Apache HTTP Server vs GeoServer

Overview

Apache HTTP Server

Stacks64.5K

Followers22.8K

Votes1.4K

GitHub Stars3.8K

Forks1.2K

GeoServer

Stacks91

Followers82

Votes0

GitHub Stars4.2K

Forks2.3K

Apache HTTP Server vs GeoServer: What are the differences?

Introduction

Apache HTTP Server and GeoServer are two different server software that serve different purposes. Apache HTTP Server is a web server software, while GeoServer is a server designed for serving geospatial data. Despite some similarities in functionalities, these two servers have several key differences.

Architecture: The architecture of Apache HTTP Server and GeoServer is different. Apache HTTP Server follows a client-server model, where it responds to HTTP requests from clients. On the other hand, GeoServer is based on a service-oriented architecture and provides specialized services for serving geospatial data.
Functionality: Apache HTTP Server primarily focuses on serving static files and executing server-side scripts, such as PHP or Perl. It supports a wide range of web technologies and can handle various web application scenarios. In contrast, GeoServer is specifically designed for serving geospatial data. It provides advanced functionalities and standards-compliant services for managing and sharing geospatial resources.
Support for Geospatial Data Formats: One major difference between Apache HTTP Server and GeoServer is their support for geospatial data formats. Apache HTTP Server does not have built-in support for geospatial data formats. It treats geospatial files as regular files and serves them as static content. On the other hand, GeoServer has native support for a wide range of geospatial data formats, such as shapefiles, GeoTIFF, and KML. It can dynamically render and serve geospatial data in different formats.
GIS Functionality: GeoServer provides advanced Geographic Information System (GIS) functionalities that are not available in Apache HTTP Server. It allows users to create and manage maps, perform spatial analysis, and publish geospatial data through web services. Apache HTTP Server does not have built-in GIS functionalities and is not specifically designed for handling geospatial data.
Administration and Configuration: The administration and configuration of Apache HTTP Server and GeoServer also differ. Apache HTTP Server can be configured through various configuration files, including the main httpd.conf file. It provides extensive control over server settings, modules, and virtual hosts. On the other hand, GeoServer has its own web-based administration interface where users can configure various aspects of the server, including data sources, security settings, and layer styles.
Community and Ecosystem: Apache HTTP Server has a larger community and ecosystem compared to GeoServer. It is one of the most widely used web servers and has a vast collection of modules and extensions developed by the community. This extensive ecosystem provides additional functionalities and integrations with other web technologies. Although GeoServer also has an active community, it is more focused on the geospatial domain and has a smaller ecosystem of plugins and extensions.

In summary, Apache HTTP Server and GeoServer differ in their architecture, functionality, support for geospatial data formats, GIS capabilities, administration and configuration options, and community and ecosystem size. Apache HTTP Server is a general-purpose web server, while GeoServer is specifically designed for serving geospatial data.

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Advice on Apache HTTP Server, GeoServer

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	GeoServer
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 developed, tested, and supported as community-driven project by a diverse group of individuals and organizations. It is designed for interoperability, it publishes data from any major spatial data source using open standards.
Statistics
GitHub Stars 3.8K	GitHub Stars 4.2K
GitHub Forks 1.2K	GitHub Forks 2.3K
Stacks 64.5K	Stacks 91
Followers 22.8K	Followers 82
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

What are some alternatives to Apache HTTP Server, GeoServer?

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.

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.

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.

Swoole

It is an open source high-performance network framework using an event-driven, asynchronous, non-blocking I/O model which makes it scalable and efficient.

Puma

Unlike other Ruby Webservers, Puma was built for speed and parallelism. Puma is a small library that provides a very fast and concurrent HTTP 1.1 server for Ruby web applications.

Related Comparisons

Apache HTTP Server vs GeoServer: What are the differences?

Introduction

Architecture: The architecture of Apache HTTP Server and GeoServer is different. Apache HTTP Server follows a client-server model, where it responds to HTTP requests from clients. On the other hand, GeoServer is based on a service-oriented architecture and provides specialized services for serving geospatial data.
Functionality: Apache HTTP Server primarily focuses on serving static files and executing server-side scripts, such as PHP or Perl. It supports a wide range of web technologies and can handle various web application scenarios. In contrast, GeoServer is specifically designed for serving geospatial data. It provides advanced functionalities and standards-compliant services for managing and sharing geospatial resources.
Support for Geospatial Data Formats: One major difference between Apache HTTP Server and GeoServer is their support for geospatial data formats. Apache HTTP Server does not have built-in support for geospatial data formats. It treats geospatial files as regular files and serves them as static content. On the other hand, GeoServer has native support for a wide range of geospatial data formats, such as shapefiles, GeoTIFF, and KML. It can dynamically render and serve geospatial data in different formats.
GIS Functionality: GeoServer provides advanced Geographic Information System (GIS) functionalities that are not available in Apache HTTP Server. It allows users to create and manage maps, perform spatial analysis, and publish geospatial data through web services. Apache HTTP Server does not have built-in GIS functionalities and is not specifically designed for handling geospatial data.
Administration and Configuration: The administration and configuration of Apache HTTP Server and GeoServer also differ. Apache HTTP Server can be configured through various configuration files, including the main httpd.conf file. It provides extensive control over server settings, modules, and virtual hosts. On the other hand, GeoServer has its own web-based administration interface where users can configure various aspects of the server, including data sources, security settings, and layer styles.
Community and Ecosystem: Apache HTTP Server has a larger community and ecosystem compared to GeoServer. It is one of the most widely used web servers and has a vast collection of modules and extensions developed by the community. This extensive ecosystem provides additional functionalities and integrations with other web technologies. Although GeoServer also has an active community, it is more focused on the geospatial domain and has a smaller ecosystem of plugins and extensions.

Apache HTTP Server vs GeoServer

Overview

Apache HTTP Server vs GeoServer: What are the differences?