Implementing a thread-safe JSP page

We can make a thread-safe JSP by having them implement the SingleThreadModel interface. This is done by adding the below directive within your JSP page.

<%@ page isThreadSafe="false" %>

By this, instead of a single instance of the servlet generated for your JSP page loaded in memory, you will have N instances of the servlet loaded and initialized, with the service method of each instance effectively synchronized. You can typically control the number of instances (N) that are instantiated for all servlets implementing SingleThreadModel through the admin screen for your JSP engine.

More importantly, avoid using the tag for variables. If you do use this tag, then you should set isThreadSafe to true, as mentioned above. Otherwise, all requests to that page will access those variables, causing a nasty race condition.

SingleThreadModel is not recommended for normal use. There are many pitfalls, including the example above of not being able to use . You should try really hard to make them thread-safe the old fashioned way by making them thread-safe.