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IBM Open Liberty vs Spring Boot comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 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
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
2.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (7th)
Spring Boot
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Java Frameworks (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Open Liberty and Spring Boot aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Open Liberty is designed for Application Server and holds a mindshare of 4.9%, up 0.8% compared to last year.
Spring Boot, on the other hand, focuses on Java Frameworks, holds 28.0% mindshare, down 40.5% since last year.
Application Server Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Open Liberty4.9%
Tomcat12.6%
Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP)10.6%
Other71.9%
Application Server
Java Frameworks Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Spring Boot28.0%
Jakarta EE16.9%
Apache Spark11.3%
Other43.8%
Java Frameworks
 

Q&A Highlights

PA
Global Delivery Head, Global Banking Technology at Bank of America
Aug 20, 2023
 

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.
reviewer2759913 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Software Developer at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees
Has improved application monitoring and supports modular development with built-in configuration features
Spring Boot has many valuable features. First, it requires less coding and less configuration. The configurations are already in-built. The security features in Spring Boot are in-built, so we don't need to use any external third-party applications for security. In Spring Boot, the robust configuration capabilities help in adapting to diverse deployment scenarios because there is a minimum configuration required for developing any applications. The auto-configuration feature is available in Spring Boot. When we start any application, there is a property file where we mention the keys, securities, DB connections, and all other configurations. When we start any application, it loads the application properties first, which include the credentials and security files. I am using Spring Boot starter projects. I assess Spring Boot's auto-configuration feature as highly efficient in managing application setup. The application.properties file allows us to specify the server settings, such as the port we want to start the server on. For example, the default is 8080, but we can configure it to 8081. Additionally, we can store connection details such as the driver class, data source URL, username, and password in the application.properties file.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a stable solution compared to other vendors."
"The flexibility to create different services in different environments using IBM Open Liberty was important."
"The most valuable feature of Spring Boot is it reduces the configuration needed. The configuration is handled by the solution. For example, if you're going to develop a web service, we needed to have a Tomcat web server and had to deploy the services and do tests. However, with Spring Boot, the default server comes with Spring Boot which reduces the task of doing all the configuration."
"Positive impacts have been observed since starting to use Spring Boot in the company because it is a framework that allows for easy creation of microservices."
"Once you know how to use this solution, it's very easy, especially when building APIs."
"We like that the product is open-source."
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution reduces our development time."
"The setup is straightforward."
"The cloud version is very scalable."
 

Cons

"To improve IBM Open Liberty, more integration with Kafka and message systems, and asynchronous messaging would be beneficial."
"Its support documentation could have detailed information on database integration."
"The cloud packaging is not very straightforward, I would say."
"Spring Boot is very mature and developer-friendly, though it abstracts a lot of complexity, which can make it difficult for a developer to fully understand what is happening in the background."
"The current state of Spring Boot's cloud layer requires further development, especially for collecting Java functions for cloud platforms like GCP Cloudground. Having to write every single API request in a single class can be a cumbersome and time-consuming task that is not ideal for Java developers. Additionally, having all API calls in one class and making it the main class presents problems with package visibility. Therefore, there is much room for improvement in the Spring Cloud area."
"When the dependencies within those starter packages clash, mismatch or have a hazard, it is hard to solve the issue."
"The product could be improved by supporting and integrating Hadoop."
"Building a new product in Spring Boot can take a long time since the solution uses reflection. This is one area the solution could be improved."
"We'd like to have fewer updates."
"It's difficult to explain to junior developers what it does under the hood."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is less costly than one of its competitors."
"Spring Boot is an open source solution, it is free to use."
"I use the free version of Spring Boot."
"It's open-source software, so it's free. It's a community license."
"The solution is an open-source tool."
"The solution is free."
"Spring Boot is open source."
"If you want support there is paid enterprise version with support available."
"This is an open source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
43%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise19
 

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...
What do you like most about Spring Boot?
1. Open Source2. Excellent Community Support -- Widely used across different projects -- so your search for answers would be easy and almost certain.3. Extendable Stack with a wide array of availab...
Which is better - Spring Boot or Eclipse MicroProfile?
Springboot is a Java-based solution that is very popular and easy to use. You can use it to build applications quickly and confidently. Springboot has a very large, helpful learning community, whic...
Which is better - Spring Boot or Jakarta EE?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Spring Boot or Jakarta EE application creation software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Spring Boot. Spring Boot offe...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Apache, Red Hat, Oracle and others in Application Server. Updated: May 2026.
899,125 professionals have used our research since 2012.