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Cowboy vs Apache Tomcat: What are the differences?
Developers describe Cowboy as "Small, fast, modular HTTP server written in Erlang". Cowboy aims to provide a complete HTTP stack in a small code base. It is optimized for low latency and low memory usage, in part because it uses binary strings. Cowboy provides routing capabilities, selectively dispatching requests to handlers written in Erlang. On the other hand, Apache Tomcat is detailed as "An open source software implementation of the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies". Apache Tomcat powers numerous large-scale, mission-critical web applications across a diverse range of industries and organizations.
Cowboy and Apache Tomcat can be categorized as "Web Servers" tools.
"Websockets integration" is the primary reason why developers consider Cowboy over the competitors, whereas "Easy" was stated as the key factor in picking Apache Tomcat.
Cowboy and Apache Tomcat are both open source tools. It seems that Cowboy with 5.59K GitHub stars and 999 forks on GitHub has more adoption than Apache Tomcat with 3.51K GitHub stars and 2.4K GitHub forks.
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 Cowboy
- Websockets integration8
- Cool name6
- Good to use with Erlang3
- Anime mascot2
Pros of Apache Tomcat
- Easy79
- Java72
- Popular49
- Spring web1
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Cons of Cowboy
Cons of Apache Tomcat
- Blocking - each http request block a thread3
- Easy to set up2