Running two versions of the same Grails app in the same container (tomcat) is not possible with out editing web.xml. I changed Package.groovy to use the same naming convention for webAppRootKey and display-name as is used for the war file. ie, myApp-0.1, myApp-0.2, etc... This is based on app.version in application.properties Patch attached. Similar issue: http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GRAILS-2724 Other discussions: http://www.nabble.com/More-than-one-instance-of-a-grails-app-in-tomcat-td16371571.html#a16371571 http://axixmiqui.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/adventures-in-grails-running-more-than-one-version-of-your-app/