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Azul Zulu vs IBM WebSphere Application Server comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Azul Zulu
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
AI Customer Experience Personalization (26th), AI Content Creation (12th)
IBM WebSphere Application S...
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Azul Zulu is 3.6%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM WebSphere Application Server is 4.7%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM WebSphere Application Server4.7%
Azul Zulu3.6%
Other91.7%
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Standardized our Java estate and have reduced licensing costs while maintaining strong support
Azul Zulu's ability to allow us to standardize our Java estate on a single and well-supported platform stands out as one of its best features. This standardization simplifies our compliance audits and ensures all our applications receive timely security updates.Azul Zulu positively impacts our organization by providing a platform that allows us to standardize Java on a well-supported platform. Without the high cost associated with other proprietary vendors, Azul Zulu provides an excellent platform for running our applications.
CF
Senior Manager, MW & DB Automation at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Has worked seamlessly in complex clustered environments and supports long-term development efforts
IBM WebSphere Application Server is currently at version 9.0.5.23. In recent months, they released fix 23, as they periodically release fixes. Previously, they frequently increased versions, but now they maintain 9.0.5 with different releases. It's based on Java J2EE 7 and Java SDK 1.8. Oracle announced that 2030 will be the last year when Java SDK 1.8 will be supported. Oracle currently deploys Java 2.x in parallel, with the latest being version 25. The future of IBM WebSphere Application Server remains uncertain since it's based on Java 1.8 and Java 7. I haven't found any white papers or official documentation from IBM outlining their trajectory post-2030.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We achieved specific outcomes from using Azul Zulu by reducing our Java licensing and support costs by approximately 70% when compared to our previous Oracle contract."
"I joined this project which had already been underway for approximately six months, and in two months, I refactored the whole project and wrote it, and it is functional."
"We've had no issues with stability."
"We needed this type of integration and WebShepere is the best tool for it."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server is the ultimate product; there is nothing superior to IBM WebSphere Application Server, and while there are other options such as Tomcat, JBoss, and Oracle's solution, IBM WebSphere Application Server stands above them all."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server works well and fulfills all of the requirements that are demanded of it, so it is a product that I recommend."
"What's most valuable in IBM WebSphere Application Server is its resilience. When you use the solution, you know that after the communication has been done, there will be no doubt that the data has reached its destination."
"The product offers good performance."
"It is very stable, safe, and secure."
"It has good stability of the application server in the long term compared to other solutions."
"The only reason why we're currently using WebSphere is that the integration of the authentication with Azure is very quick. WebSphere has something that can immediately connect with Azure Active Directory."
 

Cons

"I think Azul Zulu can be improved by always thinking about productivity, as most languages tend to evolve in that direction."
"It needs a better update daemon. At this time the process is manual and could be an issue on multiple desktop deployments."
"Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints."
"It should be able to serve more concurrent requests like Oracle. Oracle has more powerful stability, availability, and real-time serving."
"WebSphere Application Server doesn't have an automated deployment option, forcing us to use third-party tools like Jenkins UCD and Palo Automated Deployment."
"While WebSphere mostly supports IBM HTTP Server (IHS) as the web server plugin, I think it would be beneficial if it also supported Apache and NGINX web servers. That would give customers more flexibility in their choices."
"The solution consumes hardware."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server hasn't changed much. It's still a heavyweight for any company compared to what you get. Unless your code base is deeply linked with it, I don't think it's a great idea to go with this solution. The current trend is toward modularity and containerization, and given the product's requirements, containerization will be difficult. There is a memory requirement as well."
"Stability is frustrating. It goes down after a specific number of user connections."
"IBM needs to pay attention to market changes more quickly. We now have Java 9 and very soon Java EE8. We do not want to wait for two or three years after their release until they are supported by the new version."
"In spite of the solution's robustness, it is expensive and a bit difficult to support, which is why companies nowadays tend to use more lightweight products such as Tomcat or cloud versions of the products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"There is an Eclipse Plugin provided by IBM, so no need to buy IBM Rational Application Developer or Rational Software Architect tools."
"We used to pay about $100,000-$120,000 US or somewhere around there. That was a bit cost-prohibitive for us to continue."
"It's expensive."
"WebSphere Application Server is expensive, so it may not be a good option for small companies."
"If your application is just a web app that does not need to scale big, you can obtain a single core license of WAS Express edition, which has almost the same features with limited processing cores. If you manage a very big application farm (i.e. need to run 10 or more WAS servers) it is better to get IBM WAS Hypervisor Edition."
"The price of this product is higher than that of competitors."
"The licensing cost is 1,000 of euros for a 30-year table."
"My company is on a perpetual or permanent license agreement with IBM WebSphere Application Server. There's also a pay-per-use option, but customers rarely choose that option. Most of the customers are on the perpetual license deal that's all-inclusive. As the license cost is quite expensive, I'm rating it two out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
9%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Azul Zulu?
I think Azul Zulu can be improved by always thinking about productivity, as most languages tend to evolve in that direction. I have two projects that I am working on in parallel, one using Angular ...
What is your primary use case for Azul Zulu?
My main use case for Azul Zulu in the current project is developing the archiving and unarchiving system. I use Azul Zulu on the back end when I created a REST API, which I use together with Java S...
What advice do you have for others considering Azul Zulu?
My advice to others who are thinking about using Azul Zulu is to try to explore as much as possible what it offers, getting away from the conventional paradigm. I would rate this review as a nine o...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Application Server?
At Royal Bank, which is a major IBM customer with mainframes and numerous IBM products, they have a specific agreement regarding pricing. The pricing structure for large enterprise customers differ...
What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Application Server?
IBM WebSphere Application Server is currently at version 9.0.5.23. In recent months, they released fix 23, as they periodically release fixes. Previously, they frequently increased versions, but no...
What is your primary use case for IBM WebSphere Application Server?
I was part of an application where I integrated IBM WebSphere Application Server with Node.js and Blue Prism. I did a lot of REST applications because at my core, I'm a developer. Currently, I'm an...
 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere Application Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Kyocera, OKI, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Voya Financial
TalkTalk, Property management group, E.SUN Bank, Ohio National Financial Services, Aviarc, Cincom Systems, FJA-US, D+H, Staples, Michigan Municipal League
Find out what your peers are saying about Azul Zulu vs. IBM WebSphere Application Server and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.