What is Tomcat and how does it works?

[Rex Maughan]

Is it an application server or a web server? Can Java programs run on it? How do you deploy it?

[Clay Page]

Apache Tomcat is an open-source application server and Servlet container for Java code. It is used by many Java EE implementations, including:

• Java Servlet
• JavaServer Pages,
• Java Expression Language,
• Java WebSockets.

Because it works as a web server and a servlet container, Tomcat is considered a web server rather than an application server. It is a production-ready tool.

Tomcat handles HTTP requests from clients, such as web browsers, and returns HTTP responses. When a client requests Tomcat, Tomcat determines which web application should handle the request based on the URL.

It is a platform-independent tool. Deploying Tomcat on a server is easy.

This article explains how to deploy Tomcat.