What are the differences between the MATLAB Runtime Server and the MATLAB Web Server?

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Accepted Answer

MathWorks Support Team
MathWorks Support Team on 28 Jan 2010
There are several differences between these two products. Perhaps the largest one is that the MATLAB Runtime Server is designed to take fully-functioning MATLAB GUI applications and make them re-distributable to people who do not have MATLAB.
The Web Server is designed to provide a web browser interface to predefined MATLAB routines. The Web Server does not have direct access to MATLAB GUIs, and all of the user input to the MATLAB process is done via HTML forms. Consequently the Web server requires you as a developer to serve all of the documents via a third party Web Server such as Microsoft Internet Information Server, Netscape's web server, or Apache. With the Runtime Server, the customer actually has a special version of the MATLAB executable that runs special P-code files you distribute.
Given these differences, you would use these different products in different ways. If you had a GUI-based application that you want to share with customers, you would use the Runtime Server. You could program the application to allow end users to save and load variables and print figures. Also, depending on the terms of the license agreement, the end user would be able to take the product with him on any supported platform.
The Web Server would be used when you have data entry GUI's which can be described with HTML forms (i.e., list boxes, text fields, checkboxes, and other basic user interface elements) and don't need to store state. The Web Server is an extension of the MATLAB API and uses a pool of Engine servers that are recycled after each transaction. It works like this: when an end user points their web browser to the URL that you provide (it can be shared with the whole world or just used within an organization's firewall), your third party web service sends a request via the MATLAB Web Server to one of the Engine processes. The Engine program runs a set of MATLAB files that you specify in advance, takes the results of those computations (both text and graphics), and displays them in a new HTML web page. The MATLAB Web Server has the possibility to reach a wider audience out of the box, because you don't have to deliver software to the customer; they simply point their web browser to your site.
NOTE: As of R2006b, the MATLAB Web Server is no longer available for sale and no new feature development or further bug fixes will occur.

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