Most Popular Java Application Servers (2017 Edition)

This is now the fifth year we've published statistics about the Java landscape. Every year, during springtime, we dig into the data that we have gathered from the JVMs that our Plumbr Java Agents have monitored. The outcome of this has been published so you can understand which Java versions are currently the most adopted, which JVM vendor currently rules the market, and the distribution of the market for different Java application servers.

A few weeks ago, we released the data about Java versions and vendors. This week, we are covering the state of the application server market.

The following conclusions are based on 1,633 different deployments that Plumbr monitored for performance during February and March 2017. The data has been gathered from within the JVMs monitored by our Java Agent in SaaS installations of Plumbr.

Which Java Application Server Is the Most Widely Used in 2017?

From the deployments we gathered the data from, we were able to identify the application server and its vendor in just slightly under 60% of the environments. This ratio has been dropping over the years and provides insights of its own. Apparently, more and more Java deployments do not really bother with wrapping themselves inside an application server and pick a more lightweight option.

The container vendors are distributed as follows:

Tomcat's share in the Java application server installation base has grown even more. The 63.9% share of the pie left no question about the winner. In addition to Tomcat, the next four vendors with significant deployment bases are:

• JBoss/WildFly installations, having 13.8% of the market share.
• Jetty, with 9% of the market.
• GlassFish, having another 5.6% of the pie.
• Oracle WebLogic deployments with 4.5% of the installations.

The “Other” category represented less than 3.4% of installations. This consisted of Resin, Orion, OC4J, and IBM WebSphere deployments, all detected in fewer than five deployments.

Java Application Servers in Use 2013-2017

Analyzing the same data from 2013 to 2017, we see the following:

Just in case you're not into stacked bar charts, here's the raw data in a table as well:

There is only one major conclusion that can be drawn from the trends: Tomcat remains the clear #1 preference, extending its footprint slowly but steadily year over year.

Other trends or changes should be interpreted carefully. For example, the reason why Jetty dropped to just one-third of its former glory in 2015 was likely caused by Plumbr's transformation from a development tool to a monitoring solution. Instead of the developer-friendly Jetty, production deployments with other Java application servers took hold.

If you found the data interesting, you are likely to enjoy our regular posts on Java and performance monitoring. To stay tuned, subscribe either to our Twitter or RSS feed.