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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Apache Tomcat

    Score7.9 out of 10
    N/ATomcat is an open-source web server supported by Apache.N/A

    Microsoft IIS

    Score7.4 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft IIS is an application server and infrastructure.N/A
    Pricing
    Apache TomcatMicrosoft IIS
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Apache TomcatMicrosoft IIS
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Apache TomcatMicrosoft IIS
    Considered Both Products
    Apache
    Chose Apache Tomcat
    Apache Tomcat is a much wider open standard than Microsoft IIS. It also seems to use fewer resources and is simpler to maintain. Troubleshooting when an issue arises is difficult. We had trouble managing the Tail logs when something strange happened. Logging is very complex and …
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft IIS
    IIS much easier to install, configure and maintain in a Windows environment. Tomcat is more appropriate when it comes bundled with third party applications.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft IIS
    Tomcat & HTTP Server would be naturally choice on Linux servers. In fact, they're usually embedded so you don't even have to worry about setting up a web container.

    Obviously, setting them up on a Windows server involves more effort than "just" turning on Microsoft IIS.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft IIS
    On Windows, Microsoft IIS is easier to implement and maintain than Apache web service. Normally if you need to host PHP or other apache native content on a Windows server, it's recommended to use WAMP or equivalent software to simplify the installation, administration, and …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft IIS
    Microsoft IIS is a lot more easier for Microsoft .NET developers to integrate and configure. It is MUCH more easier to install and therefore less time consuming to deliver applications to end users. IIS can be installed with a few clicks of a button by anyone with …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft IIS
    Microsoft IIS is more simple to configure and also to maintain against other solutions. Often IIS help me to troubleshoot with its administartive tool.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft IIS
    Apache is java. Java is unnecessary complex. No developer wants to invest in learning all the hundreds of text based configuration files to get something done. Also, apache gives you the most evil and un-usable user interface possible. [Microsoft] IIS makes [life] after …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft IIS
    Positive: Better integration with Active Directory
    Negative: Appache Tomcat is open source and can be deployed on all operating systems including Linux, which allows for easier cross-platform deployments.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft IIS
    I have had a couple of tries at using Apache and Linux as a whole but I guess I am not of the right mindset to get over the learning barrier to make this work.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft IIS
    Nginx is hard to support for smaller multiple projects, which is one reason we use the Microsoft IIS server, which is best fit for a set-up once and forget scenario. The Apache server is more recommended for smaller sized projects due to its cost factor, as the Microsoft IIS …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft IIS
    Apache and Nginx are what we use for our large websites and public data. When dealing with the type of traffic we see on our sites IIS just doesn't scale out well. For our staff levels, Apache and Nginx are very hard to support for all of our projects so we can't always use …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft IIS
    In my experience, Microsoft IIS was definitely easier to wrap my head around and also to troubleshoot. The GUI was a great visual way to see what "sites" and "app pools" you have, what is running, what is currently up. Microsoft IIS also offers the flexibility to have multiple …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft IIS
    Microsoft IIS is the only official way to run ASP.NET framework sites and for Microsoft System management tools (SCCM and WSUS). While open source options like Apache and NGINX are more commonly used in our department, to maintain the best compatibility we use IIS in certain …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    8 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    8 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    10 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    8 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    12 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    8 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    8 Answers
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    Features
    Apache TomcatMicrosoft IIS
    Application Servers
    Comparison of Application Servers features of Apache Tomcat and Microsoft IIS
    Feature
    Apache Tomcat
    9.2
    24 Ratings
    15% above category average
    Microsoft IIS
    8.2
    29 Ratings
    3% above category average
    IDE support10.022 Ratings8.020 Ratings
    Security management9.024 Ratings8.029 Ratings
    Administration and management8.224 Ratings7.029 Ratings
    Application server performance8.124 Ratings9.029 Ratings
    Installation10.024 Ratings10.029 Ratings
    Open-source standards compliance10.024 Ratings7.018 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Apache TomcatMicrosoft IIS
    Small Businesses
    NGINX
    Score9.1 out of 10
    NGINX
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Oracle WebLogic Server
    Score7.3 out of 10
    Oracle WebLogic Server
    Score7.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    NGINX
    Score9.1 out of 10
    NGINX
    Score9.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Apache TomcatMicrosoft IIS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (24 ratings)
    6.0
    (29 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    6.0
    (10 ratings)
    Availability
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    7.8
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    9.4
    (6 ratings)
    Configurability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Apache TomcatMicrosoft IIS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Apache
    Excellent value for companies wishing to host Java applications in the cloud. Utilizing hosting tools such as load balancers and network and application firewalls, Tomcat can be part of a powerful system to host web applications to thousands of users. There has been consistency in the development and support of Tomcat since its initial release in the late '90s and the best commonalities have been carried forward. If you host Java web applications, Tomcat is as good as any for an application server.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Publishing applications or websites is easy with Microsoft IIS. You don't need external software or complicated tutorials involving command lines and editing configuration files. On other hand, sometimes the troubleshooter needs a high knowledge of Windows Server, Registry, and tools to debug the application. If you need to host non-Microsoft technology as PHP pages or have a low budget, I recommend IIS equivalent software as Apache.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Apache
    • Fast to start up, which is useful when we need to just check that our changes are working correctly.
