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For whom is this comparison? For companies $100 is nothing and reliability, availability and performance are everything. On the other hand, hobbyists wouldn't use Java for Web applications anyway.

Java is actually surprisingly low-entry for hobbyists. Think about it -- most compsci programs include a significant chunk of Java (so lots of folks will already know their way around the language), and the open source IDEs and application servers are mature and high-quality.

The chief reason hobbyists avoid Java for web applications is... hosting difficulties, which is what this article is discussing.

It's a bit unfocused (the phpBB translation benchmarking is more of a distraction than helpful, I think, though I suppose it provides a starting point), and it doesn't get very far into *why* hosting providers have difficulty providing cheap Java hosting.

But -- very much worth talking about.

The Java Platform is arguably the most complicated (but also the most enterprisy) Web application platform. A hobbyist is probably best served by setting up a PC at home for hosting his Java Web application.

There are lots of Java technologies, to say the least. But no one is forced to use them all for a single project (which unfortunately is the tendency). But nBB2 has the architectural simplicity of phpBB and still has serious deployment issues and that's what the post wanted to show. And I definitely don't agree with your conclusion that for the simplest Java Web application one should host it at home.