IBM CICS Transaction Server vs. Microsoft IIS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM CICS Transaction Server
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
IBM CICS (Customer Information Control System) is mixed-language application server that runs on IBM z/OS. CICS® Transaction Server, often called CICS, is used for hosting transactional enterprise applications in a hybrid architecture.N/A
Microsoft IIS
Score 7.2 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft IIS is an application server and infrastructure.N/A
Pricing
IBM CICS Transaction ServerMicrosoft IIS
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM CICS Transaction ServerMicrosoft 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
IBM CICS Transaction ServerMicrosoft IIS
Features
IBM CICS Transaction ServerMicrosoft IIS
Application Servers
Comparison of Application Servers features of Product A and Product B
IBM CICS Transaction Server
8.0
2 Ratings
1% above category average
Microsoft IIS
8.2
29 Ratings
3% above category average
IDE support5.01 Ratings8.020 Ratings
Security management9.02 Ratings8.029 Ratings
Administration and management9.02 Ratings7.029 Ratings
Application server performance10.02 Ratings9.029 Ratings
Installation8.02 Ratings10.029 Ratings
Open-source standards compliance7.02 Ratings7.018 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM CICS Transaction ServerMicrosoft IIS
Small Businesses
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.7 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.7 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.7 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM CICS Transaction ServerMicrosoft IIS
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(2 ratings)
6.0
(29 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(10 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.8
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(6 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM CICS Transaction ServerMicrosoft IIS
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
IBM CICS Transaction Server is multi-decades proven transaction server which is very scalable, very secured, easy to use, has good transactional capabilities, works well all other mainframe resources such as Db2, languages on IBM mainframe, has access control capabilities in terms of who can access the transaction for read mode vs update mode, etc.
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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.
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Pros
IBM
  • De facto standard in the legacy enterprise
  • Multiplatform connection
  • Native connection with DB2
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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.
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Cons
IBM
  • Would like to see the transaction response matrix on the average transaction response among all requests.
  • Would like to see GUI tool to be able to see currently running transactions
  • Would like to be able to get the details of where the cics transaction was triggered from
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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.
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Likelihood to Renew
IBM
No answers on this topic
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.
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Usability
IBM
No answers on this topic
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.
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Reliability and Availability
IBM
No answers on this topic
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.
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Performance
IBM
No answers on this topic
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.
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Support Rating
IBM
No answers on this topic
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.
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Alternatives Considered
IBM
There is no comparison, in practice, the possibility of using the latest programming languages but, above all, the databases can be different and more modern than DL1.
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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.
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Scalability
IBM
No answers on this topic
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.
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • It has allowed us to use our decades old code and still continue to support the business
  • Allows us to have faster time to market and modernize our systems
  • We can still continue to use our legacy resources for modern systems
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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.
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ScreenShots