Servlet container vs application server

Among the popular application server platforms are J2EE, WebLogic, Glassfish, JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, Apache Tomcat, and Apache Geronimo , to name but a few.

Web Server is a server which accepts a request for data and sends the relevant document in return whereas Application Server contains a ejb container component as well to run the enterprise applications .

Apache Tomcat (Link resides outside IBM) is an open source application server that executes Java Servlets, renders and delivers web pages that include JavaServer Page code, and serves Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) applications. Released in 1998, Tomcat is the most widely used open source Java application server.

Simply put, Apache HTTP server is a web server designed to serve static web pages. Whereas, Apache Tomcat is an application server built to serve java applications.