{"id":1770,"date":"2013-06-19T10:46:28","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T15:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/redmonk.com\/dberkholz\/?p=1770"},"modified":"2013-07-03T09:50:17","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T14:50:17","slug":"interest-withering-in-java-application-servers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/dberkholz\/2013\/06\/19\/interest-withering-in-java-application-servers\/","title":{"rendered":"Interest withering in Java application servers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prompted by recent encounters with WebSphere’s Liberty Profile, which is targeted at developers<\/a>, and the realization that we haven’t talked seriously about Java application servers<\/strong> for years, the time seemed right for a fresh look at them. Going into it, the outlook from my fellow Monks was grim<\/strong>. For example,\u00a0RedMonk alumnus Cot\u00e9\u00a0wrote<\/a> in 2010:<\/p>\n

The idea of an \u201capplication server\u201d is being eliminated, component by component. In eliminating that idea there\u2019s a huge vacuum when it comes to the runtime developers use to house their projects.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

James even\u00a0pointed out<\/a>\u00a0as far back as 2008 that advances including Ruby on Rails and XML’s ability to aid interop would drag things away from the J2EE world. Let’s examine the data<\/strong> to see whether those predictions held true.<\/p>\n

Broadly fading traction for Java app servers<\/h2>\n
\"Data<\/a>
Data from Google Trends search on the app server name plus “java,” normalized by hits for “java” alone.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A look at Google search data, reflecting a global and general technical audience, shows an interesting trend \u2014 across the board, overall interest in app servers is shrinking. You can see clearly visible peaks around 2005 for Tomcat, 2007 for JBoss, and 2010 for GlassFish. This is countered in part by an increase in alternatives like Spring, as well as the migration of many use cases to alternative, dynamic languages.<\/p>\n

Given the number of acquisitions in this industry over the past decade, it’s worth taking a look at whether they’ve caused any impact. Oracle bought BEA (2008) and therefore prolonged the life of WebLogic. I’ve noted the “Oracle bump” in the graph above, where WebLogic went from a steady downhill slope to a level one for a couple of years post-acquisition. In contrast, after Oracle bought Sun (2010), it essentially put the open-source GlassFish into stasis, resulting in a downward spiral. As a third example, Red Hat bought JBoss before either of those examples (2006), and it also transitioned from growth to decline. Now, it may be that there are other factors influencing these changes, but the scattering of acquisitions over time suggests that it’s more specific to acquisition than it is to broader industry trends.<\/p>\n

Only two popular app servers showed increases in the last 5 years: GlassFish and Jetty.<\/strong> By these metrics, GlassFish is well past its prime, post-Oracle. On the other hand, Jetty appears to have very quickly found a solid niche and stuck with it, given its nearly static levels since mid-2006 on this graph.<\/p>\n

Early-adopter communities agree<\/h2>\n

If we look at a community of earlier adopters like Stack Overflow, we see general agreement with the above trends with subtle differences.<\/p>\n

\"Data<\/a>
Data from Stack Overflow tags for each app server, normalized by the “java” tag count. Obtained from this query<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For example, here are some of the differences:<\/p>\n