Hey Swisst, The costs I speak of are not only the licensing ones, but also the installation and support costs, which include "time to install." For evaluation purposes, I did an install on a copy we have at the office here. To install WebSphere Portal 6.0, I had to use a set of 11 CDs, then I had to download a "fix pack" which was about 500mb. I thought I was done, and it would work for my purposes, but wrong I was, and I had to install another fix pack in order to get EJB 3 going. Not only this, but the whole WebSphere package is bloated and slow; it requires far more hardware infrastructure than JBoss as well. With JBoss Portal, I had the whole package downloaded and installed in 20 minutes. Although I wasn't familiar with it, or with portal programming in general, I was able to configure it to work with our database very easily. Another issue that should be considered is the cost of support. I have seen consultants with experience in WebSphere paid almost $200/hr in my area. This quickly escalates into the tens of thousands I spoke of. Going to IBM for help is not going to be cheap either; one of our consultants noted that IBM routinely bills $700/hr for consultants, then hires someone for 50-60 hr to get the job done, pocketing the difference. I like JBoss Portal because it is light-weight, simple and open-source. In contrast, IBM's WebSphere Portal requires far more hardware, has proprietary source code, and takes much longer to install and configure. IBM "built" their portal mostly from acquisitions, so basically it is a hodge podge of different pieces from various acquisitions. Thats not really very innovative imo. I don't like the way they fool companies into forking over millions of dollars for their products, and I especially dislike the half-assed work I've seen them do on pieces that were sub-contracted off of contracts I've worked on. Anyhow, thats just my two cents on the matter. "swisst" wrote : Well to be fair in your comparison, you should get your licensing costs for WebSphere Portal straight. This is a good place to start for the low end: | | https://www-112.ibm.com/software/howtobuy/buyingtools/paexpress/Express?P... | | Also, to continue a fair comparison, it would be nice to know the JBoss support contract rates. | | Having delivered applications on both platforms, my choice would be WebSphere Portal. I think purchasing a support contract from JBoss would have made a huge difference, unfortunately, the company saw no value. | | I would love to see a side-by-side comparison, sans all of the anecdotes... | View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4130460#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...