Talk:Comparison of web server software

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• The McPherran Web Engine is a complete stand-alone software package for website hosting. Note: Migration of the McPherran Web Engine to the Linux OS is in progress.
• Twisted Matrix is missing; Which is strange because it is more secure and scalable then Apache —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.168.243.40 (talk) 00:36, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Litespeed is missing from this article, if someone could add it that would be cool.
• cl-s-http-server - A Minimal Standalone Common Lisp HTTP Server
• dhttpd - minimal secure webserver without cgi-bin support
• webfs - lightweight http server for static content
• AppWEB - lightweight open source http server for static content —Preceding unsigned comment added by Larytet (talk • contribs) 13:58, August 24, 2007 (UTC)
• SimpleServer:WWW - another lightweight http server with minimal cgi-bin support. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by CaffeineJunkie (talk • contribs) 16:09:13, August 19, 2007 (UTC).
• G-Wan is missing. Fastest http server in the world at the moment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.22.45.55 (talk • contribs)
• Google Web Server - Proprietary web server by Google. (Merit: Fourth largest web server by market share according to most recent Netcraft survey.)
• Roxen - Early web server still in development. (Merit: Has a Wikipedia article, is open source, and was forked to form Caudium, which is included on the list.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amanisdude (talk • contribs) 13:20, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Bozohttpd - http://www.eterna.com.au/bozohttpd - a lightweight http-only server with cgi-bin support. 50.113.75.135 (talk) 20:41, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• darkhttpd - https://github.com/emikulic/darkhttpd - yet another light weight server written in C. Leo (talk) 19:36, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I propose moving this to Comparison of web servers and expanding it à la Comparison of web browsers, etc. —Fleminra 20:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't this article amibiguously named? I would describe its content as a comparison of web server software, not a comparison of web servers. -Elving 21:51, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes (web server has two definitions). But Category:Web server software includes more than just "httpd" implementations. I suppose in that sense, "web server software" would mean "any software that runs on a computer that also runs a 'httpd'" (e.g. templating and blogging software). I had created a redirect from Comparison of web server software, but I wouldn't oppose renaming this to that.

Maybe it should be called "Comparison of HTTP server implementations." —Fleminra 22:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe there should be a column to indicate whether a server can delegate to other servers. E.g.:

• TUX can delegate to Apache (et al.) for non-static content
• Apache (et al.) can delegate to Tomcat for servlets and JSP

Presently the article says TUX can do CGI, but my understanding (from the TUX article) is that this is only possible by delegation. If "capabilities achieved via delegation" are to be included in the rows for the delegating server, then many more servers would be listed as supporting servlets/JSP.

—Fleminra 21:37, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TUX has built-in support for CGI [1]. I think delegation is too abstract a concept to be consdiered a feature in and of itself; any server with any form of programmatic extensibility is capable of delegation.

—Elving 00:03, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Related to this, 212.44.21.2 recently revised the table to indicate that Zeus supports Servlets. I don't think that's a valid statement. To get Servlet "support" with Zeus, you need to separately install and configure JRun or Tomcat to serve Servlets. Zeus itself does not support Servlets.

—Elving 03:20, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

212.44.21.2 is owned by Zeus Technology. ZWS _does_ support servlets. Are you suggesting that their own developers don't know their products features..?(!) I am changing servlets to 'yes' because whilst ZWS does not contain the sevlets, it contains the AJP module required to support, for instance, Tomcat servlets. If that isn't 'supporting servlets' then i don't know what is. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Toph3r (talk • contribs) 17:20, April 6, 2006.

I don't think Zeus developers don't know their own product, but they're obviously not unbiased either. Apparently the criteria for getting a "yes" in this column are ambiguous, but if the anonymous Zeus editor were unbiased, then he would have changed "no" to "yes" for a bunch of other web servers as well, starting with Apache HTTP Server itself. Or maybe the Zeus editor was lazy or didn't realize that Apache HTTP Server implements the AJP (Apache JServ Protocol).

