Jon, If the child processes are really trivial, and you don't need to be able to deploy new versions of them independently, then maybe just fork. Otherwise, probably subprocess. Another thing to consider is what monitoring and/or intervention you will need on the child processes. If you need to examine and/or change variables at the child process level, subprocesses may be easier. Forking is probably more efficient, but I don't know how much, or whether it's significant in your context. There are probably other factors I'm not thinking of. You really need to look at your own requirements first. -Ed Staub View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4051292#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...