Which one do you recommend for web and why?
+2
A:
I don't recommend any particular one. If you want just JSP/Servlet support, both suffices. If you want more than that (e.g. anything provided by the Java EE API which is much more than alone JSP/Servlet), then Tomcat simply don't suffice without manually adding a bunch of components on top of that to comply the complete Java EE api like JBoss AS is doing.
In (Eclipse) development terms, Tomcat is a quick starter and restarter, takes about 3 seconds. Glassfish is a slow starter, takes about 30 seconds, but it is an fast hotdeployer. All happens in a subsecond while Tomcat usually takes 3 seconds for this (yes, Tomcat is then basically restarting itself).
BalusC
2010-08-24 14:47:43
How do you hotdeploy so fast? The Server Adapter is slow even with automatic publishing.
Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
2010-08-24 14:50:47
@Thor: Are you using v3? I can't remember it ever being slow. However, Glassfish v2 indeed used to be irritating slow in hotdeploys. Using their provided [Eclipse Plugin](https://glassfishplugins.dev.java.net/) btw.
BalusC
2010-08-24 14:53:24
thx for the answer
2010-08-24 15:10:16
You're welcome.
BalusC
2010-08-24 15:17:17
@BalusC, yes, Eclipse 3.6 with the Eclipse Plugin. I've now started with a clean Eclipse and downloaded the autodiscovered Glassfish plugin, and the default behaviour is still to require manual publishing. Have you set "Automatically publish when resources change" and lowered the interval to something less than the default 15 seconds?
Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
2010-08-25 09:31:10