Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

OpenLiteSpeed VS Varnish

Compare OpenLiteSpeed VS Varnish and see what are their differences

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OpenLiteSpeed logo OpenLiteSpeed

OpenLiteSpeed is a powerful, lightweight, open source and high performance HTTP server developed for those users who have to deal with a large number of websites at once.

Varnish logo Varnish

High-performance HTTP accelerator
  • OpenLiteSpeed Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-15
  • Varnish Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-09

OpenLiteSpeed features and specs

  • High Performance
    OpenLiteSpeed is known for its high performance and efficiency. It uses an event-driven architecture that can handle thousands of simultaneous connections with minimal resource usage, making it ideal for high-traffic websites.
  • SSL Support
    It comes with native support for SSL and TLS protocols, providing a secure web environment and easy integration of SSL certificates for encrypted communication.
  • Easy-to-use Web Interface
    OpenLiteSpeed provides an intuitive web-based interface that allows users to easily manage configurations, monitor server performance, and apply updates, even without command-line expertise.
  • WordPress Optimization
    It offers features like LSCache, a server-level cache solution specifically designed for WordPress, which significantly boosts the performance and speed of WordPress sites.
  • Free and Open Source
    As an open-source web server, OpenLiteSpeed is free to use, modify, and distribute, providing flexibility and cost-effectiveness for developers and businesses.

Possible disadvantages of OpenLiteSpeed

  • Complex Configuration
    While the web interface is user-friendly, some advanced configuration tasks can be complex and may require a deeper understanding of web server management.
  • Limited Third-party Module Support
    Compared to other servers like Apache, OpenLiteSpeed has fewer available third-party modules, which could limit customization and functionalities for some users.
  • Learning Curve
    For users familiar with servers like Apache or Nginx, there might be a learning curve when transitioning to OpenLiteSpeed due to differences in configuration and management.
  • Smaller Community
    OpenLiteSpeed has a smaller user community compared to more established web servers, which might impact the availability of community support and resources.
  • Compatibility Issues
    Some legacy or highly customized applications might experience compatibility issues since OpenLiteSpeed is not as universally supported as Apache or Nginx.

Varnish features and specs

  • Caching Efficiency
    Varnish is highly efficient at caching, which significantly reduces the load on the web server by serving cached content quickly, improving response times for users.
  • Flexibility with VCL
    Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) allows for flexible and powerful configurations, enabling users to customize caching policies and behaviors to meet specific needs.
  • High Performance
    Varnish is designed to handle a large number of requests per second, making it suitable for high-traffic websites seeking to improve their performance and scalability.
  • HTTP Support
    Varnish supports HTTP/1.1 and can be configured to work with HTTP/2, effectively caching HTTP protocol responses and requests.
  • Grace Mode
    Grace Mode is a feature in Varnish that allows serving stale content while fetching fresh content from the server, minimizing downtime during backend failures.

Possible disadvantages of Varnish

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Varnish's powerful configuration options, specifically VCL, can be complex for new users to learn and manage effectively, potentially leading to misconfigurations.
  • Lack of SSL/TLS Support
    Varnish does not natively support SSL/TLS termination, requiring additional tools like Nginx or Hitch for handling HTTPS connections.
  • Limited Built-in Security Features
    Varnish lacks built-in security features such as web application firewall (WAF) capabilities, requiring additional layers to secure web applications.
  • Resource Intensive
    Depending on the configurations and traffic patterns, Varnish can be resource-intensive, necessitating careful management of system resources.
  • Complex Debugging
    Debugging issues in Varnish can be challenging due to its complex configurations and log outputs, often requiring in-depth knowledge and specific tools.

OpenLiteSpeed videos

Create a High Performance Web Server (CyberPanel/OpenLiteSpeed) for WordPress in 10 minutes

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to Install WordPress with OpenLiteSpeed Server for Fastest WP Sites

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 OpenLiteSpeed and Varnish)
Web And Application Servers
Proxy Server
0 0%
100% 100
Web Servers
100 100%
0% 0
Key-Value Database
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Varnish should be more popular than OpenLiteSpeed. It has been mentiond 18 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.

OpenLiteSpeed mentions (3)

  • How to install the OpenLiteSpeed Web Server on CentOS 7
    In today's interconnected world, web servers serve as the backbone of internet infrastructure, playing a crucial role in hosting websites and web applications. OpenLiteSpeed, an open-source web server from LiteSpeed Technologies, is one such tool that's gaining popularity due to its speed, efficiency, and comprehensive security features. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • My Wordpress Hosting Experience - Comments?
    LiteSpeed (and the free-to-use version, OpenLiteSpeed) is a web server application, not hardware. It's a (more or less) drop-in replacement for Apache that uses the same type of config files, but offers some features that Apache doesn't have out of the box. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Autoptimize, Litespeed Cache and WP Cloudflare Super Page Cache in WordPress combined works. But clear cache often messes up site.
    You need to be using Litespeed or OpenLitespeed for the Litespeed plugin to do anything. Source: over 3 years ago

Varnish mentions (18)

  • How to Increase API Performance
    Caching helps minimize backend strain, reduce delays, and handle more requests, which translates to better scalability, smoother user interactions, and smarter resource use. Tools like Redis and Varnish have shown impressive results in high-demand API setups [1]. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • API Caching: Techniques for Better Performance
    Varnish Cache — A web application accelerator that serves as an intermediary between web clients and servers. It provides logging, request inspection, authentication and authorization, and throttling. Varnish can also enhance security as a web application firewall, hotlinking protector, and DDoS attack defense tool. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • 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: almost 2 years 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 / about 2 years 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 / about 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing OpenLiteSpeed and Varnish, you can also consider the following products

nginx - A high performance free open source web server powering busiest sites on the Internet.

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.

lighttpd - A secure, fast, compliant, and very flexible web-server that has been optimized for high-performance environments

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

Caddy - The HTTP/2 Web Server with Automatic HTTPS

memcached - High-performance, distributed memory object caching system