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HCL Digital Experience vs IBM WebSphere Application Server comparison

 

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

HCL Digital Experience
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (8th)
IBM WebSphere Application S...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (5th), Application Infrastructure (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

HCL Digital Experience and IBM WebSphere Application Server aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. HCL Digital Experience is designed for Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) and holds a mindshare of 6.0%, up 5.5% compared to last year.
IBM WebSphere Application Server, on the other hand, focuses on Application Server, holds 8.7% mindshare, down 12.4% since last year.
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HCL Digital Experience6.0%
Adobe Experience Manager14.3%
Liferay Digital Experience Platform8.9%
Other70.8%
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)
Application Server Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM WebSphere Application Server8.7%
Tomcat12.9%
Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP)12.8%
Other65.6%
Application Server
 

Featured Reviews

it_user677694 - PeerSpot reviewer
Responsable Technique IT at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
It's easy to customize security access for all resources or content.
Design which contents do you want integrate to your IBM portal. Evaluate constraints for each integration and solve them by technology choices included in this product. They are a lot of solution proposed by IBM portal products Choose if you want a premise solution or a cloud solution ( 2 solutions are advantages and disadvantages)
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

"Workflow to manage page and content with validation step is great and it's easy to customize security access for all resources or content."
"The performance is good."
"It's an awesome solution. Compared to everything else that's out there in the market right now, IBM MQ is hands down the best solution available and that's based on 40 years of IT experience."
"WebSphere Application Server's best features include the data subscription and connection viewer."
"The scalability of the product is quite good."
"The integration between IBM tools and applications is very well executed."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server is the best in terms of scalability and performance, as well as the support for managing distributed transactions."
"IBM WAS is extremely scalable. It is easy to add additional servers and to divide the load over servers in all kinds of ways."
"One of the most valuable features might be the stability of the IBM WebSphere Application Server."
 

Cons

"Customer service is medium for quality and answer, low for resolving problem."
"It should be able to serve more concurrent requests like Oracle. Oracle has more powerful stability, availability, and real-time serving."
"I think in some moments, the security was a little bit more complex to configure when it was delegated to other systems, making it an area where improvements are required."
"What could be improved in IBM WebSphere Application Server is its interconnection with other products, for example, Kafka. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is a better graphical user interface."
"WebSphere is very cumbersome and not user-friendly."
"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 installation has room for improvement."
"I think that this is a good product but I think that the cloud environment could be improved. I think that the future is in the utilization of the product in a product as a service way which is something that is lacking at this moment."
"The availability of the solution needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It's expensive."
"I don't remember the price, but there are no additional costs."
"We used to pay about $100,000-$120,000 US or somewhere around there. That was a bit cost-prohibitive for us to continue."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"It is very expensive."
"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."
"We pay around $200,000 annually."
"When you purchase Maximo, you get WebSphere for free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Government
17%
Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Government
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

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What do you like most about IBM WebSphere Application Server?
Network Deployment is the most useful feature for scalability. It has many features within the standard WebSphere Application Server edition.
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...
 

Also Known As

IBM Digital Experience Manager, IBM WebSphere Portal
WebSphere Application Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Skypicker, Inventive, Factor-y S.r.l., Meander Medical Center, Intesa S.p.A., Deutsche Lufthansa AG, CinePostproduction, UnipolSai Assicurazioni S.p.A, Jyske Bank, Swiss Export Risk Insurance
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 Adobe, Liferay, Sprinklr and others in Digital Experience Platforms (DXP). Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.