lighttpd vs NGINX vs Apache Tomcat

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

lighttpd

148
134
+ 1
27
NGINX

113.4K
61K
+ 1
5.5K
Apache Tomcat

16.6K
12.4K
+ 1
201

Apache Tomcat vs lighttpd vs nginx: What are the differences?

Introduction

When it comes to web servers, Apache Tomcat, lighttpd, and nginx are popular choices, each with its own strengths and features. Understanding the key differences between these servers can help in choosing the right fit for a particular web application or project.

  1. Protocol Support: Apache Tomcat primarily supports the Java Servlet API and JSP technology, making it a popular choice for Java-based web applications. In contrast, lighttpd and nginx support a wider range of protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, FastCGI, SCGI, and WebSockets, making them versatile options for different types of websites and services.

  2. Resource Usage: Compared to Apache Tomcat, lighttpd and nginx are known for their efficient resource usage and low memory footprint. This makes them ideal for high-traffic websites and applications that require optimal performance and scalability. On the other hand, Apache Tomcat may consume more memory and resources, especially when handling a large number of concurrent connections.

  3. Configuration Complexity: Apache Tomcat is often criticized for its complex configuration, which can be challenging for beginners or those unfamiliar with Java web applications. In contrast, lighttpd and nginx are known for their simple and user-friendly configuration syntax, making it easier to set up and customize web servers quickly and efficiently.

  4. Modules and Extensions: lighttpd and nginx have a wide range of modules and extensions available, allowing users to extend the functionality of the web server based on their specific requirements. In comparison, Apache Tomcat has a more limited set of extensions and may require additional customization to achieve similar levels of functionality.

  5. Performance and Speed: Both lighttpd and nginx are renowned for their high-performance and speed, thanks to their event-driven architecture and efficient handling of concurrent connections. This makes them popular choices for serving static content and handling a large number of requests simultaneously. While Apache Tomcat can also deliver good performance, it may not be as fast and efficient as lighttpd and nginx in certain scenarios.

Summary

In summary, Apache Tomcat, lighttpd, and nginx differ in terms of protocol support, resource usage, configuration complexity, modules and extensions availability, and performance and speed, making each server better suited for specific use cases and environments.

Advice on lighttpd, NGINX, and Apache Tomcat

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!

See more
Replies (1)
Simon Aronsson
Developer Advocate at k6 / Load Impact · | 4 upvotes · 722.3K views
Recommends
on
NGINXNGINX

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.

See more
Needs advice
on
Apache HTTP ServerApache HTTP Server
and
NGINXNGINX

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."

See more
Replies (3)
Recommends
on
NGINXNGINX

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.

See more
Leandro Barral
Recommends
on
NGINXNGINX

I use nginx because its more flexible and easy to configure

See more
Christian Cwienk
Software Developer at SAP · | 1 upvotes · 688K views
Recommends
on
Apache HTTP ServerApache HTTP Server

I use Apache HTTP Server because it's intuitive, comprehensive, well-documented, and just works

See more
Decisions about lighttpd, NGINX, and Apache Tomcat
Daniel Calvo
Co-Founder at Polpo Data Analytics & Software Development · | 8 upvotes · 271K views

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.

See more
Grant Steuart
  • 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.
See more

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.

See more
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More
Pros of lighttpd
Pros of NGINX
Pros of Apache Tomcat
  • 7
    Lightweight
  • 6
    Easy setup
  • 2
    Virtal hosting
  • 2
    Simplicity
  • 2
    Full featured
  • 2
    Proxy
  • 2
    Open source
  • 1
    Available modules
  • 1
    Fast
  • 1
    Security
  • 1
    Ssl support
  • 1.4K
    High-performance http server
  • 894
    Performance
  • 730
    Easy to configure
  • 607
    Open source
  • 530
    Load balancer
  • 289
    Free
  • 288
    Scalability
  • 226
    Web server
  • 175
    Simplicity
  • 136
    Easy setup
  • 30
    Content caching
  • 21
    Web Accelerator
  • 15
    Capability
  • 14
    Fast
  • 12
    High-latency
  • 12
    Predictability
  • 8
    Reverse Proxy
  • 7
    The best of them
  • 7
    Supports http/2
  • 5
    Great Community
  • 5
    Lots of Modules
  • 5
    Enterprise version
  • 4
    High perfomance proxy server
  • 3
    Embedded Lua scripting
  • 3
    Streaming media delivery
  • 3
    Streaming media
  • 3
    Reversy Proxy
  • 2
    Blash
  • 2
    GRPC-Web
  • 2
    Lightweight
  • 2
    Fast and easy to set up
  • 2
    Slim
  • 2
    saltstack
  • 1
    Virtual hosting
  • 1
    Narrow focus. Easy to configure. Fast
  • 1
    Along with Redis Cache its the Most superior
  • 1
    Ingress controller
  • 79
    Easy
  • 72
    Java
  • 49
    Popular
  • 1
    Spring web

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of lighttpd
Cons of NGINX
Cons of Apache Tomcat
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 10
      Advanced features require subscription
    • 3
      Blocking - each http request block a thread
    • 2
      Easy to set up

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is 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.

    What is 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.

    What is Apache Tomcat?

    Apache Tomcat powers numerous large-scale, mission-critical web applications across a diverse range of industries and organizations.

    Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

    Jobs that mention lighttpd, NGINX, and Apache Tomcat as a desired skillset
    What companies use lighttpd?
    What companies use NGINX?
    What companies use Apache Tomcat?

    Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

    What tools integrate with lighttpd?
    What tools integrate with NGINX?
    What tools integrate with Apache Tomcat?

    Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

    Blog Posts

    What are some alternatives to lighttpd, NGINX, and Apache Tomcat?
    LiteSpeed
    It is a drop-in Apache replacement and the leading high-performance, high-scalability server. You can replace your existing Apache server with it without changing your configuration or operating system details. As a drop-in replacement, it allows you to quickly eliminate Apache bottlenecks in 15 minutes with zero downtime.
    Caddy
    Caddy 2 is a powerful, enterprise-ready, open source web server with automatic HTTPS written in Go.
    Apache HTTP Server
    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.
    Amazon EC2
    It is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.
    Firebase
    Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications. Simply add the Firebase library to your application to gain access to a shared data structure; any changes you make to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds.
    See all alternatives