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Apache HTTP Server vs Jetty: What are the differences?
Introduction:
In the world of web development, choosing a suitable web server is crucial for the performance and reliability of a website. Two commonly used web servers are Apache HTTP Server and Jetty. While both servers serve the purpose of hosting websites, there are several key differences between them. Let's explore six specific differences between Apache HTTP Server and Jetty.
Architecture and Design: Apache HTTP Server follows a traditional, process-based architecture where each client request is processed by a new process or thread. On the other hand, Jetty follows a lightweight, event-driven architecture where multiple client requests can be handled concurrently by a single thread using non-blocking I/O. This design choice makes Jetty more efficient in high-concurrency scenarios.
Memory Footprint: Apache HTTP Server, being more mature and feature-rich, generally requires more system resources compared to Jetty. Due to its lightweight and modular design, Jetty has a smaller memory footprint, making it a suitable choice for resource-constrained environments or applications requiring higher scalability.
Configuration and Extensibility: Apache HTTP Server provides a modular architecture with extensive configuration options through its powerful configuration file, .htaccess. It supports numerous modules for authentication, caching, URL rewriting, and more. Jetty, on the other hand, offers a more streamlined configuration and extensibility through its embedded API. It allows developers to customize the server with specific components based on their needs.
Embedded Usage: Jetty is often used as an embedded server within Java applications, providing developers with the capability to launch and manage a web server programmatically. Apache HTTP Server is primarily designed as a standalone server, making it more suitable for traditional web hosting environments.
Community and Ecosystem: Apache HTTP Server has a large and vibrant community due to its long-standing presence and wide adoption. It has an extensive ecosystem of plugins, tools, and resources available for developers. Jetty, although having a smaller community, is known for its active and responsive community that focuses on delivering high-quality support and documentation.
Performance and Scalability: Apache HTTP Server is renowned for its stability and capable of handling heavy workloads efficiently. However, Jetty's lightweight architecture and non-blocking I/O make it highly performant and scalable, particularly in scenarios where handling a large number of concurrent connections is critical.
In summary, Apache HTTP Server offers a mature and feature-rich solution with a larger community and extensive plugin ecosystem. On the other hand, Jetty provides a lightweight, scalable, and efficient server suitable for embedded usage and high-concurrency scenarios. The choice between Apache HTTP Server and Jetty ultimately depends on the specific requirements and constraints of the web application being developed.
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!
I would pick nginx over both IIS and Apace HTTP Server any day. Combine it with docker, and as you grow maybe even traefik, and you'll have a really flexible solution for serving http content where you can take sites and projects up and down without effort, easily move it between systems and dont have to handle any dependencies on your actual local machine.
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."
I use nginx because it is very light weight. Where Apache tries to include everything in the web server, nginx opts to have external programs/facilities take care of that so the web server can focus on efficiently serving web pages. While this can seem inefficient, it limits the number of new bugs found in the web server, which is the element that faces the client most directly.
I use nginx because its more flexible and easy to configure
I use Apache HTTP Server because it's intuitive, comprehensive, well-documented, and just works
For us, NGINX is a lite HTTP server easy to configure. On our research, we found a well-documented software we a lot of support from the community.
We have been using it alongside tools like certbot and it has been a total success.
We can easily configure our sites and have a folder for available vs enabled sites, and with the nginx -t command we can easily check everything is running fine.
- Server rendered HTML output from PHP is being migrated to the client as Vue.js components, future plans to provide additional content, and other new miscellaneous features all result in a substantial increase of static files needing to be served from the server. NGINX has better performance than Apache for serving static content.
- The change to NGINX will require switching from PHP to PHP-FPM resulting in a distributed architecture with a higher complexity configuration, but this is outweighed by PHP-FPM being faster than PHP for processing requests.
- The NGINX + PHP-FPM setup now allows for horizontally scaling of resources rather vertically scaling the previously combined Apache + PHP resources.
- PHP shell tasks can now efficiently be decoupled from the application reducing main application footprint and allow for scaling of tasks on an individual basis.
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 1. configure LVM with required logical volumes, format and mount for HTTP and Tomcat servers accordingly. 2. Install apache and tomcat. 3. Generate and apply selfsigned certs to http server. 4. Modify default ports on Tomcat to different ports. 5. Create users on RHEL for application support team. 6. 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.
Pros of Apache HTTP Server
- Web server479
- Most widely-used web server305
- Virtual hosting217
- Fast148
- Ssl support138
- Since 199644
- Asynchronous28
- Robust5
- Proven over many years4
- Mature2
- Perfomance2
- Perfect Support1
- Many available modules0
- Many available modules0
Pros of Jetty
- Lightweight15
- Embeddable10
- Very fast10
- Very thin6
- Scalable6
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Cons of Apache HTTP Server
- Hard to set up4
Cons of Jetty
- Student0
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