Developing applications in the Liberty environment

WebSphere® Application Server Liberty is a lightweight, composable application server that provides a convenient application development environment for your web and OSGi applications. Applications that run on Liberty also run on the WebSphere Application Server traditional server.

About this task

Liberty simplifies application development by providing the following key benefits and more:
  • Frictionless download, at no cost, for development purposes
  • Ultra lightweight modular runtime environment, with an install size of under 50 MB
  • Very fast startup time; for example, less than 5 seconds for simple web applications
  • Simplified configuration for quick time to productivity
  • Java™ EE and OSGi application deployment support for web applications
  • LDAP registry support
  • Deployment, as a package, of an application and configured server
  • Managed, centralized deployment of a packaged application and server
  • Availability of WebSphere Application Server Developer Tools as Eclipse plug-ins for broad tools support
  • Platform support for distributed platforms, z/OS®, and macOS
Very fast restart times, coupled with its small size, dynamic behavior, and ease of use, make Liberty a good option for developers building web applications that do not require the full Java EE environment of traditional enterprise application server profiles. Familiar WebSphere Application Server enterprise qualities of service, such as security and transaction integrity, are enabled as required.