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Difference Between Tomcat 7.0 and Tomcat 6.0

Tomcat 7.0 vs Tomcat 6.0

Tomcat (also known as Apache Tomcat or Jakarta Tomcat) provides a “pure java” HTTP web server environment that can be used to run Java code. It is a Servlet container developed by Apache Software Foundation, which is offered as an open source product. Sun Microsystems’s Java Servlet and JSP (Java Server Pages) specifications are implemented by Tomcat. Apache Tomcat can be configured using XML configuration files (although tools for configuration and management are included with the server). Tomcat 7.0 is the latest stable version of Tomcat, which introduced many new features over its previous version Tomcat 6.0 (which was released in 2007).

What is Tomcat 6.0?

Tomcat 6.0 introduced many new features over its previous releases. With Tomcat 6.0, advanced control over I/O operations of their applications can be implemented because the users can use the new NIO (New I/O) connector for asynchronous communication of low level input/output data. For example, data could be transferred in bulk, in parallel through multiple I/O levels. Or on the other hand, the users could multiplex data using selectors. Injectable thread pools can be configured to be shared using the new Executer element. Tomcat 6.0 provides support for implementing an alternative commons-logging adaptor, thanks to the new JULI framework’s refactoring of the logging library. Furthermore, Tomcat 6.0 supports a new HTTP Push method called Comet, and a new API that can be used to transfer over sockets called SEND_FILE API. Users can create more than one URL patterns within a single servlet mapping.

What is Tomcat 7.0?

Apache started working on Apache 7.0 as early as January, 2009. But, it was announced stable after 2 years (in January, 2011). Tomcat 7.0.6 is the first Tomcat 7 stable release. Tomcat 7.0 was built upon the improvements introduced in the earlier version, and implements Servlet 3.0 API, JSP 2.2 and EL 2.2 specifications. Tomcat 7.0 introduced many new improvements of its own, such as detection/prevention of memory leaks in web applications, improved security for Manager/Host Manager, CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) protection, ability to include external content in applications directly and cleaned up code (including refactoring of connectors and lifecycles).

What is the difference between Tomcat 7.0 and Tomcat 6.0?

– Tomcat 7.0 is the latest version of the Tomcat server, while Tomcat 6.0 was its previous release.

– Download size of Tomcat 7.0 is little larger than Tomcat 6.0.

– Tomcat 7.0 has many new features not found in Tomcat 6.0.

– First of all, Tomcat 7.0 is faster than Tomcat 6.0 in starting and running web applications.

– Tomcat 7.0 has improved  the security over Tomcat 6.0 due to several security code fixes and additions (such as CSRF prevention filter).

– Tomcat 7.0 includes Servlet 3.0 API, which it self is an improved version over its previous version (used by Tomcat 6.0).

– So, 3rd party applications that need Servlet 3 containers are supported by Tomcat 7.0.

– Configurability is better in Tomcat 7.0, which includes new container components (e.g. ExpiresFilter and AddDefaultCharsetFilter) that allow better handling of problems previously left to the web applications to resolve.

– Tomcat 7.0 supports Java 6, while Tomcat 6.0 supported only Java 5.

– Finally, Tomcat 7.0 includes cleaner and modernized code that uses generics in the required places.