Apache HTTP Server vs Apache Traffic Server

Overview

Apache HTTP Server

Stacks64.5K

Followers22.8K

Votes1.4K

GitHub Stars3.8K

Forks1.2K

Apache Traffic Server

Stacks452

Followers57

Votes0

GitHub Stars1.9K

Forks842

Apache HTTP Server vs Apache Traffic Server: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Apache HTTP Server and Apache Traffic Server are both widely used web server software tools. While they both serve the purpose of delivering web content, there are key differences between the two.

Response Processing: Apache HTTP Server processes responses synchronously, which means it waits until the entire response is received before serving it to the client. On the other hand, Apache Traffic Server uses asynchronous processing, allowing it to start sending data to the client as soon as it becomes available, resulting in better performance and reduced latency.
Caching Capability: Apache HTTP Server does not have built-in caching capabilities, requiring the use of additional modules or plugins for caching functionality. Apache Traffic Server, on the other hand, comes with built-in caching capabilities, making it more suitable for content caching and improving overall server performance.
Reverse Proxy Features: Apache HTTP Server can be configured as a reverse proxy, allowing it to distribute incoming client requests to multiple backend servers. However, configuring and managing a reverse proxy in Apache HTTP Server requires additional configuration. In contrast, Apache Traffic Server is specifically designed as a reverse proxy caching server, making it easier to configure and manage reverse proxy features.
HTTP/2 Support: Apache HTTP Server has support for HTTP/2, the latest version of the HTTP protocol, allowing for faster and more efficient communication between the server and the client. Apache Traffic Server, on the other hand, has native support for HTTP/2, optimizing server-client communication and enhancing performance for modern web applications.
Plugin Ecosystem: Apache HTTP Server has a rich ecosystem of third-party plugins and modules, providing enhanced functionality and customization options. On the other hand, Apache Traffic Server has a relatively smaller plugin ecosystem, with fewer options for extending its functionalities.
Configuration and Management: Apache HTTP Server's configuration file is typically edited manually, and changes require a server restart to take effect. Apache Traffic Server, on the other hand, provides a robust API and command-line tools for dynamic configuration and management, allowing administrators to make changes without restarting the server.

In Summary, Apache HTTP Server and Apache Traffic Server differ in terms of response processing, caching capability, reverse proxy features, HTTP/2 support, plugin ecosystem, and configuration management.

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Advice on Apache HTTP Server, Apache Traffic Server

Hari

Mar 3, 2020

Needs advice

I was in a situation where I have to configure 40 RHEL servers 20 each for Apache HTTP Server and Tomcat server. My task was to

configure LVM with required logical volumes, format and mount for HTTP and Tomcat servers accordingly.
Install apache and tomcat.
Generate and apply selfsigned certs to http server.
Modify default ports on Tomcat to different ports.
Create users on RHEL for application support team.
other administrative tasks like, start, stop and restart HTTP and Tomcat services.

I have utilized the power of ansible for all these tasks, which made it easy and manageable.

419k views419k

Comments

greg00m

Mar 9, 2020

Needs advice

I am diving into web development, both front and back end. I feel comfortable with administration, scripting and moderate coding in bash, Python and C++, but I am also a Windows fan (i love inner conflict). What are the votes on web servers? IIS is expensive and restrictive (has Windows adoption of open source changed this?) Apache has the history but seems to be at the root of most of my Infosec issues, and I know nothing about nginx (is it too new to rely on?). And no, I don't know what I want to do on the web explicitly, but hosting and data storage (both cloud and tape) are possibilities.
Ready, aim fire!

766k views766k

Comments

StackShare

May 29, 2019

Needs advice

From a StackShare Community member: "We are a LAMP shop currently focused on improving web performance for our customers. We have made many front-end optimizations and now we are considering replacing Apache with nginx. I was wondering if others saw a noticeable performance gain or any other benefits by switching."

725k views725k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Apache HTTP Server	Apache Traffic Server
The Apache HTTP Server is a powerful and flexible HTTP/1.1 compliant web server. Originally designed as a replacement for the NCSA HTTP Server, it has grown to be the most popular web server on the Internet.	It is a fast, scalable and extensible HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2.0 compliant caching proxy server.Improve your response time, while reducing server load and bandwidth needs by caching and reusing frequently-requested web pages, images, and web ser
-	Open Source; Very Fast; High-performance; Extensible; ESI; Load Balancer; Caching
Statistics
GitHub Stars 3.8K	GitHub Stars 1.9K
GitHub Forks 1.2K	GitHub Forks 842
Stacks 64.5K	Stacks 452
Followers 22.8K	Followers 57
Votes 1.4K	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 479 Web server 305 Most widely-used web server 217 Virtual hosting 148 Fast 138 Ssl support Cons 4 Hard to set up	No community feedback yet
Integrations
No integrations available	CentOS FreeBSD Alpine Linux Fedora Debian Mac OS X

What are some alternatives to Apache HTTP Server, Apache Traffic Server?

