title: How are Java threads heavy compared to Scala / Akka actors?
body: <p>I was just comparing the performance of scala actors vs java threads.</p>
  
  <p>I was amazed to see the difference, I observed that with my system I was able to spawn maximum ~2000 threads (live at a time) only But with the same system I was able to spawn ~500,000 actors of scala. </p>
  
  <p>Both programs used around 81MB of Heap memory of JVM.</p>
  
  <p>Can you explain How java thread are this much heavy weight than scala / akka actors?
  What is the key factor which made scala-actor this much light weight?</p>
  
  <p><strong>If I want to achieve best scalability, Should I go for actor based web server instead of java based traditional web/app server like JBoss or Tomcat?</strong> </p>
  
  <p>Thanks.</p>