Anyway, I propose just disambiguating that column: how about a footnote saying "this web server includes an AJP implementation"? —Fleminra 02:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ZWS may support AJP, but AJP is not Servlets. ZWS requires you download, install, and configure a 3rd party product -- Tomcat -- if you want to use Servlets. It is Tomcat, not ZWS, that supports Servlets. Do we need a separate table for protocol support that could mention ZWS's support for AJP? —Elving 08:54, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. The 'Zeus Editor' perhaps doesn't feel they are adequately qualified to comment on a product they don't (and aren't allowed) to contribute towards? I certainly don't feel qualified to advise on competitors' products -- only my own. I really think your pushing this point is absurd. At the end of the day, ZWS _does_ support servlets - it allows the webserver to operate as a gateway (via AJP) to the java host. If this isnt the correct defintion of servlet support, then this needs to be made 100% clearer, as at present there's /no/ definition. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Toph3r (talk • contribs) 17:17, April 7, 2006.

There is a definition today; refer to the dynamic content column footnote. —Elving 08:59, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article needs cleaning. Most of the entries are missing information, and several of them consist merely of a red link and a platform. References for the feature tables may exist, but are not cited, which makes fact-checking difficult. The choice of features compared seem somewhat arbitrary; why were these features compared but not others? —donhalcon^╤ 21:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, WP:POINT (see Special:Contributions/Donhalcon). —Fleminra 23:28, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AGF. Too many people who don't are precisely the reason I'm leaving. —donhalcon^╤ 18:38, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I told you that nominating all these articles for deletion without engaging editors in discussion was the wrong approach. It was obviously bound to upset a lot of people. It's a bit late to trot out WP:AGF. -- JJay 18:43, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the tables, what means an empty cell ? What is the difference with a cell with "No" ? This should be explained in the article. Lvr 15:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It just means that someone with insight needs to provide information. :-) Warrens 16:18, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is this the place to compare products including prices ? For me it seems strange.. Maybe better to move this Comparison of web servers to another kind of website??

I dare say wikipedia is more than an encyclopedia. It contains countless articles such as this one. I see this only as a good thing for the reader as long as they are factual and maintain a neutral point of view. xlynx 06:23, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WASD isn't WASD, its WASD. I'm not sure how this should be disambiguated, but if you make a stub it'll get picked up by the server's users as they've recently been discussing the entries for WASD on this article. --Brianmc 13:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Someone has confused WASD with WSAD. WASD is a web server, the acronym (IIRC) is Wide Area Survellence Division, a former name of where the author Mark Daniel works. --Brian McNeil /^talk 09:27, 6 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianmc (talk • contribs) [reply]

• Here's a source that mentions WASD on page 5. http://www.hpintegrityforum.it/pdf/OVMS/HPIntegritDeveloperForumWebEbusinessanOpenSource.pdf --09:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I changed '?' to 'Yes' for Windows support of thttpd, because it compiles and runs just as easily under cygwin as it does under linux.

I assume cygwin is counted as Windows because next to lighttpd it says Yes for Windows support when that too relies on cygwin. However, perhaps it should be specified whether the software is native to Windows or requires cygwin. I don't imagine it would need another column, it could just read 'Yes, via cygwin'. xlynx 06:23, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed the entry for Hiawatha does just this, but I didn't want to start changing the others because that would imply to the reader than the ones not mentioning cygwin are native, and that's misleading. ie if we're to start changing them, it may be appropriate to audit all entries at the same time. xlynx 06:23, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you knew how many softwares are written directly under Cygwin (or DevCPP), are not even a port from Linux, but directly written for Windows/Cygwin ... Doublehp 15:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yaws should be able to run anywhere Erlang runs. And that includes as many systems as there are listed on the page —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmitriid (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. -- intgr ^grr! 18:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why not include PHP in the Features table, and have an answer being either a red no, or a green number ?

