Apache HTTP Server vs Apache Tomcat

Overview

Apache HTTP Server

Stacks64.5K

Followers22.8K

Votes1.4K

GitHub Stars3.8K

Forks1.2K

Apache Tomcat

Stacks16.9K

Followers12.6K

Votes201

GitHub Stars8.0K

Forks5.3K

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

Introduction

In this article, we will discuss the key differences between Apache HTTP Server and Apache Tomcat. Both Apache HTTP Server and Apache Tomcat are popular web server applications, but they serve different purposes and have distinct features.

Deployment: Apache Tomcat is a web application server that is specifically designed to execute Java servlets and JavaServer Pages (JSP). It is mainly used for hosting Java web applications. On the other hand, Apache HTTP Server is a general-purpose web server that can serve static files and support various scripting languages like PHP, Perl, and Python. It can be used to host any type of website.
Protocol Support: Apache Tomcat primarily supports HTTP and HTTPS protocols for serving web applications. It provides a servlet container and JSP engine to handle requests, process servlets, and render dynamic content. In contrast, Apache HTTP Server supports a wide range of protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and SMTP. It offers more versatility in terms of protocol support.
Modules and Extensions: Apache HTTP Server has a modular architecture that allows users to add or remove modules based on their requirements. It provides a vast library of modules for enhancing its functionality, such as mod_rewrite for URL rewriting, mod_ssl for SSL/TLS encryption, and mod_proxy for reverse proxying. Apache Tomcat, on the other hand, focuses on providing essential features for Java web applications and has a more limited set of extensions.
Performance: Apache HTTP Server is known for its high performance and scalability. It is optimized for serving static content efficiently and can handle a large number of concurrent connections. Apache Tomcat, being a Java-based server, requires additional resources and overhead for running Java servlets and JSPs. It may not be as efficient in serving static files as Apache HTTP Server.
Configuration: Apache HTTP Server has a highly flexible and customizable configuration system. It uses a configuration file called httpd.conf, which allows users to define various server settings, virtual hosts, and URL rewriting rules. Apache Tomcat has a similar configuration mechanism but with a focus on configuring Java web applications, such as defining contexts, servlet mappings, and resource settings.
Use Cases: Apache HTTP Server is commonly used for hosting static websites, dynamic websites with scripting languages, and as a reverse proxy server. It can also be used as a load balancer in conjunction with other servers. Apache Tomcat, on the other hand, is specifically designed for hosting Java-based web applications. It provides a runtime environment for executing Java servlets and JSPs and is widely used in enterprise-level applications.

In summary, Apache HTTP Server and Apache Tomcat serve different purposes and have different strengths. Apache HTTP Server is a general-purpose web server, while Apache Tomcat is a specialized web application server for hosting Java web applications.

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Advice on Apache HTTP Server, Apache Tomcat

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

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

Detailed Comparison

Apache HTTP Server	Apache Tomcat
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.	Apache Tomcat powers numerous large-scale, mission-critical web applications across a diverse range of industries and organizations.
Statistics
GitHub Stars 3.8K	GitHub Stars 8.0K
GitHub Forks 1.2K	GitHub Forks 5.3K
Stacks 64.5K	Stacks 16.9K
Followers 22.8K	Followers 12.6K
Votes 1.4K	Votes 201
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 79 Easy 72 Java 49 Popular 1 Spring web Cons 3 Blocking - each http request block a thread 2 Easy to set up

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

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.

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.

Caddy

Caddy 2 is a powerful, enterprise-ready, open source web server with automatic HTTPS written in Go.

Related Comparisons

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

Introduction

Deployment: Apache Tomcat is a web application server that is specifically designed to execute Java servlets and JavaServer Pages (JSP). It is mainly used for hosting Java web applications. On the other hand, Apache HTTP Server is a general-purpose web server that can serve static files and support various scripting languages like PHP, Perl, and Python. It can be used to host any type of website.
Protocol Support: Apache Tomcat primarily supports HTTP and HTTPS protocols for serving web applications. It provides a servlet container and JSP engine to handle requests, process servlets, and render dynamic content. In contrast, Apache HTTP Server supports a wide range of protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and SMTP. It offers more versatility in terms of protocol support.
Modules and Extensions: Apache HTTP Server has a modular architecture that allows users to add or remove modules based on their requirements. It provides a vast library of modules for enhancing its functionality, such as mod_rewrite for URL rewriting, mod_ssl for SSL/TLS encryption, and mod_proxy for reverse proxying. Apache Tomcat, on the other hand, focuses on providing essential features for Java web applications and has a more limited set of extensions.
Performance: Apache HTTP Server is known for its high performance and scalability. It is optimized for serving static content efficiently and can handle a large number of concurrent connections. Apache Tomcat, being a Java-based server, requires additional resources and overhead for running Java servlets and JSPs. It may not be as efficient in serving static files as Apache HTTP Server.
Configuration: Apache HTTP Server has a highly flexible and customizable configuration system. It uses a configuration file called httpd.conf, which allows users to define various server settings, virtual hosts, and URL rewriting rules. Apache Tomcat has a similar configuration mechanism but with a focus on configuring Java web applications, such as defining contexts, servlet mappings, and resource settings.
Use Cases: Apache HTTP Server is commonly used for hosting static websites, dynamic websites with scripting languages, and as a reverse proxy server. It can also be used as a load balancer in conjunction with other servers. Apache Tomcat, on the other hand, is specifically designed for hosting Java-based web applications. It provides a runtime environment for executing Java servlets and JSPs and is widely used in enterprise-level applications.

Apache HTTP Server vs Apache Tomcat

Overview

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