List of Different web servers on GNU Linux

List of Different web servers on GNU Linux

Today we have different web servers available on the GNU/Linux platform.Here i am listing only the web servers that can be used for a mainstream web hosting environment

The web servers can be classified basically into 2

1. Process based webserver - In a process based web server each new connection is handled by a new web server process or thread. Following are some of the process based servers available on the GNU /Linux platform.A notable draw back for a process based web server is the famous C10K problem ( http://www.kegel.com/c10k.html ).That said there are many implementations of this model that are high performance in nature

* Apache HTTPD - http://httpd.apache.org/ - the most famous web server and the most widely used - supports a very large number of modules and very feature rich
* Cherokee - http://www.cherokee-project.com/ - is a fast flexible easy to configure web server - A notable feature is the administrative interface available that lessens the burden of tampering with the configuration files
* LiteSpeed - http://www.litespeedtech.com/ - Apache compatible web server ,but claimed to be of having improved perfomance

2- Asynchronus web server or non-blocking i/o webserver - Or in laymans words a web server that uses a single process to handle multiple request ,switching over to the next request when the previous one is waiting for an i/o request is to be fullfilled. This architecture is more scalable and theoretically solves the C10K problem.The famous members of this family of servers are

* Nginx - http://wiki.codemongers.com/Main - pronounced EngineX - is a powerfull light weight web server and has a cleaner configuration -It is also feature rich and widely used
* Lighttpd - http://www.lighttpd.net/ - This is another powerfull and light weight web server and has a very large number of modules and features

All the above mentioned web servers are widely used in the web hosting industry ,in dedicated ,vps and shared hosting environments