--- title: IBM WebSphere Reviews meta_title: 'IBM WebSphere Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 159 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how IBM WebSphere works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.1 review_count: 159 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-09' parent_category: name: IT Infrastructure url: https://www.g2.com/categories/it-infrastructure --- # IBM WebSphere Reviews **Vendor:** IBM **Category:** [Application Server Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/application-server) **Average Rating:** 4.1/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 159 ## About IBM WebSphere IBM WebSphere Liberty and Application Server (WAS) are part of JSphere Suite for Java, a portfolio of products including application runtimes, modernization tooling, and developer productivity IDE extensions that enable you to rapidly modernize enterprise Java applications and create new cloud-native applications, with support for on-premise and major public cloud deployments; in virtual machines, containers and Kubernetes. IBM WebSphere Liberty is a next-generation, enterprise-grade application runtime that accelerates the delivery of cloud-native applications, allowing your team to rapidly deliver differentiating innovation. Whether you're running microservices in a serverless environment or a traditional always on application, Liberty requires less infrastructure, memory, and compute resources, providing the flexibility your organization needs to deploy on any cloud in a trusted, secure and open environment. Liberty empowers your development and platform engineering teams to continuously deliver code that meets and exceeds your customers' expectations. Adopt Liberty today and experience up to a 99% reduction in time to deploy code. Traditional WebSphere runtimes, include IBM WebSphere Application Server, IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core, IBM WebSphere Network Deployment (WAS-ND), Reviews for any of these components can be done here. ## IBM WebSphere Reviews ### 1. Engineering manager **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Badr Z. | Senior Software Engineering Manager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 16, 2022 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** Intelligent routing and Dynamic clustering **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** There is no free version able, IDE options need improvement **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Enterprise-ready features are beneficial. It is a product worthful for enterprises. ### 2. WebSphere Application Server **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 11, 2019 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** It's pretty easy to use and to install. The installation guide is very easy to understand. Support is also very helpful. Opening PMR with WAS is pretty easy and they are very responsive. The response time is also very fast. Our WAS representative is also very help and accessible. **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** Licensing is very expensive. WebSphere Application Server ND and family edition is pretty expensive. The first time pruchase is very expensive and the renew is pretty costly as well. The migration tool from one version to the next also requires some time to understand. **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** With WebSphere Liberty, it gives us the ability the refine some of our current footprint and enable to save money on licensing. We are working on migrating our traditional env to a liberty env. However, liberty is very new and requires some time for us to get used to. ### 3. IBM Websphere **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** John H. | Senior Consultant and Business Development Manager, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 11, 2019 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** Its a Good middleware Technology With best Clustering concepts. **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** Cost is high than compatitors. Other Company have better service and support. **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** To run Legacy systems for EDI and Order management. ### 4. WAS Performance **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Zach D. | Software Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 13, 2019 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** Ease of use, performance gains from previous versions (i.e v6 to v9) **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** Lack of support for WAS 8, cost of upgrades and maintenace. **Recommendations to others considering IBM WebSphere:** n/a **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** n/a ### 5. WAS is a big boy, for implementation and administration. **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hazzim A. | Software configuration engineer, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 06, 2018 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** With the proper hardware the performance should be good, the administration is actually more easy than in the past and IBM is working to make more easy to admin, if your solution is working with more IBM solutions, WAS should be the right selection for your aplication server. **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** A lot of versions with minimal differences from each other but licensing could be problematic if you don't select the right one, the performance depends a lot of the experience of your sysadmins and tuning could be a issue if the application is not well designed. **Recommendations to others considering IBM WebSphere:** If you have budget for a good hardware solution and your operations team is with the proper experience, WAS could be a good solution, but you need think and architect the complete solution with IBM middleware to avoid interoperability issues. **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** A lot of internal projects are working with new versions and the performance is good in most of the cases ### 6. Websphere onprem **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Health, Wellness and Fitness | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 14, 2019 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** Robust, full featured adhering to the JEE spec **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** Heavy weight solution with all those integrations. We'll benefit from a leaner product **Recommendations to others considering IBM WebSphere:** Make it lightweight like JBoss **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use Websphere on our Click2Cloud platform. On the Cloud, we use Websphere Liberty. ### 7. WebSphere **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Telecommunications | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 12, 2019 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** Websphere supports a diverse set of use cases **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** Configuration can be difficult and troubleshoot is often cumbersome **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Display of KPIs surrounding fault management. with the tivoli NOI product. WebSphere has enabled robust dashboarding ### 8. I have worked with the product for 14 years **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Insurance | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 14, 2019 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** i like the support for the product. It is a big factor moving forward **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** The traditional and portal products are not nimble. very bloated. **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are supporting legacy and vendor applications. ### 9. I have been using Webshpere for the last 12 years **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Insurance | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 13, 2019 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** Robust and production ready. Integrates well with other IBM products. **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** Lot of plug ins takes for ever to start up. **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Enterprise Java application development and deployment. ### 10. WAS Cloud Novice **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 12, 2019 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** The information available for IBM Cloud Private **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** Need more info. have not had a chance to implement in ibm cloud **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** security on applications ### 11. Great java application server **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Tobacco | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 14, 2017 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** This is probably the most stable application server I've ever run. Package deployment on the fly is a cinch, but where it really excels at is integration; if you're running any other IBM software (MQ, DB2, ...) integration is built into it, offering you capabilities you wouldn't achieve with other application servers **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** This server is not for the faint of heart, setting it up can be scary, when faced with all these settings and options. But don't worry, once you get to know and understand them, you'll wonder how you could do without. Also, and this issue is with all IBM products, licensing! **Recommendations to others considering IBM WebSphere:** If your business is dependent on running a Java stack to operate, don't cheap out. Yes, the free stuff is great, but think how does downtime, issues, actually cost you. It will far outweigh the cost of running websphere application server. **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use this as part of our integration layer, running all webservices. We have over 20k transactions going through it on a daily basis, on a single instance of the server. ### 12. WAS **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 08, 2018 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** Provides for the management of multiple technologies is a single interface. **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** The complexity of the interface for certain technologies and the amount of computing resources required. **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Web service and application hosting ### 13. A good way to gather all your software **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** ClĂ©ment B. | Interior Automotive Design Intern / Master Thesis, Design, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 07, 2016 **What do you like best about IBM WebSphere?** A real solution, IBM-style, therefore a reliable choice, for installing enterprise applications without too much hassle. I like the playful and fast aspect as well as the consistency found in all IBM software. Originally, Websphere is a generic application platform covering a set of solutions developed by IBM that allow the development, deployment, and use of enterprise applications, even in complex cases involving heterogeneous applications and hardware. This application platform covers the following elements: A range of application servers based on Java EE and EJB. The main element of this range is WAS: Websphere Application Server. A range of development tools primarily based on the Eclipse development framework and the Java language. The main element of this range is WSAD: WebSphere Studio Application Developer, replaced since 2005 by RAD (Rational Application Developer). WebSphere Portal: a range of tools allowing the development and maintenance of an enterprise portal, while allowing, if necessary, the inclusion of applications used by it, through various interfaces and other integration solutions. **What do you dislike about IBM WebSphere?** Each of the ranges proposed above includes several variants adapted according to the complexity of the needs and the size of the company, and as a result, they are not always very clear for the user. Furthermore, one will also find a number of packages, or so-called "ready-to-use" software suites, covering a range of generic functional needs. **Recommendations to others considering IBM WebSphere:** Have a fairly large structure to start using this software. **What problems is IBM WebSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** No more wasting time on software installation with the "old" method ## IBM WebSphere Discussions - [What is IBM WebSphere hybrid edition?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-ibm-websphere-hybrid-edition) - 1 comment - [View IBM WebSphere pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/ibm-websphere/reviews?filters%5Bnps_score%5D%5B%5D=3§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-13+22%3A36%3A15+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=43a95150-6c1d-4905-a756-2b296a9601b8&secure%5Btoken%5D=e9bd855518659c7c21cb198b415b723174d4d51c7c5949a7a6684dea1d5ef271&format=llm_user) ## IBM WebSphere Features **Data Management** - Data Redundancy - Server Management - Version and Profile Support - Web-based frameworks - Data exchange **Application Support** - Deployment - Interface support - Processor support - Application Support **User Features** - Centralized offering - Security updates - Real-time visibility **System Capability** - Self Healing High Availability - Orchestration - Scalability **Modernization** - Cloud deployment - Microservices development - On-premises support - Modular architecture **Security** - Automatic Security Updates - Security updates **AI Performance Improvement - Application Server** - AI Application Scaling - AI Error Prediction - Intelligent Resource Forecasting - AI Anomaly Detection - AI Intrusion Detection **Agentic AI - Application Server** - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning - Cross-system Integration - Adaptive Learning - Natural Language Interaction - Proactive Assistance - Decision Making ## Top IBM WebSphere Alternatives - [Apache Tomcat](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-tomcat/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (126 reviews) - [Red Hat Enterprise Linux](https://www.g2.com/products/red-hat-enterprise-linux/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (933 reviews) - [Ubuntu](https://www.g2.com/products/ubuntu/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (2,347 reviews)