Doublehp 15:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think "features" table should be also sortable. 91.149.151.126 11:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.251.92.82 (talk) 13:10, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think a lot of the people who edit Wikipedia, is like a lot of the people who edit DMOZ, are the kind of people who basically don't like commercial use of the internet. I have just seen comments from time to time and get the feeling that some people who volunteer to do that kind of job have a thing against those who are trying to make a living. So they will treat any commercial link as a kind of advert, to be removed.

Actually, free Web servers like G-WAN have been removed recurringly (maybe it is a bit too good).

It is listed now (from 11 October 2011). — Anton0xf (talk) 16:22, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can see that User:Jeltz has added version numbers to the overview table; however, I think they're out of place because they have zero comparative value and they will get out of date very quickly. Release dates perhaps do convey some information, but I'm not convinced that's very useful either. What does everyone else think? -- intgr [talk] 02:52, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We've got quite a few web servers on this list. What are the criteria for inclusion? zWebServer was added to the list by the developer, and the name receives only 96 results in google. I was about to just remove it myself but figured I might insult the blameless developer, which I don't mean to do, so can someone confirm what qualifies as notability for a webserver? Thanks. Dynamic1 (talk) 20:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

interesting point. stuff like that may be good to remove, but then again... it IS a web server, and completeness is good. QUIKSERV is one that is for DOS, and although it's not popular i think due to it's uniqueness and only one in the list for DOS it should remain. ~~

An important feature of httpd servers is the concurrency model, e.g. fork, prefork, thread, select, etc. It has an enormous impact on performance, flexibility, and load behavior and is often a key property when selecting a piece of software. What about adding the concurrency model to the feature matrix? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.219.195.226 (talk) 12:11, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why isn't there any data about the Google Web Servers (GWS)?

My guess is that it's because there's very little information about it, since it only runs on Google-owned servers.

On that note, does anyone wanna slap GWS on here? It is the fourth most populous web server by market share according to the most recent Netcraft survey, after all. :D

–– amanisdude (talk) 12:30, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, done! I added GWS to this thing, but it's limited to the Overview list, since I have no reference on its characteristics. Nevertheless, some of its capabilities may be deducible based on its known client-side output behavior. If anyone has any relevant information, please add it to the subsequent tables. Thanks! :D –– amanisdude (talk) 12:56, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

i notice NCA is listed under "features", but NCA is not a web server - it's a caching proxy, that relies on a web server (running on the same host) in order to serve any content. unless anyone objects, i'm going to remove it. kate.

Hi all, I'd like to introduce a new Webserver with a fast growing fan community. The webserver's name is Sparrow. It's written in AutoHotkey which is a Scripting language for windows. It also allows to use autohotkey scripts embedded in HTML. These kind of files are called HKML (Pronounce H-Key-ML).

Read about it at: http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36047 (en) http://de.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3639 (de)

At current state its License is just OpenSource (comparable to zLib/png) but this is subject to change (dual license).

Thanks derRaphael

I see that we have a lot of red links and ext links on the entries. I think these should be purged. Any objections? --DanielRigal (talk) 23:59, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Object to removing redlinks. Why? Can't track via Special:WantedPages without them. There's absolutely nothing wrong with redlinks. ⇔ ChristTrekker 21:41, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It appears the AOL server is now using nginx.

Connected to www.aolserver.com:80
Sent 128 bytes:
  GET http://www.aolserver.com/ HTTP/1.1
  Host: www.aolserver.com:80
  From: noloader@gmail.com
  User-Agent: html page tear-ror
Received 13719 bytes
Response Header:
  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Server: nginx/0.6.31
  Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:47:23 GMT
  Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
  Transfer-Encoding: chunked
  Connection: keep-alive
  X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.6
  X-Pingback: http://aolserver.sourceforge.net/wp/xmlrpc.php
  Cache-Control: max-age=172800
  Expires: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:47:21 GMT

141.157.17.52 (talk) 17:51, 14 February 2009 (UTC)noloader[reply]

