Software Alternatives & Reviews

Apache Traffic Server VS Varnish

Compare Apache Traffic Server VS Varnish and see what are their differences

Apache Traffic Server logo Apache Traffic Server

Fast, scalable and extensible HTTP/S 2 and 1.1 compliant caching proxy server.

Varnish logo Varnish

High-performance HTTP accelerator
  • Apache Traffic Server Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-29
  • Varnish Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-09

Apache Traffic Server

Categories
  • Proxy Server
  • Proxy
  • DevOps Tools
  • Developer Tools
Website trafficserver.apache.org
Details $

Varnish

Categories
  • Key-Value Database
  • Proxy Server
  • CDN
  • Proxy
Website varnish-cache.org
Details $

Apache Traffic Server videos

Transparent HTTP proxying with Apache Traffic Server

More videos:

  • Review - Yahoo's Adventure with Apache Traffic Server - Shu Kit Chan, Vijay Prashanth Hosahithlu

Varnish videos

Product Review 33 - AK Interactive Ultra Matte Varnish

More videos:

  • Review - Gamvar vs Liquitex - Acrylic Paint Varnish Review
  • Review - (473) Liquitex varnish review gloss vs. Matte

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache Traffic Server and Varnish)
Proxy Server
55 55%
45% 45
Proxy
48 48%
52% 52
Key-Value Database
0 0%
100% 100
DevOps Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Varnish should be more popular than Apache Traffic Server. It has been mentiond 16 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 Traffic Server mentions (5)

  • Wikipedia now has up to 1000X reduction of ATS disk read latency at the p999
    Apache Traffic Server: https://trafficserver.apache.org/ Here’s how they use it along with Varnish: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Caching_overview. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • How does Content delivery/distribution network work?
    The LARGE majority of CDNs use either Apache Traffic Server (https://trafficserver.apache.org/) or Nginx for their cache webserver, so the mechanisms used are pretty easy to find if you look through the docs. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Using Nginx as an Object Storage Gateway
    Apache Traffic Server (no relation to Apache itself) would be an excellent option: https://trafficserver.apache.org/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Build a CDN in about 5 hours
    We have choices. We could use Varnish (scripting! Edge side includes! PHK blog posts!). We could use Apache Traffic Server (being the only new team this year to use ATS!). Or we could use NGINX (we're already running it!). The only certainty is that you'll come to hate whichever one you pick. Try them all and pick the one you hate the least. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
  • Isp.netscape.com
    I was curious if I could find anything out about their stack. Turns out they are using something called Apache Traffic Server[0]. > Formerly a commercial product, Yahoo! Donated it to the Apache Foundation [0] http://trafficserver.apache.org/. - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago

Varnish mentions (16)

  • Varnish Cache
    Varnish Cache is a tool that provides a caching HTTP reverse proxy in order to accelerate your web applications. Once Varnish Cache is installed in front of any server that understands HTTP and configured to cache the contents, delivery speeds are typically enhanced by a factor of 300-1000x, depending on architecture. Kilobyte22 finds this tool along with HAProxy to be a winning combo. Source: 10 months ago
  • Leveraging Cache to improve Web Performance
    In this case, caching mechanism is situated in the proxy server or reverse proxy server like Nginx, Apache, or Varnish, and most probably it is a part of ISP (Internet Service Provider). - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Beyond Changing Technology: Scaling Your Applications Efficiently
    To handle this level of traffic, you can use tools such as Varnish HTTP Cache, which caches the information of a news article starting from the first user who accesses and makes the request. Once Varnish caches the page, subsequent users will receive a response that is saved in memory. This process allows you to avoid unnecessary synchronous requests and send a quick response to users. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Web resource caching: Server-side
    A couple of dedicated server-side resource caching solutions have emerged over the years: Memcached, Varnish, Squid, etc. Other solutions are less focused on web resource caching and more generic, e.g., Redis or Hazelcast. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Microfrontends: Microservices for the Frontend
    Edge Side Includes (ESI): a more modern alternative to SSI. ESI can handle variables, have conditionals, and supports better error handling. ESI is supported by caching HTTP servers such as Varnish. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache Traffic Server and Varnish, you can also consider the following products

Squid Proxy - Website Content Acceleration and Distribution. Thousands of web-sites around the Internet use Squid to drastically increase their content delivery. Squid can reduce your server load and improve delivery speeds to clients.

3proxy - 3proxy freeware proxy server for Windows and Unix. HTTP, SOCKS, FTP, POP3

Redis - Redis is an open source in-memory data structure project implementing a distributed, in-memory key-value database with optional durability.

CCProxy - Want to share Internet connection? Get every computer online through a single Internet connection?

memcached - High-performance, distributed memory object caching system

WinGate - WinGate is highly capable web proxy software for Windows: caching, intercepting, forward and reverse proxy with https inspection and SSL offload, SOCKS server, email