    • Free, which allows us to not be involved with the finance/legal team about using it.
    • Bundled with Spring Boot, which makes it even more convenient for our testing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • A big advantage that we use all the time is reviewing the logs that automatically get generated in IIS. It has helped us troubleshoot various problems in our applications over the years.
    • IIS integrates really well with Visual Studio and TFS. We are able to quickly deploy new applications and changes to applications when requested by the business.
    • IIS has proven that it is easy to configure and maintain with minimal effort.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Apache
    • Using tomcat manager to troubleshoot is not very informative. Error messages are vague, you have to dig into log files for more information about the problems.
    • Is great for simple web applications, but may not work for heavy development which may require a full J2EE stack, might like JBoss better.
    • Security in tomcat is not straightforward, as I discovered that you have to understand how to set up realms in tomcat in order to hash passwords, which I was not overly familiar with, which is a big deal when setting up users in the tomcat-users.xml file.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Angular/node apps don't run on IIS, or at least we never figured out how. Rather we ended up using nginx.
    • There are still occasional memory leaks - check your recycle settings!
    • If you have very heavy usage for web APIs, IIS requires regular restarts for reasons unknown.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Apache
    We have a huge knowledge of the product within our company and we're satisfied with the performance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We have no intention to replace all applications running on top of the IIS platform. Not all applications support other platforms and not all support staff are skilled in Linux/Apache platform support. Whereas IIS may not be the best performing or most secure web platform available, for the aforementioned reasons, it is impossible not to continue use of this product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Apache
    Tomcat has a very rich API set which allows us to implement our automation script to trigger the deployment, configure, stop and start Tomcat from the command line. In our projects, we embedded Tomcat in our Eclipse in all of the developer's machines so they could quickly verify their code with little effort, Azure Webapp has strong support for Tomcat so we could move our application to Azure cloud very easy. One drawback is Tomcat UI quite poorly features but we almost do not use it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    As I've mentioned earlier, Microsoft IIS is very simple and easy to use. The user interface is a little bit overloaded with a huge number of different options, but once you have a little clue of what you are doing and what you need - no issues at all.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Apache
    Tomcat doesn't have a built-in watchdog that ensures restart upon failure, so you have to provide it externally. A very good solution is java service wrapper. The community edition is able to restart Tomcat upon out of memories exceptions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    ARR (application request routing) in Microsoft IIS Server enables the web-admins to increase the web app reliability and availability through the rule based routing and load balancing of HTTP requests which in turn provides highly available server. IIS 7.0 Manager also provides kernel as well as user mode caching for faster performance and in case if the server fails, the IIS server has good amount of details logged in its log files which help understand and debug the cause quickly. Load balancing facilitates IIS server to fight against availability issues.
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    Apache
    Tomcat support to customize memory used and allow us to define the Connection pool and thread pool to increase system performance and availability, Tomcat server itself consume very little memory and almost no footprint. We use Tomcat in our production environment which has up to thousands of concurrent users and it is stable and provides a quick response.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    In my experience, I have never had significant issues with IIS performance. Sometimes I've experienced issues with loading time, but it is mostly related to the web site code. However Amazon, Microsoft and Google providing free cloud services with very limited resources, and in that scenario, "heavy" websites on IIS could be the issue. In other situations - performance is good.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Apache
    Well, in actuality, I have never needed support for Apache Tomcat since it is configured and ready-to-go with no configuration needed on my end.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    As mentioned earlier there is so much documentation or guides or stack overflow questions out there that someone will have faced the same or very similar scenario to what you are going through that you will almost certainly find a solution to what you are after.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Apache
    Eclipse Jetty is the best alternative for Apache Tomcat because which is also an open-source and lightweight servlet container like Tomcat. A major advantage of this over Tomcat is that Jetty server can easily be embedded with the source code of web applications. Since it requires less memory to operate, you may realize that it is very efficient.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Apache is java. Java is unnecessary complex. No developer wants to invest in learning all the hundreds of text based configuration files to get something done. Also, apache gives you the most evil and un-usable user interface possible. [Microsoft] IIS makes [life] after development easy, which is already complex enough to be bothered by something as mundane as exposing your work over the internet.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Apache
    It's very easy to add instances to an existing deployment and, using apache with mod proxy balancer, to scale up the serving farm
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Microsoft IIS Server is scalable if the underlying server configuration is done correctly. Use x64 edition v/s 32bit and using 32bit mode application pools are some of the tweaks to be done to make the IIS server scalable. There are too many small configurations need to be carried out in order to make a highly scalable IIS server hence not giving full score in this area.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Apache
    • Tomcat is cheap and very quick to deploy, so it has benefited much when situation needs applications to be deployed quickly without wasting time on licensing and installations.
    • Plenty of documentation available so no vendor training is required. Support contract is not needed as well.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • Allowing us to internally host our monitoring websites allows quick access to data that can be quite hidden, saving developer time.
    • It was inexpensive compared to more bulky solutions saving upfront cost.
    • It’s easy to install and enable allowing more developer savings.
    Incentivized
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