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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) (12th)
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 4.6%, down 5.6% compared to last year.
IBM WebSphere Application Server, on the other hand, focuses on Application Server, holds 8.0% mindshare, down 12.8% since last year.
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HCL Digital Experience4.6%
Adobe Experience Manager12.5%
Liferay Digital Experience Platform9.5%
Other73.4%
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)
Application Server Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM WebSphere Application Server8.0%
Tomcat12.4%
Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP)11.0%
Other68.6%
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."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server is one of the best servers due to its stability and paid license."
"The solution's data consistency is great and very reliable, which is critical for us in a transitional scenario and the most important feature that we count on."
"The most valuable features are its user-friendliness and reliability in terms of application hosting."
"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."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server works well and fulfills all of the requirements that are demanded of it, so it is a product that I recommend."
"This solution is very good in terms of stability."
"The product offers good performance."
"It does integrate well with the Tivoli Federated Identity Management system."
 

Cons

"Customer service is medium for quality and answer, low for resolving problem."
"The future of IBM WebSphere Application Server remains uncertain since it's based on Java 1.8 and Java 7."
"Based on the field and based on the build that was provided, we've noticed a lot of constraints in terms of the performance now."
"The solution consumes hardware."
"The licensing could be improved, and I would like it to give the longevity of the lifespan of the visions. In the next release, I would like to be able to download and extract the files so that I can just use my application server."
"They should make the solution more lightweight and not bundle everything into a single product."
"WebSphere is very cumbersome and not user-friendly. It used to have its own JVM, which presented challenges such as different architecture and memory leaks."
"The computing resources required to run WAS could be reduced so that we can use a smaller virtual machine to run the application."
"When we run into memory or locking issues, we resort to using third-party tools. However, it would be preferable to have native tools for debugging this type of problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"The price of this product is higher than that of competitors."
"It costs more than some of the others, but, you get what you pay for."
"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."
"IBM WAS base is part of the deal when you purchase IBM FileNet P8 Content Engine."
"The licensing policy is based on the PVU base."
"When you purchase Maximo, you get WebSphere for free."
"There is an Eclipse Plugin provided by IBM, so no need to buy IBM Rational Application Developer or Rational Software Architect tools."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Government
16%
Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
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 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, Liferay, Acquia and others in Digital Experience Platforms (DXP). Updated: April 2026.
893,915 professionals have used our research since 2012.