NGINX

nginx [engine x] is an HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as a mail proxy server, written by Igor Sysoev. According to Netcraft nginx served or proxied 30.46% of the top million busiest sites in Jan 2018.

Varnish

Varnish Cache is a web application accelerator also known as a caching HTTP reverse proxy. You install it in front of any server that speaks HTTP and configure it to cache the contents. Varnish Cache is really, really fast. It typically speeds up delivery with a factor of 300 - 1000x, depending on your architecture.

Unicorn

Unicorn is an HTTP server for Rack applications designed to only serve fast clients on low-latency, high-bandwidth connections and take advantage of features in Unix/Unix-like kernels. Slow clients should only be served by placing a reverse proxy capable of fully buffering both the the request and response in between Unicorn and slow clients.

Microsoft IIS

Internet Information Services (IIS) for Windows Server is a flexible, secure and manageable Web server for hosting anything on the Web. From media streaming to web applications, IIS's scalable and open architecture is ready to handle the most demanding tasks.

Apache Tomcat

Apache Tomcat powers numerous large-scale, mission-critical web applications across a diverse range of industries and organizations.

Passenger

Phusion Passenger is a web server and application server, designed to be fast, robust and lightweight. It takes a lot of complexity out of deploying web apps, adds powerful enterprise-grade features that are useful in production, and makes administration much easier and less complex.

Gunicorn

Gunicorn is a pre-fork worker model ported from Ruby's Unicorn project. The Gunicorn server is broadly compatible with various web frameworks, simply implemented, light on server resources, and fairly speedy.

Section

Edge Compute Platform gives Dev and Ops engineers the access and control they need to run compute workloads on a distributed edge.

Jetty

Jetty is used in a wide variety of projects and products, both in development and production. Jetty can be easily embedded in devices, tools, frameworks, application servers, and clusters. See the Jetty Powered page for more uses of Jetty.

lighttpd

lighttpd has a very low memory footprint compared to other webservers and takes care of cpu-load. Its advanced feature-set (FastCGI, CGI, Auth, Output-Compression, URL-Rewriting and many more) make lighttpd the perfect webserver-software for every server that suffers load problems.

Related Comparisons

Apache HTTP Server vs Apache Traffic Server: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Apache HTTP Server and Apache Traffic Server are both widely used web server software tools. While they both serve the purpose of delivering web content, there are key differences between the two.

Response Processing: Apache HTTP Server processes responses synchronously, which means it waits until the entire response is received before serving it to the client. On the other hand, Apache Traffic Server uses asynchronous processing, allowing it to start sending data to the client as soon as it becomes available, resulting in better performance and reduced latency.
Caching Capability: Apache HTTP Server does not have built-in caching capabilities, requiring the use of additional modules or plugins for caching functionality. Apache Traffic Server, on the other hand, comes with built-in caching capabilities, making it more suitable for content caching and improving overall server performance.
Reverse Proxy Features: Apache HTTP Server can be configured as a reverse proxy, allowing it to distribute incoming client requests to multiple backend servers. However, configuring and managing a reverse proxy in Apache HTTP Server requires additional configuration. In contrast, Apache Traffic Server is specifically designed as a reverse proxy caching server, making it easier to configure and manage reverse proxy features.
HTTP/2 Support: Apache HTTP Server has support for HTTP/2, the latest version of the HTTP protocol, allowing for faster and more efficient communication between the server and the client. Apache Traffic Server, on the other hand, has native support for HTTP/2, optimizing server-client communication and enhancing performance for modern web applications.
Plugin Ecosystem: Apache HTTP Server has a rich ecosystem of third-party plugins and modules, providing enhanced functionality and customization options. On the other hand, Apache Traffic Server has a relatively smaller plugin ecosystem, with fewer options for extending its functionalities.
Configuration and Management: Apache HTTP Server's configuration file is typically edited manually, and changes require a server restart to take effect. Apache Traffic Server, on the other hand, provides a robust API and command-line tools for dynamic configuration and management, allowing administrators to make changes without restarting the server.

Apache HTTP Server vs Apache Traffic Server

Overview