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HCL Digital Experience 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

HCL Digital Experience
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (10th)
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 (8th)
 

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 4.1%, down 7.2% compared to last year.
IBM WebSphere Application Server, on the other hand, focuses on Application Server, holds 7.8% mindshare, down 10.5% since last year.
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HCL Digital Experience4.1%
Adobe Experience Manager11.5%
Liferay Digital Experience Platform10.6%
Other73.8%
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)
Application Server Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM WebSphere Application Server7.8%
Tomcat13.1%
Oracle WebLogic Server10.2%
Other68.9%
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."
"This solution is very good in terms of stability."
"The thing about WebSphere, as opposed to other ones that I am aware of such as JBoss and Liberty, is that WebSphere has the most comprehensive scaffolding available to it."
"I find IBM support to be very nice."
"High availability, alert management, and deployments are the most valuable features for us. We have the ND version so we can do deployments."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Portal Virtualization."
"Starting with version 8, WAS provides a special folder called monitor deployment. Once you put the .war or .ear file in there, it is deployed automatically without human intervention. This greatly helps us in our continuous integration server. Once the deployment binary is ready, we write a script to copy it to that folder and then, voila! The application is up and running and accessible from its context root."
"Ease of administration: It has an Integrated Solutions Console, what we call the administrative console, with very detailed configurations and Help pages for each configurable item."
"IBM WAS is the backbone for our enterprise content management suite which delivers the primary processes for our customers."
 

Cons

"Customer service is medium for quality and answer, low for resolving problem."
"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."
"Room for improvement would only be in the licensing. As with all IBM products the licensing can be complex and expensive."
"The security could be better."
"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."
"Some things are very difficult to do, so the interface and usage could be more intuitive for those."
"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."
"Its price is a bit expensive. They should improve its price to compete with other applications that are out there, which we are also exploring."
"The current trend is to move to Liberty because of the portability of its cloud and its Kubernetes, which containerize the application."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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 licensing cost is 1,000 of euros for a 30-year table."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"The price of IBM WebSphere Application Server could be less expensive and there is an annual license required for this solution."
"We pay around $200,000 annually."
"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."
"Room for improvement would only be in the licensing. As with all IBM products the licensing can be complex and expensive. Bargain well and try to get as much discount as possible. Discounts of 85% are possible. Without the discount, I think the product is overrated."
"The pricing is a little expensive."
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920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
23%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing 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

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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

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, ContentSquare, Liferay and others in Digital Experience Platforms (DXP). Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.