Comparison of web server software explained

Web server software allows computers to act as web servers. The first web servers supported only static files, such as HTML (and images), but now they commonly allow embedding of server side applications.

Some web application frameworks include simple HTTP servers. For example the Django framework provides runserver, and PHP has a built-in server. These are generally intended only for use during initial development. A production server will require a more robust HTTP front-end such as one of the servers listed here.

Overview

Server	Developed by	Software license	Last stable version	Latest release date
AOLserver	NaviSoft		4.5.2	2012-09-19 (discontinued)
Apache HTTP Server	Apache Software Foundation		2.4.62	2024-07-17
Apache Tomcat	Apache Software Foundation		10.1.15	2023-10-16
Boa	Jon Nelson and Larry Doolittle		0.94.13	2002-07-30 (discontinued)
BusyBox httpd	Glenn Engel, Vladimir Oleynik, BusyBox Team		1.36.1	2023-05-18
Caddy	Matt Holt		2.8.4	2024-06-02
Caudium	The Caudium Group		1.4.18	2012-02-24
CERN httpd	CERN, W3C, Tim Berners-Lee, Ari Luotonen and Henrik Frystyk Nielsen	MIT Copyright Statement with acknowledgement to CERN	3.0A	1996-07-15(discontinued)
Cherokee HTTP Server	Álvaro López Ortega		1.2.103	2013-04-21
GlassFish	Sun Microsystems, Oracle Corporation, since 2019 Eclipse Foundation		6.2.5	2022-02-13
Hiawatha	Hugo Leisink		11.6	2024-06-13
HFS	Rejetto		2.3m	2018-08-16
IBM HTTP Server	IBM	proprietary	9.0.5.17	2023-09-19
Internet Information Services	Microsoft	proprietary	10.0.17763.1	2018-10-02
Jetty	Eclipse Foundation		12.0.2	2023-10-10
Jexus	Bing Liu	proprietary	6.2.x	2020
lighttpd	Jan Kneschke (Incremental)		1.4.76	2024-04-12
LiteSpeed Web Server	LiteSpeed Technologies		6.1.2	2023-05-24
Mongoose	Cesanta Software		7.16	2024-11-20
Monkey HTTP Server	Monkey Software		1.6.9	2016-06-04
NaviServer	Various		4.99.25	2023-05-01
NCSA HTTPd	Robert McCool	proprietary	1.5.2a	1996-10-08 (discontinued)
Nginx	NGINX, Inc.		1.25.4	2024-03-14
OpenBSD httpd	Reyk Floeter		7.4	2023-10-16
OpenLinkVirtuoso	OpenLink Software		8.3.3329	2023-09-01
Oracle HTTP Server	Oracle Corporation	proprietary	12cR2 (12.2.1.4)^[1]	2021-02-??^[2]
Oracle iPlanet Web Server	Oracle Corporation		7.0.27	2017-10-01
Oracle WebLogic Server	Oracle Corporation (formerly BEA Systems)	proprietary	14c (14.1.1.0)	2020-03-30
Resin Open Source	Caucho Technology		4.0.66	2021-12-08
Resin Professional	Caucho Technology	proprietary	4.0.66	2021-12-08
thttpd	Jef Poskanzer for ACME Laboratories		2.29	2018-05-24
TUX web server	Ingo Molnár		3.2.6.18	2006-09-20 (discontinued)
WEBrick	Ruby Community		1.8.1	2023-01-27
Xitami	iMatix Corporation		5.0a0	2009-02-19 (discontinued)
Yaws	Claes Wikström		2.1.1	2022-02-02
Zeus Web Server	Zeus Technology	proprietary	4.3r5	2010-01-13 (discontinued)
Zope	Zope Corporation		2.13.30	2020-02-14
Server	Developed by	Software license	Last stable version	Latest release date

Features

Some features may be intentionally not included to web server to avoid featuritis. For example:

• TLS/HTTPS may be enabled with a separate stunnel daemon that terminates TLS and redirects raw HTTP packets to http daemon.
• NGINX and OpenBSD httpd authors decided not to include CGI interpretation but instead use FastCGI. For OpenBSD was developed a slowcgi gateway.
• BusyBox httpd doesn't have automatically generated directory listing but it may be implemented as a CGI script

