SRV.1.4 Comparing Servlets with Other Technologies

In functionality, servlets lie somewhere between Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programs and proprietary server extensions such as the Netscape server API (NSAPI) or Apache modules.

Servlets have the following advantages over other server extension mechanisms:

• They are generally much faster than CGI scripts because a different process model is used.

• They use a standard API that is supported by many web servers.

• They have all the advantages of the Java programming language, including ease of development and platform independence.

• They can access the large set of APIs available for the Java platform.