eh yeah but it doesn't hurt to have an admin GUI and a ton of default stack config done for you, that's all I mean. WebSphere is like a 1-click install for a massive stack. The open source community seems to like DropWizard, Websphere is just like that on steroids.

I'm sure a comparable stack can be made from open source components though and there are other companies who do the pre-packaged stack approach, I know. But WebSphere is kinda convenient and nicely integrated is all I mean. After spending a ton of time chasing down gem dependency conflict/upgrade issues using package managers in Ruby, I'm kindof impressed with the prescription full-stack. It's just like having a corp do all the dependency/interop checks so you don't have to. Limiting in a way but reduces a lot of friction.