Server	Security			Virtual hosting	Dynamic content								Runs in user or kernel space	Administration console	Additional protocol support
	Basic access authenti- cation	Digest access authenti- cation	SSL/TLS https		CGI	FCGI	SCGI	WSGI	Java Servlets	SSI	ISAPI	SSJS			IPv6	HTTP/2	QUIC	HTTP/3
AOLserver			^[3]										user
Apache HTTP Server			^[4] ^[5]										user
Apache Tomcat			^[6]										user
Boa													user
BusyBox httpd													user
Caddy													user
Caucho Resin Server													user
Caudium													user
Cherokee HTTP Server													user		^[7]
HFS			^[8]										user
Hiawatha HTTP Server			^[9]										user			^[10]
IBM HTTP Server													user
Internet Information Services													kernel and user^[11]
Jetty													user
Jexus													user
lighttpd			^[12]										user
LiteSpeed Web Server													user					^[13]
Mongoose													user
Monkey HTTP Server													user
NaviServer													user
NCSA HTTPd													user
nginx		(module)							^[14]				user		^[15]	^[16]
OpenBSD httpd													user
OpenLinkVirtuoso													user
Oracle HTTP Server^[17]													user
Oracle iPlanet Web Server													user
thttpd													user
TUX web server													kernel
Xitami													user
Yaws													user
Zeus Web Server													user

Operating system support

Server	Windows	Linux	macOS	BSD	Solaris	eComStation	OpenVMS	AIX	IBM i	z/OS	HP-UX
AOLserver
Apache HTTP Server
Apache Tomcat
Boa
BusyBox httpd	^[18]
Caddy
Caucho Resin Server
Caudium^[19]
Cherokee HTTP Server	^[20]
HFS
Hiawatha	^[21]
IBM HTTP Server
Internet Information Services
Jetty (Java)
Jexus
lighttpd	(Cygwin)
LiteSpeed Web Server
Mongoose
Monkey HTTP Server
NaviServer
NCSA HTTPd
nginx
OpenLinkVirtuoso
Oracle HTTP Server
Oracle iPlanet Web Server
thttpd	(Cygwin)
TUX web server
Xitami
Yaws

See also

• Comparison of application servers
• Embedded HTTP server
• Gunicorn (HTTP server)
• Helicon Ape

External links

• Netcraft Web Server Survey
• Usage Statistics and Market Share of Web Servers for Websites

Notes and References

1. Web site: Oracle Web Tier Downloads. www.oracle.com . Oracle. 11 August 2020.
2. Web site: Release Notes for Oracle HTTP Server . 2022-10-09 . Oracle Help Center . en-us.
3. Web site: Nsssl - AOLserver Wiki . 2014-07-04.
4. Web site: Apache Module mod_ssl . 2014-07-04.
5. Web site: mod_gnutls . 2014-07-04 . 2018-05-30 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180530180931/https://mod.gnutls.org/ . dead .
6. Web site: Apache Tomcat 6.0 - SSL Configuration HOW-TO. 2014-07-04.
7. Web site: Cherokee Web Server | Man pages cherokee-admin | Cherokee Documentation. cherokee-project.com.
8. Web site: HFS: Secure your server - rejetto wiki. www.rejetto.com.
9. Web site: Features - Hiawatha webserver. hiawatha-webserver.org . Hugo . Leisink . 2014-07-04.
10. Web site: Scaling down the project. www.hiawatha-webserver.com. 11 August 2020.
11. Web site: States that the HTTP protocol stack http.sys runs in kernel space, while the rest of the software runs in user space . Technet2.microsoft.com . 2012-02-28 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080417180303/http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/975bb1da-4bcf-4064-b0c7-723e45106bf51033.mspx?mfr=true . 2008-04-17 . dead .
12. Web site: Secure HTTP . redmine.lighttpd.net. 2014-12-09.
13. Web site: "LiteSpeed Web Server v5.4 is Here!" . 24 July 2019 . 11 November 2019.
14. Web site: JavaServers . Wiki.nginx.org. 2013-08-15.
15. Web site: Ghosh . Soumik. Enable IPv6 support . Nginx Library . 2010-09-05. 2013-08-15.
16. Web site: nginx changelog. www.nginx.com. 2015-09-22.
17. Web site: Feature Overview - 10g R2 (10.1.2) . Oracle.com. 2010-09-07 . 2012-02-28.
18. Web site: BusyBox on Windows. "The Windows native build is currentlybroken."
19. Web site: Webserver FAQs . Caudium . 2012-02-28 . https://archive.today/20021114112842/http://caudium.net/server/faqs.rxml . 2002-11-14 . dead .
20. Web site: Installation on Windows. cherokee-project.com . John Poole. 2014-11-23. "The Windows native build is currentlybroken."
21. Web site: About - Hiawatha webserver . hiawatha-webserver.org . Hugo Leisink . 2014-06-21 . 2023-06-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230612074432/https://www.hiawatha-webserver.org/about . dead .