Does JBoss offer advantages and benefits over Tomcat?

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Hi,
Assuming I have a Java webapp that doesn't use EJB, What would be a better choice? Tomcat or JBoss?
In other words, does JBoss offer advantages and benefits over Tomcat?
Thanks.

[Bhavik patel]

It is simple to make decision...

Choose Jboss or other application server : if your clients will access application using protocols other than http and https. i.r CORBA, JRMP etc...
Choose Tomcat or other web server : if your clients will access application using http or https only....

Thanks

[Tim Holloway]

Tomcat does not support the full J2EE stack (as you know). Just the servlet and JSP parts.

JBoss, on the other hand, does support the full J2EE stack. And it provides the servlet/JSP parts by embedding a copy of Tomcat inside itself. At one time it offered an embedded Jetty option, as well, but I've been told by JBoss people that these days, it's strictly Tomcat.

JBoss is perforce larger than plain Tomcat and has more subsystems to start up and shut down than Tomcat, so you're better off with plain Tomcat is all you ever expect to do is servlet/JSP. On the other hand, when you actually need those other bells and whistles, JBoss is an excellent implementation.

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Bhavik patel wrote:It is simple to make decision...

Choose Jboss or other application server : if your clients will access application using protocols other than http and https. i.r CORBA, JRMP etc...
Choose Tomcat or other web server : if your clients will access application using http or https only....

Thanks

Lets say the application is pure Java web application (no EJBs), Servlets and JSPs and any other web framework like SpringMVC.
How it is possible to access it via protocols other than HTTP and HTTPS?

[Tim Holloway]

Depends on what you mean by "other protocols". If they're J2EE-standard protocols such as RMI, you'd be better off using JBoss. If they're custom protocols, you might be able to subclass the Servlet class to service them.