WebSphere Liberty for developers

There are multiple ways to download and install the WebSphere Liberty v25.0.0.12 packages:

• As a stand-alone ZIP file that you unzip.
• From within Maven or Gradle as a dependency
• As a container using docker, or podman
• From within your Eclipse IDE

Complete the following steps to install WebSphere Liberty from the ZIP file:

If you're using Maven:

<plugin>
  <groupId>io.openliberty.tools</groupId>
  <artifactId>liberty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>3.11.5</version>
  <configuration>
    <runtimeArtifact>
      <groupId>com.ibm.websphere.appserver.runtime</groupId>
      <artifactId>wlp-kernel</artifactId>
      <version>25.0.0.12</version>
      <type>zip</type>
    </runtimeArtifact>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

To install additional features with Maven, see the Liberty Maven plugin docs.

If you're using Gradle:

buildscript {
  repositories {
    mavenCentral()
  }
  dependencies {
    classpath 'io.openliberty.tools:liberty-gradle-plugin:3.9.6'
  }
}
apply plugin: 'liberty'

dependencies {
  libertyRuntime group: 'com.ibm.websphere.appserver.runtime', name: 'wlp-kernel', version: '25.0.0.12'
}

To install additional features with Gradle, see the Liberty Gradle plugin docs.

If you're using Docker, we recommend using our images on icr.io:

docker pull icr.io/appcafe/websphere-liberty

Installing from within Eclipse

To install WebSphere Liberty using Eclipse:

1. Open the Servers view in Eclipse (if not visible in the menu select Window > View > Others then enter servers in the Show View dialog and click OK.
2. Right click in the servers view.
3. Click New > Server
4. Select IBM > Liberty Server and click Next. If this option is not visible install the WebSphere Developer Tools using the instructions below.
5. Select the Install from an archive or a repository radio button and click Next.
6. Enter a file path into the destination path field.
7. Select the Download and install a new runtime environment from ibm.com radio button.
8. Select a Liberty Runtime install from the list.
9. Click Next on this screen and the next.
10. Accept the license agreement.
11. Click Finish.

If you do not yet have IBM Liberty Developer Tools installed follow these steps. Note the IBM Liberty Developer Tools version and the Liberty runtime version are unrelated and as a result do not have to match.

1.  If you don’t already have Eclipse, install Eclipse 2025-09 for Enterprise Java and Web Developers.

2.  Drag the following Install button onto the Eclipse toolbar then follow the prompts. This installs the WebSphere Developer Tools into your Eclipse installation.

 

bin/featureUtility installFeature adminCenter-1.0

You can also install all features required by a configured server using:

bin/featureUtility installServerFeatures serverName