Develop a web application in java EE using only a servlet container?

Question

I do some research about deploying web application in Javaee, and i found that an application server compatible Java EE is a web container plus EJB container. Also that Tomcat is just a web container not an application server.

In my case, i have to develop a web application, and i'm not in need of EJB components, so can i simply use a web container without an application server ? Or, i need also a server application?

Answer 1

Apache Tomcat will be sufficient as long as you restrict your use of Java EE to the following APIs:

1. Servlet
2. JSP
3. EL
4. WebSocket

If you need other APIs, you can either package together with your application, or use something like Apache TomEE, which is a web-profile-certified Java EE server with out-of-the-box support for a handful of other useful APIs without the bulk of something like WebLogic, etc.