Connected to www.zues.com:80
Sent 118 bytes:
 GET http://www.zues.com/ HTTP/1.1
 Host: www.zues.com:80
 From: noloader@gmail.com
 User-Agent: html page tear-ror
Received 30130 bytes
Response Header:
 HTTP/1.1 200 OK
 Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:47:30 GMT
 Server: Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS)
 X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.3
 Set-Cookie: h=cf71709b2219ca8b20e9efe60139240d; path=/
 Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
 Expires: Mon, 31 Dec 2001 7:32:00 GMT
 Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
 P3P: CP="CAO PSA OUR"
 Pragma: no-cache
 Connection: close
 Transfer-Encoding: chunked
 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Response Body:
 [ Snip ]

141.157.17.52 (talk) 18:50, 14 February 2009 (UTC)noloader[reply]

Wrong domain. Try www.zeus.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.254.17.211 (talk) 23:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What's the standard for inclusion here rather than comparison of lightweight web servers? ⇔ ChristTrekker 21:46, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

Is possible to put a column for knowing if the web server is based on thread, event-driven (like lighttpd and nginx) or it's single-process (no threads). Perhaps in the second table. Thanks, Xan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xan2 (talk • contribs) 13:14, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Glancing over the table of features, I see there's a column for "ANSI C Servlets". I also couldn't help but notice that G-Wan is the only web server to support this feature... After a quick search around, I couldn't find a single reference to C Servlets anywhere but on the gwan.com website. I guess what I'm asking is whether it's worthwhile to have a column in the table that is only (and as far as I can tell, will only ever be) supported by one server.

- Mmoople (talk) 06:35, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What's of importance ot that "Global-WAN (G-WAN)" web server, which is the only in table that supports that marginal "ANSI C Servlets" technology? Table would become much cleaner if we get rid of it. А.Минас (talk) 20:46, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can run C servlets on any server that supports CGI. So, the ANSI C column is redundant.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 01:37, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Considering this, I am going to re-add G-WAN, and have the CGI Column as Partial Socialery ^(talk) 22:04, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a major misunderstanding (at best) of what C servlets are: (a) they are not a replacement for CGI (rather something like Java or .Net) and (b) their NOTABILITY can hardly be discuted since (1) ANSI C is the oldest of all programming languages used for Web development (rewriting history by removing ANSI C from an encyclopedia is unfair) and (2) ANSI C scripts are SEVERAL ORDER OF MAGNITUDE faster than all other scripting solutions. Dismissing ANSI C scripts as "CGI" is not only incorrect from a technical point of view but this is also unfair and morally condemnable if done repeatedly under fallacious arguments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.203.211.154 (talk) 21:08, 7 December 2010

"This is a major misunderstanding (at best) of what C servlets are: (a) they are not a replacement for CGI (rather something like Java or .Net)"

Yeah, I had been thinking about it, and the Partial I left really doesn't make sense, since it really has no partial support for the interface.

"b) their NOTABILITY can hardly be discuted since (1) ANSI C is the oldest of all programming languages used for Web development"

Actually that record would be taken by assembly, general C also existed before ANSI C, and yet we do not include those?

"(2) ANSI C scripts are SEVERAL ORDER OF MAGNITUDE faster than all other scripting solutions."

I would argue that it would depend more on the server than on the language of the dynamic content for speed.

Regardless of all this, going by WP:SAL I am going to remove the ANSI C column:

• If this person/thing/etc., wasn't an X, would it reduce their fame or significance? (no)
• Would I expect to see this person or thing on a list of X? (not really, since it is usually used stand-alone or with CGI)
• Is this person or thing a canonical example of some facet of X? (no)

-User:Socialery^(T/C) 16:12, 7 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"that record would be taken by assembly, general C also existed before ANSI C, and yet we do not include those?"
How many Web applications were written in asm? Can you only cite one? If not, why raise this idiotic argument?

"I would argue that it would depend more on the server than on the language of the dynamic content for speed."
Both matter: C# takes 24 seconds to calculate a 800-year loan (against milliseconds for a C script); on the top
of this, if you use a faster server, the difference will be higher -but the scripting language matters a lot.

