JBoss features and comparision with WAS

1) JBoss AS is an open source application server. This means that that the source code is freely available and customizable and there by it is vulnerable to expert hackers who can identify a flaw with code before the rest of the JBoss community does.2) JBoss is essentially free and customers download multiple copies across a wide area but then face the problem of keeping different versions of their software up-to-date and secure.3) Although JBoss AS has several browser-based administration interfaces, including a JMX (Java Management Extensions) console, for the most part these interfaces provide information about the server and loaded applications and can't be used for all server configuration and management.4) JBoss seems to lag behind WebSphere in its security offerings and its integration with external third party security managers.
5) IDE integration with Eclipse still needs to be verified/tested.

JBOSS
WAS
Price
Free
Cost involved
Platform Support
Any OS running JDK 1.3 or 1.4)
NT, Win2K, Solaris,AIX, OS/400, HP-UX, Red Hat Linux, Linux/390, OS/390 and more
J2EE 1.4 Certified
Yes
Yes
IPV6 support
No
Yes
Web Service
Yes
Yes
IDE Tooling
Plug-in for Eclipse 3.0
WSAD 5.0 and 6.0, RAD
Embedded Messaging Component
Yes - JBOSSMQ
Yes - WebSphereMQ
Scalability/Future proofing
GUI Based install
Yes
Yes
GUI based Admin
No
Yes
Configuration file format
text
xml
Support for External HTTP Server
Yes (Apache support documented)
Yes
Tunable Performance Parameters
JDBC Connection Pools
Supported
Supported
Web Container Tuning
Supported
Supported
EJB Container Tuning
Supported
Supported
Tunable Performance Parameters
AD authentication
No
Yes
LDAP authentication
Yes
Yes
Software SSL enabled
No
Yes
Support Features
Commercial Support
Yes
Yes
Web Based Ticketing
No
Yes