yes | |
| 22 | J2EE Connector Architecture 1.5 | Yes | Yes | |
| 23 | Native jRuby/Rails deployment—no need for servlet container | Yes | ||
| 24 | Rapid redeployment—maintain session state on redeploy | Yes | ||
| 25 | Veriication tools | Yes | Yes | |
| 26 | Image Packaging System (IPS) tools | Yes | ||
| 27 | Grizzly(Java NIO) | Yes | Yes | |
| 28 | Comet (HTTP Push) | Yes | Yes | |
| 29 | CORBA | Yes | Yes | |
| 30 | Modular architecture based on OSGi | Yes | ||
| 31 | Embeddable Server | Yes | ||
| 32 | Centralized admin of load balancer plug-in | Yes | ||
| 33 | High availability | Yes | Yes | |
| 34 | In-memory compilation of JSPs | Yes | ||
| 35 | Integration with Identity Manager, Access Manager, Registry Server, and Java Business Integration | Yes |
GlassFish VS Tomcat Performance Comparison
GlassFish and Tomcat testing environment
Version: Sun Java System Application Server 9.1_02 (build b04-fcs) (glassfish stable version)
Tomcat 5.5.25
OS: linux
Testing Tool: Jmeter
Target: jruby on rails
Tomcat Performance Results:
| Label | #Samples | Average | Median | 90% Line | Min | Max | Error % | Throughput | KB/sec |
| Http Request | 400 | 12695 | 1390 | 41641 | 187 | 58031 | 20.75% | 2.6/sec | 153.7 |
GlassFish Performance Results:
| Label | #Samples | Average | Median | 90% Line | Min | Max | Error % | Throughput | KB/sec |
| Http Request | 1000 | 25539 | 22453 | 39719 | 5109 | 83094 | 0.00% | 3.7/sec | 282.4 |
Reference
https://glassfish.dev.java.net/
http://tomcat.apache.org/
Oracle glassfish whitepaper
Tomcat also supports Java Web Start.
Technically inaccurate – Tomcat supports JMX, and ASF provides bugfixes for Tomcat. Intellectually a dishonest article.
Why did you use Glassfish v2, v3 prelude and Tomcat 5.5, 6 in the comparisons in Oct 2010? Why not use Glassfish v3, 3.1 and Tomcat 7?
Uh, no it isn’t. It is more reasonable to compare the latest stable releases of all the software. Anything else is pointless noise that does little to help clarify technology decisions. Especially if you’re using *prerelease* software like GlassFish v3 Prelude. At the very least, don’t call Prelude the current version because it very obviously is not.
Tomcat 5.5 is an acknowledged stable version and mostly widely used, So I take it do comparison. it is more reasonable and Convincing to compare tomcat and Glassfish which was both released in the same time.
In the table of features, what is “Tomcat bug ixes”? Why is repeated in lines 6 and 19?
If you mean bug fixes, why should glassfish have tomcat bug fixes?
Why different sample numbers for the perormance test?
GlassFish v3 – Will this doest support “Integration with Identity Manager, Access Manager, Registry Server, and Java Business Integration”, where as GlassFish v2 Supports
Total bull Tomcat 6.0.18..20 has been stable for ages even hosting providers have had it for a year
Why for glassfish you use 1000 samples while for tomcat you use 400 samples? Won’t the differences affect the performance itself?
Nice updated comparison table, just what I was looking for 🙂
If there were any conclusions of this article, what would they be? For what I see, there’s no advantage on using Tomcat over Glassfish, right? Even if we are only deploying the Web container..