Difference between an application server and a servlet container?

Question

I am trying to understand the difference between a full fledged application server (e.g. Weblogic, JBoss etc.) and a servlet container (Tomcat, Jetty etc.).

How do t

Answer 1

Broadly speaking, a servlet container restricts itself more or less to the implementation of the J2EE Servlet specification. Also, it's focus is on the runtime environment and not so much on providing additional tools.

In contrast, a full fledged application server implements the whole J2EE stack; plus it comes with all the enterprisey tools and integration possibilities. An application server usually has advanced administration interfaces, it supports clustering and other features used mostly in high-end systems development.

For a beginner, it's probably better to stay with a simple servlet container, since the learning curve there is much less steep.

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Edit

@Apache Fan: It depends on the specifics of your situation like existing systems and future plans among other things. I don't think a generic flowchart approach is applicable here.

Platform selection is usually done by weighing specific requirements against first-hand knowledge of systems under consideration.

However the question gives no clues as to what the evaluation criteria are. Should it be open source? Is around-the-clock vendor support necessary? What kind of an enterprise environment should the system integrate with? Are licencing fees an issue? Any must-have technologies or tools? Etc.

Without knowing the above it's pretty much shooting in the dark.