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Sorry for my ignorance here, but when I hear the word webserver, I immediately imagine Apache, although I know people use Microsoft's IIS too. However since I've been hanging out here at Stackoverflow I've noticed lots of people use Glassfish.
Which made me wonder, why would I want to use Glassfish (in the sense that I'm interested, but I don't really understand why it might make my life easier). From what I read it's Sun's open-source derivate of Apache's Tomcat, thus I imagine it's a good (or great) quality product. But since I don't know its strengths and weaknesses, I don't know when it would be wise to choose Glassfish over another server. Could anyone elaborate ?
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Tomcat is very popular for simple web applications, as compared to Glassfish. By comparison, Tomcat server administration is easier than Glassfish administration, since there are fewer moving parts in Tomcat. Both Tomcat and Glassfish are open sources and free, but they have different licenses.
GlassFish is a Java application server project created by Sun Microsystems that allows many developers to generate enterprise technologies that are convenient and scalable, as well as additional services that can be installed based on preference.
Tomcat is merely an HTTP server and Java servlet container. JBoss and GlassFish are full-blown Java EE application servers, including an EJB container and all the other features of that stack. On the other hand, Tomcat has a lighter memory footprint (~60-70 MB), while those Java EE servers weigh in at hundreds of megs.
Alongside the Jakarta EE 9.1 release, GlassFish 6.1 has been released as a Compatible Implementation. However, although GlassFish is still used by many - a legacy of the time it was supported by Oracle - we would argue it is NOT a good choice for running your enterprise applications in production.
GlassFish is an Application Server which can also be used as a Web Server (Http Server).
A web Server means: Handling HTTP requests (usually from browsers).
A Servlet Container (e.g. Tomcat) means: It can handle servlets & JSP.
An Application Server (e.g. GlassFish) means: It can manage Java EE applications (usually both servlet/JSP and EJBs).
You should use GlassFish for Java EE enterprise applications.
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