Tomcat vs Jetty: which servlet container is better?

Tomcat is the safer default for most production Java web apps, since it is the servlet container most hosting providers, tutorials, and Spring Boot setups already assume. Jetty is the better pick when you need faster startup and a container you can embed directly inside another process; Apache Solr, for example, ships with Jetty built into its distribution instead of requiring a separate application server.

How do Tomcat and Jetty compare on the fundamentals?

Teams running conventional WAR-based deployments with a dedicated ops team usually reach for Tomcat, since so much existing documentation and hosting tooling already assumes it. Teams building microservices or internal tools that need to start and stop an HTTP server programmatically usually reach for Jetty instead.

When should you choose one over the other?

When to choose Tomcat

Pick Tomcat for JSP-heavy legacy applications, for shared hosting environments preconfigured around it, or when your team wants the largest pool of documentation and community troubleshooting available. Spring Boot developers who stick with the default embedded server are already running Tomcat without any extra setup.

When to choose Jetty

Pick Jetty when you are building a library or CLI tool that needs its own HTTP endpoint without dragging in a full application server. It also fits CI pipelines and integration test suites where startup time adds up across thousands of runs, and workloads with heavy WebSocket or long-lived connection use, an area where Jetty's async architecture has a long track record.

Neither container is objectively better outside of context. Match the choice to how the app gets deployed and who maintains it: a team already standardized on Tomcat rarely gains much from switching for a marginal startup-time improvement, and a team shipping a lightweight internal service rarely benefits from Tomcat's heavier defaults.

Published at: July 21, 2026