"Regardless of all this, going by WP:SAL I am going to remove the ANSI C column"
Using only invalid arguments. What a glorious way to conduct blattant censorship.

"Is this person or thing a canonical example of some facet of X? (no)"
Being MILLIONS OF TIMES faster than the world leaders looks like a YES, that is, -if you do not have a corporate
agenda that fears challengers and exercices CENSORSHIP to maintain 'leadership'.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.76.5.152 (talk) 03:59, 9 December 2010

I don't see that the age or speed of one piece or software or another has anything to do with it. This isn't a contest. The only question is: does the inclusion of the software in this article comply with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines? Applicable ones would be WP:Notability, Wikipedia is not for advertising and Wikipedia is not a shopping catalog. As for there only being one item in the category: if the item does merit inclusion, then it merits inclusion regardless of whether there happen to be other items in the same column. —Largo Plazo (talk) 20:49, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'asm': WWWPic2, Cinchy, and considering the size, WebACE would also probably be an assembly web-server as well, as for applications, any and all languages can be used

'invalid arguments': how so? ANSI C would not suffer if not used by G-WAN, I would not expect it on this list for the reasons already discussed, and it isn't a canonical example either.

regardless of these things, ANSI C is not notable in this context (...for being supported by web-servers sans CGI).-User:Socialery^(T/C) 21:31, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

---

"I don't see that the age or speed of one piece or software or another has anything to do with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines"

---

>>> "NOTABILITY: THE QUALITY THAT MAKES SOMETHING WORTH PAYING ATTENTION TO."

---

I haven't found anything about an Apache administration console. I'm pretty sure that component comes as a module or a 3rd party software... Can someone confirm or otherwise point me to a good source? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.232.228.92 (talk) 15:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but does this table have any other purpose than promoting Open-Source?

Why are there TWO columns that contain almost equivalent information ("Open-Source?" and "License"), and why do both make manipulative use of colors to "denounce" the "non-free" (red/purple) products?

This is ridiculous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.196.68 (talk) 02:02, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fix it then? Takes only a few minutes in "notepad" to do a find/replace and remove that pollitically incorrect colorizing. Maybe choose light blue for corporate, and pale yellow for open-source perhaps? 120.151.160.158 (talk) 09:48, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that it would be a good idea 82.160.29.71 (talk) 09:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

While this list is kind of nice (except for the usual rabble who remove everyting they hate, or developers who delete mention of whatever they don't want to compete with) - it's pretty much pointless.

There's more than 1 of everything that does what we want, and nothing useful to distinguish any of them.

Where are the performance numbers :-) 120.151.160.158 (talk) 09:45, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I propose we merge comparison of lightweight web servers into this article. The former is a subset of this comparison article, and the content in that article duplicates information here. The source article also has a POV title, as it includes the term lightweight, which it only defines as "small resource overhead". I think any information regarding such lightweight web server software could be easily covered in this article. Mindmatrix 18:51, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree--any specific categorization such as "lightweight" could be done within the list (if needed at all). 50.53.15.59 (talk) 14:03, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agree: The other article is just the same thing - only not as detailed. You can make the lightweight ones another color to indicate them. Timothy G. ^{from CA} (talk) 00:13, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is it anyone's opinion here that Roxen constitutes a notable web server? It was forked to create Caudium after all, which is included on the list. Please discuss and add if deemed noteworthy.–– amanisdude (talk) 13:23, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be appropriate to add a column titled (and linked) "WebSocket"?

Technically, WebSocket is a network protocol. But its main raison d'être is to facilitate a new generation of highly-interactive dynamic content. As such, it is a key feature to consider when comparing web servers.

As adding a column to that table would complicated work, I thought it best to ask first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Basil.bourque (talk • contribs) 02:11, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Python programming language by default installs a module that allows serving of a directory's contents (with the command "python -m http.server" or "python -m SimpleHTTPServer"). I don't think it is worth including it in the list, but I think it is worth mentioning. 50.190.60.105 (talk) 02:15, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]