What is difference between include directive and jsp:include action?

The difference between JSP include directive and include action is that in include directive the content to other resource is added to the generated servlet code at the time of translation whereas with include action it happens at runtime.

Another difference is that in JSP include action, we can pass params to be used in the included resource with jsp:param action element but in JSP include directive we can’t pass any params.

When included resource is static such as header, footer, image files then we should use include directive for faster performance but if the included resource is dynamic and requires some parameters for processing then we should use include action tag.