3 Difference between Web Server vs Application vs Servlet Containers in Java JEE

In the Java EE, or J2EE or JEE world, there are a lot of confusion between terminology, which is quite evident that now we have three words (J2EE, Java EE, and JEE) to describe the same technology platform. You will see Java developers using the terms like Web Server, Application Server, and Web containers interchangeably but they are not exactly same. The main difference between Web server and application server is that web server is meant to serve static pages e.g. HTML and CSS, while Application Server is responsible for generating dynamic content by executing server side code e.g. JSP, Servlet or EJB. One of the most popular web servers is Apache HTTPD which is often used in conjunction with Tomcat to host many Java web application. Now, tomcat is not exactly an application server, it's more of a servlet engine or web container or also known as servlet containers because it provides the runtime environment for Servlet and JSP but doesn't provide the services like EJB and distributed transaction which are a key feature of the application server in Java JEE world.

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