Eclipse JEE has a lot of server adapters allowing development against many different application servers like JBoss, Glassfish and WebSphere.

Frequently you can benefit from using another server for developing new features than for production, simply because it may be able to deploy changes much faster and when the functionality is in place, you can iron out bugs for the production platform.

Unfortunately finding that server is a time consuming process, where others experience is invaluable.

If you have experience with any server with an Eclipse Server Adapter, please add your findings and your recommendation. I believe that the following is of interest:

• Does saving a file trigger an update in the server, giving save edit+reload browser functionality?
• How fast is a deployment? (Saved a JSP? Java class? Static file?)
• Can the actual server be downloaded by the Server Adapter Wizard allowing for easy installation?
• Are there known bugs and issues with suitable work-arounds?
• Is debugging fully supported? Is profiling?
• Would you recommend this server?

Note: Eclipse can also work with Tomcat but that is a web container, which cannot deploy EAR files.