What's the big deal about GlassFish ?

users@glassfish had a
discussion on what are the

key differentiators of GlassFish. This blog summarizes them. Here is a list
of distinguishing features:

1. Fastest open source application server (883.66,
   
   highly scalable).
2. Centralized management of clusters and instances distributed across
   multiple servers.
3. Microsoft .NET 3.0
   interoperability
4. Java Business Integration
   and Open ESB
5. Call flow analysis for diagnosing performance problems
6. High performing  message queue implementation (Open
   Message Queue), with a highly available message store.
7. SIP Servlet support and Telco Support via
   SailFin
8. Very small footprint and flexibility via modularity in GlassFish v3.

And here is a list that makes the technical features all the more appealing:

1. Out-of-the-box experience - Download to "sample app" in 10 minute
2. Impressive monthly downloads - 430k for December 2007
3. Good support on the forums.
4. Update Center for
   downloading additional features, samples, blueprints, etc.
5. Outstanding
   documentation
6. Number of releases - Released GlassFish v1 in May 06, GlassFish v1 UR1,
   GlassFish v2 and GFv2 UR1. Now working on GlassFish v2.1 and GlassFish v3.
7. Domain structure is nice, easy to upgrade the server and keep your
   configs in place.
8. Packaging is nice and compact and does not expose underlying
   architecture. Specifically, you don't have to be an expert on Glassfish and
   how its built or designed to get good value out of it. The others are
   certainly powerful and flexible architectures, but they expose that
   complexity to you as a user, and it affects the learning curve.
9. Gradual complexity. The admin gui, command line gui, the config files,
   the documentation make the simple stuff simple and the difficult stuff
   possible. Combined with Java EE 5, things mostly just work. Yet you have the
   depth of all of the configurations options to be able to take it where you
   want to go.

What is your favorite feature ?

Technorati:
glassfish appserver
performance