Is drools the same as jrules?

Question

Is there a difference between Drools and Jrules? Is Jboss rules the same thing as Jrules? What type of environments typically use Drools?

Answer 1

Similarities:
At the end of the day these two applications are BRMS so yes, they are similar
Both offers you the ability to:
- store rules in a repository
- write rules in a web environment
- execute the rules on a server

JRules is from far the best approach for business users (non technical).
JBoss rules is from far the best approach if you look for a non stupidly expensive solution
Both can do CEP as well. (Complex Event Processing)

Differences:
JRules is more mature than Drools but Drools is a great tool to work with
Drools uses JSON to write technical rules JRules uses IRL (Ilog Rule Language). Don't worry you can add "verbalisation" with Drools but it is less powerful than with JRules.
The main differences are from a business (non technical) point of view.
If you want to be able to write a rule in a proper human language like :
if the age of the applicant is less then 18 then reject the application;
you can do it with both.
Now if you want the business to write rules in Hindi, review them in French, validate them in German and do some report in English then JRules is the BRMS you need.
You can write rules directly in Excel or Word with JRules.
Because Drools is from the free world you may face some few bugs but as it is free, you have access to all the source code compare to JRules where part of the API is hidden

What environment:
For Drools I would say JBoss :)
JRules = JBoss, WebSphere, Weblogic, Tomcat, ... and more
For this one: RTFM really. Depends on your needs.
Google may give you some benchmark on the various BRMS.

To sum up:
If you have money (loaded) then JRules
If you are poor or geeky then Drools - you will have fun, really :)

Note: I talk about "Drools" not "JBoss rules" supported by Red Hat.
Difference between them is the Red Hat version is not the latest Drools one and do not have exactly the same functionalities as Drools.
Simply because Red Hat support their version so they evoluate less quickly than Drools. Basically they choose a version at one time and decide to use it while drools still change... You got my point, hopefully.
Hope it helps