Nearly everybody has heard of Apache and IIS web servers. They are the top two web servers in terms of popularity. But Apache and IIS are not the only capable web servers around.
There are many excellent web servers available that provide a high-performance alternative to either of the top dogs.
But what should a capable web server provide? Here are some essential criteria:
- High level of scalability
- Stability
- Easy configuration
- Lightweight: Low CPU load, small resource usage, low memory footprint
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5 Realistic Alternatives to Apache and IIS
Many of these alternative web servers are free to use. Nearly all offer a lightweight, highly scalable server solution. Some even outperform both Apache and IIS in terms of overall speed. The 5 web servers we will be looking at as real alternatives to Apache and IIS are:
- Nginx
- LiteSpeed
- Lighttpd
- Hiawatha
- Cherokee
Nginx
Developed by Igor Sysoev in 2002, Nginx was finally released to the public in 2004 and continues to grow in popularity every year. Nginx is an open-sourced, free HTTP server and reverse proxy. It can also act as an IMAP/POP3 server. Benefiting from being fully scalable, Nginx combines the use of a predictable small amount of memory with asynchronous architecture, resulting in a small memory footprint and low resource consumption. Nginx offers a high-performance, stable environment and is currently the chosen web server for WordPress, SourceForge, and TorrentReactor. Nginx is currently the 3rd most popular web server (behind Apache and IIS) with a market share of 7.65% (according to Netcraft’s March 2011 survey).
LiteSpeed
Another highly popular web server, LiteSpeed is owned by LiteSpeed Technologies Inc. and was created in 2002. LiteSpeed is alleged to be:
- 6 times faster overall than Apache
- 50% faster in PHP content delivery than Apache (with mod_php)
- 3 times faster than Apache in SSL
LiteSpeed is a highly scalable web server providing a high-performance service. LiteSpeed is completely interchangeable with Apache and is designed to work with the most popular control panels, including cPanel and DirectAdmin.
Lighttpd
Lighttpd (pronounced ‘lighty’) is another low memory footprint server that offers high-performance with stability, flexibility, and speed. Developed by Jan Kneschke and released in 2003, Lighttpd uses a light CPU load and features speed optimizing technology – making it perfect for servers currently suffering from load problems. Currently 5th on Netcrafts March 2011 web server survey, Lighttpd is the web server software of choice for sites like YouTube, The Pirate Bay, and Meebo.
Hiawatha
Hiawatha a Unix web server with advanced security features. Created in 2002 by Hugo Leisink, Hiawatha is still being actively developed. The last stable upgrade was v7.0 released in February 2010. Although optimized for a PHP framework, Hiawatha has the ability to run any CGI/Fast CGI application. Hiawatha’s many security features include:
- Preventing SQL-injections
- CSRF prevention
- Denial of Service (DoS) protection
- Banning of potential hackers
- Limiting the run-time of CGI applications
The Hiawatha web server can run on Linux, BSD, MacOS X and Windows.
Cherokee
Cherokee is a fast, easy-to-configure web server that supports the latest technologies such as: FastCGI, SCGI, SSI, PHP, TLS, and SSL. It offers a flexible solution and is free to use. Cherokee web server comes complete with the cherokee-admin interface and Cherokee Market making it a great option for anyone looking for a simple, scalable, fast web server that is easy to set up and maintain.
Can These Web Servers Replace Apache or IIS?
In a word, yes. Many of the web servers described above are faster and more efficient than either Apache or IIS. Just because Apache and IIS have the lion’s share of the market does not necessarily infer they are superior in performance. In particular, Nginx, Lighttpd, and LiteSpeed are technologically superior to Apache and IIS in certain aspects and often out-perform both in field tests.
So why would you make the switch? Well if you have any speed-related issues with your Apache or IIS server (bottle-necking for example) it may be time to consider changing to one of the faster, lightweight web servers mentioned above. Compatibility is less of an issue nowadays and most web servers are cross-platform compatible (if you’re planning to run .NET applications on these servers, do check out Mono Project). Switching from Apache or IIS to another web server is no longer the headache it used to be.
I could argue with you about “lightweight usually means less features” while most of users don’t even know what they need or not but this is subjective subject.
What i couldn’t stand in your post is IIS alternatives. You cannot run .NET on any of these servers, MONO project is far behind what ASP.NET 4 offers. It doesn’t even have proper Visual Studio Express alternative, i wouldn’t even talk about framework features.
Probably the kind of presence the companies behind the big names like IIS won’t let the market share fall for them
I really love cherokee, as it is very very fast, bugs are fixed in light speed and the admin is great.
Web servers (Apache, Nginx, Lighttpd…) compared to Cache servers (Varnish, ATS…) and even one Application server (G-WAN):
http://nbonvin.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/serving-small-static-files-which-server-to-use/
Who is the winner? The lightest in size (200 KB) – but also the heaviweight in features (native scripting capabilities), proof that good coding practices pay!
I am not sure if Nginx will work for hosting .net web services. You cannot post to static pages.
The following version of the software are used for this benchmark:
Nginx: 0.7.67-3ubuntu1 (64 bit)
Varnish: 2.1.3-7ubuntu0.1 (64 bit)
G-WAN: 2.1.20 (32 bit)
Lighttpd: 1.4.26-3ubuntu2 (64 bit)
Apache Traffic Server: 2.1.7-unstable (64 bit)
All tests are performed on an ASUS U30JC (Intel Core i3 – 370M @ 2.4 Ghz, Hard drive 5400 rpm, Memory: 4GB DDR3 1066MHz) running Ubuntu 10.10 64 bit (kernel 2.6.35).
Memory 4 gb?
Say: Microsoft IIS and Apache Tomcat OR IIS and Tomcat
Don’t say: IIS and Apache OR Microsoft and Tomcat ;)
Hi anyone know ..kind of webserver+web browser ‘Duo’ ..I used that way back when i was using windows as i moved to linux now i forget the name. any way nice comparison man!
I haven’t ever used any of these.
I haven’t knew about these part of tools. However I am going to do Computer Science Engineering. Hope these terms will get in my subject and I sure remember this post :P
Useful post again. These servers can be good alternative to apache.
You did great job and put some nice point and energetic view to inspire use of alternatives of Apache.
Nice share, Thanks for sharing these alternatives.
I’ve used Hiawatha, and on my old, antique 32-bit WinXP box, it runs superbly. I have no complaints about it on that machine at all. Does what it says on the tin and all that.
BUT … when I tried installing it on my x64 machine. it all went pear shaped. The reason? Despite the blurb, it is NOT compatible with Windows 7 x64 as it stands! To make it compatible, you have to RECOMPILE THE ENTIRE SOURCE CODE. This is not my idea of “compatible”. For those of us who have other demands on our time, dicking around installing a C or C++ compiler, then spending hours or even days getting the code to compile cleanly. THEN spending yet more hours or days checking to see if the cleanly compiled code actually WORKS, is a HUGE disincentive. Especially when I learned that the code contains, wait for it, hard coded path references. Sorry, but this really is a let down.
Bear this in mind for the future if choosing this option. If someone produces a WORKING x64 compiled version straight out of the box, please make it available for download. Until then, I’ll be looking for an alternative that doesn’t involve me having to dick around with compilers, just to get a web server up and running that should be running without this sort of dicking around.
I was using Apache so far and I’m a big fan.
However I needed an alternative for one of my other servers and the guys at Rosehosting proposed Hiawatha to me.
I like the usage so far, it doesn’t take much of my server resources and that was what I needed.
The web server has also some great security embedded modules.