What are the Most Popular Web Server Applications in 2023?
- Nginx
- Apache HTTP Web Server
- IIS
- IBM Web Sphere
- Apache Tomcat
Introduction to Nginx Web Server:
Nginx is pronounced as EngineX. Nginx is a web server strongly focus on high concurrency, high performance and low memory usage.
What is Nginx and What is it used for?
Nginx is a open source web server for hosting applications, reverse proxy, email proxy and it also a event-driven server. Nginx is used as web server for hosting static web sites and applications. Nginx web server is a computer that process the http requests and sends back the http response to client. Nginx is utilized for server load balancing and HTTP Cache. Nginx handles HTTP requests by asynchronous, event-driven method. Nginx can accept between 12000 - 15000 request per second, where as other popular services can accept on up to 6000 request per second. Nginx can runs on all the *nix flavours, Mac OS X, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX.
Nginx is used as Internet, Load Balancer, Web Server, Reverse Proxy Server and Email Proxy Server. Main purpose is to host websites and web applications.
Nginx as a Web Server:
Nginx as a Load Balancing:
It improves the performance, reduces the latency and also maximizes the throughput. Effective for http by distributing requests across multiple applications. For balancing the load between application and client Nginx supports the following algorithms like Round Robin, Least Connected, IP hash.
Nginx as a Reverse Proxy:
A reverse proxy is also a proxy server that retrieves data from all the resources on behalf of its client. Nginx supports reverse proxying through the following protocols.
- Fast CGI
- UWSGI
- SCGI
Advantages of Nginx:
- Accelerates content and application delivery
- High availability
- Improves security
- Scalability
More Advantages of Nginx:
Gzipping: Gzipping of JS, HTML and CSS files as a core feature which improves your load time.
Pre-Gzipping: Instead of compressing files on each request, the site assets will be pre-compressed and stored.
Full-page Micro Cache: Any page without user-specific data can be stored in Nginx to avoid disturbing the backend application.
GeoIP Lookups: By utilizing the MaxMind GeoIP database (Paid/free version), you can do GeoIP lookups with Nginx.
Video Streaming: FLV and MP4 modules can be used to stream videos with Nginx.
Find out the Most Popular Web Servers in 2023:
According to our research, there are many popular web servers that are being used in tech organisations or IT industry. However we have chosen the best and most popular web servers for you. Apache, Apache HTTP Server, Nginx, Lighttpd and Cherokee. They are used by millions of websites worldwide. In this article we'll be covering the most widely used popular web servers in the IT Industry and its advantages. Let's go through one by one with major advantages.
1. Apache HTTP Server:
Apache HTTP Server (Apache) is an open source software suite used as a web server and Internet Information Services (IIS). It was developed by the Apache Group at UC Berkeley in 1991. This is actually an open source software package developed by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) and widely used on Linux operating systems. HTTP server software was originally written by Doug McIlroy at UC Berkeley in C programming language as a replacement for the NCSA HTTPd server. Apache has been widely adopted since its official release and has been downloaded more than 100 million times since its first release.
Lets see some advantages of using Apache HTTP Server.
- Free open source cross platform software.
- Super fast in performance and light weight when compared to other web servers.
- Good community support. It is being developed and maintained by an open source community to date.
2. Nginx Web Server:
Nginx is the most popular web servers available in the market today. It is an open source web server software that has been used by many companies around the world. It is known for its stability and performance as it is written in C program. In terms of performance, Apache is faster than Nginx. However, Nginx is easier to configure and maintain. If you need to scale up, then Nginx is better suited for high volume sites.
Lets see some advantages of using Nginx as a web server.
- It is a free open source software that can be used as a web server or reverse proxy or mail proxy.
- It is mainly used as load balancing for balancing the load between the applications and web apps or the web pages.
- It also acts as a http cache for faster load speed and to provide the best user experience.
3. Lighttpd Web Server:
Lighttpd web server is an open source software package designed to provide fast and secure and high performance HTTP servers. It is used by many large websites such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, etc. Lighttpd web server was designed and developed for speed critical work loads. It's software was written in C language.
Lets see some advantages of using Lighttpd web server.
- Lighttpd software is easy to install and maintain.
- This web servers supports SSL/TLS
- This web server was optimized for speed-critical environments.
- It is lightweight, secure and flexible.
- Provides high performance
4. Cherokee Web Server:
Cherokee Web Server is an open source web server software based on Apache HTTP Server. It has been developed by Cherokee Communications Inc. It is an open source HTTP server written in C++ programming language. This web server works super fast and fully functional yet still light for hosting websites. It was originally developed as a lightweight alternative to Apache. It has been downloaded more than 100 million times since its release in 2002.
Lets see some main advantages of using Cherokee as web server.
- It is an open source cross-platform web server and it can also act as a reverse proxy server.
- It is super lightweight and provides high-performance for the use of websites and web apps.