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IBM Open Liberty vs IIS comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 8, 2026

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

IBM Open Liberty
Ranking in Application Server
7th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
2.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IIS
Ranking in Application Server
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Application Server category, the mindshare of IBM Open Liberty is 4.6%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IIS is 8.0%, up from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Server Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IIS8.0%
IBM Open Liberty4.6%
Other87.4%
Application Server
 

Featured Reviews

FABIO LUIS VELLOSO DA SILVA - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner at SouJava
Has enabled flexible deployment of modular services with high availability and smooth dynamic updates
The best features of IBM Open Liberty are the implementation of MicroProfile and Jakarta EE, along with fault tolerance and high availability. It's easy to use and deploy new features. The profile is easy to configure and set up features. For example, using fault tolerance from MicroProfile or using servlets or JAX-RS allows for easy configuration and creation of modular applications. The configuration is modular. The main point for us in this project was high availability, high performance, and the implementation of MicroProfile and Jakarta EE. We utilized the modular architecture of IBM Open Liberty by creating different microservices using different environments. We created different configurations for different services using the configuration of IBM Open Liberty. This was very beneficial. We created different environments only by changing the configuration, depending on the functionality we needed. It was good and very flexible for us. I used the dynamic updates feature of IBM Open Liberty and different configurations in different services and servers, based on the functionality we provided for our clients. The flexibility to create different services in different environments using IBM Open Liberty was important. The high availability is guaranteed by the architecture of IBM Open Liberty, Java, and MicroProfile. The architecture guaranteed high availability, and the flexibility comes from being able to configure needed features. There's no need to load all WebSphere or functionalities in all environments. I can configure it and create a more highly available and scalable process. I implemented monitoring tools for IBM Open Liberty using Grafana and OpenTracing using the functionalities from MicroProfile and IBM Open Liberty. The monitoring tools helped with managing system performance.
Frederic Hautecoeur - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Integrations Architect at bs-team
Integrated web hosting has simplified secure services and has supported long-term growth
To be honest, I do not see any major areas for improvement. Perhaps something simple and minor. It should not go more complex than it is at the moment. The only disadvantage I see is that the documentation is a bit difficult to find. There is a lot of configuration that is very hard to get information about.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The flexibility to create different services in different environments using IBM Open Liberty was important."
"It is a stable solution compared to other vendors."
"IIS is a stable solution for .NET applications."
"The most valuable feature of IIS is that it's free, and it works."
"IIS is the best option on Microsoft Windows Server for hosting and deployment of .NET applications, either in a local environment or on the web."
"The most valuable feature of IIS is the database it provides."
"It has an intuitive user interface and provides a lot of options for building reports."
"The product is flexible."
"The solution is very easy to use and offers a quick deployment."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to use and easy to understand."
 

Cons

"Its support documentation could have detailed information on database integration."
"To improve IBM Open Liberty, more integration with Kafka and message systems, and asynchronous messaging would be beneficial."
"At the moment, we have big problems with stability, and I'm not very happy at the moment. So, the stability could be improved."
"The product could be more compatible with Linux and macOS, particularly when applying user configuration policies."
"They need to improve their response time and first level support quality because the escalation process takes too long."
"Scalability issues: No issues encountered but always go for two machines as one isn't enough and isn't fault redundant."
"The solution's scalability needs improvement."
"It would be beneficial if you could automate security certificate monitoring with IIS."
"Having no support for other than a Microsoft environment and programming languages limits the usage of IIS in many cases."
"We'd like future versions to be more stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is less costly than one of its competitors."
"They offer a one-time payment model for the product license, and we pay annually for support."
"This solution comes included with Windows Server."
"There is no license required for the product as it is role-based. Whenever you go for a Windows platform server, the role has to be installed directly from the server manager. There is no additional cost that has to be paid for that. It is free to use."
"The tool is included with Windows."
"I give the price of the solution a five out of ten."
"There is an annual license to use this solution and the price could be better."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution."
"The solution’s pricing is yearly. The pricing is affordable and not high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
40%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Open Liberty?
To improve IBM Open Liberty, more integration with Kafka and message systems, and asynchronous messaging would be beneficial. Having more integration with Kafka, Mongo, and middleware systems that ...
What is your primary use case for Open Liberty?
I used IBM Open Liberty for an application for financial services using IBM Open Liberty and MicroProfile to process data for financial services work.
What advice do you have for others considering Open Liberty?
I used IBM Open Liberty in the past in a project, but today I'm not using it anymore. I had a good experience working with it in a financial services company. This was very beneficial. My review ra...
Which is better - IIS or NGINX Plus?
IIS is a flexible, secure, and manageable web server to host anything on the web. IIS’s scalable and open architecture can handle the most demanding tasks. From media streaming to web applications,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IIS?
For the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for IIS, as a Microsoft product, I didn't think much about separately purchasing an IIS product as it is part of Microsoft Windows. We bought a developmen...
What needs improvement with IIS?
I see that IIS has maintained the same interface for a long time, so they could potentially use more automation or integrate Copilot into it to make it easier to use. I have not accessed or checked...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Windows Server IIS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Erste Bank Group, NJVC, Samsung Electronics, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe, Urban Software Institute
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Open Liberty vs. IIS and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.