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In the J2EE lexicon, a Web application is a collection of HTML/XML documents, Web components (servlets and JSP pages), and other resources in either a directory structure or archived format known as a Web ARchive (WAR) file. A Web application is located on a central server and provides service to a variety of clients.
Web applications provide dynamic and interactive content to browser-based clients. Browser-based Web applications can be used for any type of application: from secure business-to-business applications to electronic commerce Web sites.
A Web container is a runtime environment for a Web application; a Web application runs within a Web container of a Web server. A Web container provides Web components with a naming context and life cycle management. Some Web servers may also provide more services, such as security, concurrency, transactions, and swapping to secondary storage. A Web server may work with an EJB server to provide such services. A Web server need not be located on the same machine as the EJB server. In some cases, a Web container may communicate with other Web containers.