What is Apache?
Apache is the most widely used web server software today. Indeed, the latter is installed on more than 46% of active web servers. As the name suggests, it allows you to serve web content, which is why it is called a web server.
Apache is one of the oldest web servers in existence today, created in 1995 and developed by the Apache Software Foundation.
What is a web server?
There are different servers such as the MySQL server (Database server), mail server or Web servers . The web server allows to display a website. As soon as you request the display of a Web page, the Web server will extract the content and transmit it to you.
However, one of the biggest challenges is being able to serve several users simultaneously since each will request the display of a different page. In addition, a web server is capable of reading and processing different programming languages such as PHP, Python, HTML, Javascript .
How does it work? Basics
The job of all web servers is to accept client requests and then respond to that request. Therefore, when you go to request a specific page from a website such as the “Contact” page, your browser will send a request to the Apache web server . The latter will send a response to your browser with all the requested files.
The Apache Web server includes modules that add additional functions to its software, such as MPM (for managing multiple processing modes) or “mod_ssl” to activate support for SSL V3 and TLS . There are other Apache modules such as security modules, caching or URL rewriting modules .
In addition, you can create and configure the server using an .htaccess file . This type of file is taken into account on all shared hosting.
Apache or Nginx? What are the differences ?
Nginx is very recent. This web server application was launched in 2004. Since then, the popularity of this server has grown steadily over time. This server was created to solve certain problems encountered on Apache web servers such as what is called the c10k. C10k can be translated as “problem of 10,000 simultaneous connections” . It is a numeric code used to express the limitation that most servers have in terms of network connection. This problem mainly occurs on servers using threads to manage user requests.
- Since Apache uses a child-based structure, when traffic is high, you may experience performance issues.
- Apache will create new requests for each new request without immediately closing the previous requests. Conversely, Nginx will distribute user requests over the processes without opening another. This will allow you to keep very good performance.
- Nginx uses very few web resources, which can be a great choice for your site, if you have a lot of traffic.
Apache or Tomcat?
Like Apache, Tomcat is a web server developed by the Apache Software Foundation. However, this server was mainly developed for Java applications such as Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages and many others.
Apache Tomcat is a widely used application with just over a million downloads per month. Its general success is due to its light, effective and efficient nature.
This is because, as previously mentioned; Tomcat implements JSP and Servlet, which many applications generally depend on.
Apache Tomcat is not a Java EE engine, it is possible to keep it light and to download additional modules as needed. This not only makes it versatile and flexible, but also ensures that it can continuously meet the needs of most web applications.
What are the benefits of Apache?
Apache remains a very good, stable and versatile Web server with many advantages such as:
- The software is free and open source
- The latter is updated regularly and has many security fixes
- Remains very flexible thanks to a multitude of modules that can be integrated into it
However, it also has two disadvantages which are:
- For sites with very high web traffic, performance may be degraded
- Adding too many configuration options can lead to security vulnerabilities
Conclusion:
You are now able to know what a web server is and more specifically Apache. The Apache web server remains one of the most used servers today and works perfectly with many shared hosting ?
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