Web Servers – Apache, NginX, What else?

We are often so eager to use our new HOSTAFRICA VPS that we jump in and use the default software that either comes with the VPS or that comes to mind. Through the years we have come to know the Apache/Httpd web server as the backbone of the internet. On Windows, it has always been IIS, but Apache also became available for Windows as an option. Due to Apache’s poor performance under certain load conditions and good marketing, NginX has come forward as a solution in high-load scenarios. We thus almost never ask ourselves what else is available. Well, here I will introduce you to a few worthy web servers in no particular order of preference.

Lighttpd

This may be a lesser-known HTTP server, but it powers sites such as Youtube and Wikipedia. It was around long before NginX, but many discounted it purely due to its name. This was partly Microsoft’s fault as they called any free product with a limited feature set “light”.

Lighttpd is anything but limited. Due to continued development, it can and will match any commonly used Apache feature and it can function as a brilliant load balancer as well. It uses much less memory than Apache and is incredibly fast serving out pages under load. It is also very easy to set up.

Cherokee

Looking for a web server with a web-based control panel? Look no further. Cherokee is cross-platform and can be installed on Linux, OS-X, or Windows. Fully functional, yet still faster and less resource-hungry than Apache, it can serve both static and dynamic content with ease. Even GoPro action cameras use Cherokee as their embedded interface driver. It is written in C, Python, and JavaScript. It may be the new kid on the block, but it is well-written and runs very well.

Caddy

Caddy is an open-source, HTTP/2 enabled web server written in Go. One of Caddy’s most notable features is enabling HTTPS by default. Caddy is also extremely easy to configure for “non-geeks”. It has pre-compiled binaries for Linux, Mac/OS-X, Windows, Android, and BSD which makes it easy to install.

Caddy is fully featured and security is also good. One nice feature is that Caddy uses Let’s Encrypt as the default certificate authority for HTTPS and automatically keeps the certificates renewed.

Hiawatha

Need a secure web server that can stop an SQL injection in its tracks? Hiawatha can do just that, and more. Hiawatha started in January 2002 as a small web server, suitable for servers with old hardware. This is a light web server with good performance and some innovative security functions. The easiest way to secure existing web servers is to use Hiawatha as an application firewall to protect them.

Hiawatha also comes with a monitoring tool, the Hiawatha Monitor, that communicates with your web servers to collect information about bandwidth usage, number of requests, errors, and attacks.

The four web servers above are all mainstream, stable, and well-tested. There are other servers out there but do your research properly before deciding.

Happy Hosting