When comparing Simplify.Web vs Dropwizard, the Slant community recommends Dropwizard for most people. In the question“What are the best backend web frameworks?” Dropwizard is ranked 28th while Simplify.Web is ranked 55th. The most important reason people chose Dropwizard is:
The application can be run and debugged from the IDE without the need to recompile or redeploy the WAR file. This is because a Dropwizard web application creates on main program which starts the jetty container.
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Pros
Pro Easy to use
Pro Customizable
Pro Super fast
Pro Lightweight
Pro Supports localization out of the box
Pro Documentation available
Pro Enhanced productivity and less timewasting
The application can be run and debugged from the IDE without the need to recompile or redeploy the WAR file. This is because a Dropwizard web application creates on main program which starts the jetty container.

Pro Application metrics integrated into the framework
Dropwizard comes with application metrics integrated out of the box. These metrics provide a lot of useful information such as request/response time.
For example, to get the execution time of a method, the @Timed annotation is used.

Pro Quick project bootstrap
Starting a project with Dropwizard si very easy and bootstraping is quick and painless. All that's needed is a single dependency added in the pom.xml file and it's ready to go.
Cons
Con Not a big community
Con Does not allow a lot a freedom of choice
Dropwizard removes a lot of freedom that the developer may have with other frameworks because of the fact that it tries to do everything itself. It chooses the best Java libraries for the job required, without allowing the developer much choice.
