Item: Apache Tomcat
Rating: 8
Author: Clifford Chen

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Tomcat as our web application server to develop marketing content. It is a solid tool with a reliable enduring track record which is something we need for our enterprise. Its popularity across the community helps us leverage what has been done already to speed up our own development by not re-inventing the wheel.

Pros and Cons

Very stable, with solid application code, there is confidence in Tomcat's uptime.
Good platform for integrating different pieces of Java technology.
Very configurable.

Would be nice to have some tools to make common configuration easier (e.g. SSL).
Would be nice to make the learning curve less steep for those new to Tomcat.
Would be nice to make configuration less difficult (perhaps JSON instead of XML).

Return on Investment

Enduring open platform that reduces need to change technology stacks
Trusted technology that allows focus to be on creating applications instead of dealing with the platform

Alternatives Considered

JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform

More appealing cost structure

Other Software Used

JRebel

Likelihood to Recommend

Tomcat is great if you have a large library of existing Java assets that you need in your web application. It is also nice to be able to leverage all sorts of existing Java tools to just get the job done. It perhaps may not be the best technology if you're starting from scratch and looking to implement a front-end only application architecture.

Happy with Tomcat

Overall Satisfaction with Apache Tomcat