Software Alternatives & Reviews

Apache HTTP Server VS lighttpd

Compare Apache HTTP Server VS lighttpd and see what are their differences

Apache HTTP Server logo Apache HTTP Server

Apache httpd has been the most popular web server on the Internet since April 1996

lighttpd logo lighttpd

A secure, fast, compliant, and very flexible web-server that has been optimized for high-performance environments
  • Apache HTTP Server Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-21
  • lighttpd Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-28

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache HTTP Server and lighttpd)
Web And Application Servers
Web Servers
69 69%
31% 31
Application Server
66 66%
34% 34
Development Tools
70 70%
30% 30

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Apache HTTP Server and lighttpd

Apache HTTP Server Reviews

9 Best XAMPP Alternatives Cross Platform Web Server
However, compared to XAMPP and other popular web servers in the market Apache HTTP Server is a bit more complicated and is a little difficult to navigate for a complete newbie, but if you want to understand web development from the very fundamentals and understand how Apache as a web server software works then this software can be of great help to you.
Litespeed vs Nginx vs Apache: Web Server Showdown
The most commonly used Web Server is by far Apache HTTP Server from the Software Apache Foundation. Created in 1995 by Rob McCool and Brian Behlendorf, among others. The name is a pun for A PatCHy server, as at the time of it’s inception, Apache was based on some existing code, along with some perhaps “hacky or clunky” software packages, enabling it to run. Additionally, the...
Source: chemicloud.com
10 Best alternatives of XAMPP servers for Windows, Linux and macOS
Apache is an open-source and free web server software that owns about 46% of websites worldwide. The official name is Apache HTTP Server and is maintained and developed by the Apache Software Foundation. This allows website owners to serve content on the web – hence the name “webserver”.
Top 5 open source web servers
As the Apache HTTP Server has been the most popular web server since 1996, it "benefits from great documentation and integrated support from other software projects." You can find more information on the Apache Foundation project page.
Source: opensource.com

lighttpd Reviews

13 Best XAMPP Alternatives
Lighttpd is a simple and lightweight web server that allows you to do very fast static file serving. It can also be used as a content cache, a reverse proxy, or an HTTP accelerator. Lighttpd is not only lightning-fast but also straightforward to set up; in many cases, you only need one configuration file to work. Lighttpd has been around for some time now, so there are...
Source: thetechtian.com
Top 5 open source web servers
Great article Robin. Most of my experience is with Apache. I first started using it on Windows about 1998 or 1999. When I got into using Linux in 2001 I switched my previous install to that OS and have since deployed it many times. I have tried NGINX and lighttpd but never in production.
Source: opensource.com
Alternative web servers compared: Lighttpd, Nginx, LiteSpeed and Zeus
The huge leap for Lighttpd in January-March of 2007 is most likely due to one or more web hosting or domain registration companies switching over to Lighttpd either for their regular pages, or for parked pages, or both. If anyone knows what happened there in more detail, please feel free to let us know in the comments.
Source: www.pingdom.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache HTTP Server seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 50 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Apache HTTP Server mentions (50)

  • The 2024 Web Hosting Report
    Single-page applications (SPAs) existed before S3, but given that you still had to set up, scale, and maintain servers using something like Apache or NGINX in order to serve them, the advantages for “Ops” or “DevOps” were not so different to running a “real server” with a language like PHP, python, or Java. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Starlight vs. Docusaurus for building documentation
    Both Docusaurus and Starlight generate static sites. This means that theoretically, they can be deployed on any platform that supports deploying static sites (like Apache or NGINX). But both of them provide a significantly better developer experience if we deploy on their recommended platforms. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • BCHS stack: BSD, C, httpd, SQLite
    Simiplicity is nice, but there are reasons why Perl and PHP were the popular choices for web stacks in the early 2000's--they are faster and easier to develop with than C and likely safer than C too. Mod_perl (https://perl.apache.org/) and mod_php (https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/plugins/servlet/mobile?contentId=115522403#content/view/115522403) helped to make Apache httpd (https://httpd.apache.org/) the... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Apache HTTP Server: An Overview of the Open Source Web Server for Multiple Platforms
    The Apache HTTP Server project was initially launched in 1995 by a group of web developers and administrators who sought to improve upon the existing web server software available at the time. The project has since evolved into a collaborative effort, with contributors from around the world working together to maintain and enhance the server. Today, the Apache HTTP Server is managed by the Apache Software... Source: 12 months ago
  • Selfmade PVE-Rack
    Apache websites of friends and acquaintances. Source: about 1 year ago
View more

lighttpd mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of lighttpd yet. Tracking of lighttpd recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache HTTP Server and lighttpd, you can also consider the following products

Microsoft IIS - Internet Information Services is a web server for Microsoft Windows

Apache Tomcat - An open source software implementation of the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies

XAMPP - XAMPP is a free and open-source cross-platform web server that is primarily used when locally developing web applications.

LiteSpeed Web Server - LiteSpeed Web Server (LSWS) is a high-performance Apache drop-in replacement.

Forge - Static web hosting made simple

MAMP - MAMP is the abbreviation for Macintosh, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. It is a reliable application with its four components that allows you to access the local PHP server as well as the database server (SQL).