IBM WebSphere Liberty
Drive innovation and productivity with Liberty, the cloud-native runtime that extends open Java standards
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What is IBM WebSphere Liberty?

IBM WebSphere Liberty is a next-generation application runtime that accelerates the delivery of cloud-native applications, allowing your team to rapidly deliver differentiating innovation. Whether you're running microservices in a serverless environment or a traditional always on application, Liberty requires less infrastructure, saving costs, and providing the flexibility your organization needs to deploy on any cloud in a trusted, secure and open environment. Liberty empowers your development and platform engineering teams to continuously deliver code that meets and exceeds your customers' expectations. Adopt Liberty today and experience up to a 99% reduction in time to deploy code. 

IBM WebSphere Liberty announces InstantOn for cloud-native Java

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Impact

Explore how Liberty innovation can benefit your organization

10X Accelerate app start-up

Faster application start-up time using Liberty InstantOn versus without InstantOn.

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70% Reduce code deployment time

Decreased time to code deployment for BlueCross BlueShield.

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>99% Reduce app modernization and migration efforts

Reduced full deployment cycle for FlowFactor.

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Use cases
Cloud-native development Take advantage of rapid developer experience, no Java development constraints and optimized deployment options in the cloud of your choice. Learn more

Cloud agility Avoid vendor lock-in by implementing technology that embraces cloud agility. Liberty is built specifically for agile, vendor neutral, cloud-native applications. Read the blog

Operational efficiency without compromise Optimize cloud performance by taking full advantage of your Java stack. Liberty InstantOn will enable your apps to start and respond in less than a few hundred milliseconds. Explore Liberty InstantOn
Features Container and Kubernetes optimized

Liberty is optimized for containerized deployments, continually auto-tuning its performance to the environment.

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Lightweight, flexible and efficient

Liberty’s smaller disk and memory footprint and higher throughput help reduce infrastructure and license costs.

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MicroProfile, Jakarta EE and Java EE compatible

IBM is committed to open standards, avoid vendor lock-in using the latest MicroProfile, Jakarta EE and Java EE.

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Customer success stories BlueCross BlueShield

BlueCross optimizes computing resources and gives developers more flexibility and efficiency as a result of migrating to a modern WebSphere Liberty-based infrastructure.

FlowFactor

FlowFactor helped a transport provider modernize apps and cut deployment times more than 99% with WebSphere Liberty.

Redbridge

A large European Bank was able to partner with IBM Business Partner RedBridge and slash deployment times to minutes rather than months.

IBM WebSphere Liberty is dynamic, lightweight, platform-agnostic, and container-ready. It checks all of the modernization journey boxes. It boasts the backbone/foundation of tWAS to instill confidence and stability in the technicians supporting it and the customers consuming it. Technology owner G2 review US enterprise with more than 1,000 employees Read the review

FAQs

IBM® WebSphere® Liberty is built upon an open source foundation. Why start with open source?

Open source plays an important role in our industry. Open source has become the starting point for development projects, making it easier to prove a new initiative before committing to an investment in software support for the venture. Open Liberty and the IBM Open J9 project reflect the IBM belief in the value of open standards and open community innovation and testing.

Can customers migrate apps from Open Liberty to IBM WebSphere Application Server Base, IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment or Liberty with full fidelity by taking apps on Liberty and go directly to Base and Network Deployment?

Yes. Apps created using Open Liberty can easily be migrated to any version of WebSphere Liberty because the WebSphere Liberty portfolio is built on top of Open Liberty. The codebase of the commercial portfolio includes 100% of the Open Liberty code. They share the same code, but WebSphere Liberty has additional features that are not open source.

Apps created using Open Liberty can be migrated to WebSphere Base and Network Deployment, but there are a few differences to consider, just as when moving from WebSphere Liberty to traditional WebSphere. Open Liberty provides an implementation of Java EE 8, which is also available in WebSphere Liberty and traditional WebSphere, that makes the migration of apps that use these features easy. Open Liberty also provides an implementation of the Eclipse MicroProfile capabilities for building Java microservices. Eclipse MicroProfile capabilities are available in WebSphere Liberty, but not on traditional WebSphere. Apps that use these features are not as easily migrated from Open Liberty to traditional WebSphere.

What are some of the features of IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core?

The software is fast, easy to download and takes only one minute to install and deploy. It integrates fully with open platforms and supports Java EE Web profile for web, mobile and OSGI apps. It’s designed to be an ideal runtime for microservices.

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What are my options for licensing WebSphere Application Server for container deployments?

To help optimize the various deployment environments used with WebSphere, perpetual PVU and monthly VPCs are great options for licensing a server environment. For containerized environments running mixed workloads, the new WebSphere hourly option for containers may be the best fit.

Related products

Liberty entitlement is included with each WebSphere product with the exception of WebSphere Automation

WebSphere Hybrid Edition

All-in-one runtimes and tools option for new cloud-native apps and modernization from traditional app servers.

WebSphere Application Server

Entitles traditional WebSphere, WebSphere and Open Liberty for cloud-native apps and modernization from traditional app servers.

IBM WebSphere Automation

Automate WebSphere security and operational activities to unlock the time for more strategic initiatives.

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