Overview

Apache HTTP Server

Stacks64.9K

Followers22.8K

Votes1.4K

GitHub Stars3.8K

Forks1.2K

lighttpd

Stacks148

Followers133

Votes27

Apache HTTP Server vs lighttpd: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Apache HTTP Server and lighttpd are both popular web servers used to serve web content to clients over the internet. While they both perform the same basic function, there are some key differences between the two that distinguish them from each other.

Performance: One of the main differences between Apache HTTP Server and lighttpd lies in their performance. Lighttpd is known for its lightweight and efficient design, making it suitable for handling high traffic and resource-intensive workloads. On the other hand, Apache HTTP Server is a more feature-rich and flexible server but can be relatively heavier in terms of resource consumption.
Configuration: Another key difference is in the configuration approach. Apache HTTP Server uses a more traditional and extensive configuration file (httpd.conf), which allows for fine-grained control over various server aspects. Conversely, lighttpd adopts a more minimalistic approach with its configuration file (lighttpd.conf) being relatively simpler and easier to work with.
Modules and Extensions: Apache HTTP Server has an extensive ecosystem of modules and extensions that can be used to enhance its functionality. These modules can provide additional features like authentication, URL rewriting, caching, and more. Lighttpd, on the other hand, has a more limited selection of modules and extensions available, which might be a consideration for those seeking specific functionality.
Flexibility and Customization: With its modular architecture and vast ecosystem, Apache HTTP Server offers greater flexibility and customization options compared to lighttpd. Apache's modularity allows administrators to pick and choose which modules to enable or disable based on their specific requirements. Lighttpd, while lightweight and efficient, may have limited options for customization in comparison.
Operating System Compatibility: Apache HTTP Server is designed to work on a wide range of operating systems, including Unix-like systems (Linux, BSD) and Windows. It has been extensively tested and is known for its stability and compatibility across different platforms. Lighttpd, on the other hand, primarily targets Unix-like systems but also offers support for Windows, albeit with potential limitations.
Community and Support: Both Apache HTTP Server and lighttpd have active communities and provide support through mailing lists, forums, and documentation. However, Apache HTTP Server, being the more widely adopted option, generally benefits from a larger community and a broader range of available resources, including third-party tutorials, articles, and troubleshooting guides.

In summary, Apache HTTP Server and lighttpd differ in terms of performance, configuration approach, available modules and extensions, flexibility and customization options, operating system compatibility, and community support. The choice between the two depends on the specific needs and requirements of the project, balancing factors such as performance optimization, feature richness, and customization capabilities.

Advice on Apache HTTP Server, lighttpd

Daniel

Co-Founder at Polpo Data Analytics & Software Development

May 25, 2021

Decided

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.

289k views289k

Comments

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 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.

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

Detailed Comparison

Apache HTTP Server	lighttpd
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.	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.
Statistics
GitHub Stars 3.8K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 1.2K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 64.9K	Stacks 148
Followers 22.8K	Followers 133
Votes 1.4K	Votes 27
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	Pros 7 Lightweight 6 Easy setup 2 Full featured 2 Proxy 2 Open source

What are some alternatives to Apache HTTP Server, lighttpd?

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.

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.