Abstract: Application server is a chief platform of Web based application. J2EE （Java 2 platform, Enterprise Edition） is a standard of enterprise scale application server. In this paper J2EE is analyzed from the point of view of software architecture and Web based application development. Some defects of J2EE are pointed out, such as J2EE being unable to support version management and its having diverse concepts and notions due to its multi tier architecture. Furthermore, a light weight application server—JWebFrame is developed, which overcomes some problems of J2EE.