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Apache HTTP Server vs Puma vs nginx: What are the differences?
Introduction
Apache HTTP Server and Puma and Nginx are popular web server technologies used to deliver web content and applications to users. Each server has specific features and capabilities that make them suitable for different use cases and environments.
Performance: Nginx is well-known for its high performance and efficiency in serving static content, making it a popular choice for websites with high traffic volumes. Apache HTTP Server, on the other hand, is more versatile and feature-rich, but can be less efficient in serving static content compared to Nginx. Puma is a lightweight server that is optimized for concurrent processing of Ruby applications, making it a good choice for web applications built on the Ruby on Rails framework.
Concurrency Handling: Nginx is renowned for its efficient handling of concurrent connections and requests, making it ideal for serving multiple users simultaneously. Apache HTTP Server and Puma also support concurrency, but Nginx typically outperforms them in this aspect due to its event-driven and non-blocking architecture.
Ease of Configuration: Nginx is known for its simple and intuitive configuration syntax, making it easy to set up and manage server settings and optimizations. Apache HTTP Server has a more complex configuration system with numerous configuration files, while Puma offers minimal configuration options as it is designed to be lightweight and streamlined.
Resource Usage: Nginx is lightweight and consumes fewer system resources compared to Apache HTTP Server, making it a preferred choice for environments with limited resources or high server loads. Puma falls in between Nginx and Apache HTTP Server in terms of resource consumption, offering a balance between performance and resource efficiency.
Support for Modules: Apache HTTP Server has a vast ecosystem of modules and extensions that extend its capabilities, allowing users to customize and enhance their server functionality. Nginx also supports modules, albeit to a lesser extent, while Puma is designed to be minimalistic and does not offer extensive support for external modules.
Community and Documentation: Apache HTTP Server has a large and established community with comprehensive documentation and resources available, making it easy to find help and support for users. Nginx also has a strong community and documentation, although it may not be as extensive as Apache's. Puma, being a newer and more specialized server, may have a smaller community and less documentation available for users seeking assistance.
In Summary, Apache HTTP Server, Nginx, and Puma each have unique strengths in terms of performance, concurrency handling, ease of configuration, resource usage, support for modules, and community support, making them suitable for different use cases and environments in web server deployment.
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 NGINX
- High-performance http server1.4K
- Performance894
- Easy to configure730
- Open source607
- Load balancer530
- Free289
- Scalability288
- Web server226
- Simplicity175
- Easy setup136
- Content caching30
- Web Accelerator21
- Capability15
- Fast14
- High-latency12
- Predictability12
- Reverse Proxy8
- The best of them7
- Supports http/27
- Great Community5
- Lots of Modules5
- Enterprise version5
- High perfomance proxy server4
- Embedded Lua scripting3
- Streaming media delivery3
- Streaming media3
- Reversy Proxy3
- Blash2
- GRPC-Web2
- Lightweight2
- Fast and easy to set up2
- Slim2
- saltstack2
- Virtual hosting1
- Narrow focus. Easy to configure. Fast1
- Along with Redis Cache its the Most superior1
- Ingress controller1
Pros of Puma
- Free4
- Convenient3
- Easy3
- Multithreaded2
- Consumes less memory than Unicorn2
- Default Rails server2
- First-class support for WebSockets2
- Lightweight1
- Fast1
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Cons of Apache HTTP Server
- Hard to set up4
Cons of NGINX
- Advanced features require subscription10
Cons of Puma
- Uses `select` (limited client count)0
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What is Apache HTTP Server?
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