What are the best web servers

[ShawnR]

Hope the question hasn't been covered to death in other posts. I tried to search, but since web and server are such common terms, they get filtered out of the search.

So my questions are:

• What are the best web servers, preferably servers which have builds for linux and windows platforms, though I'd be interested in opinions about servers for purely one or the other (e.g. IIS). Preferably opensource software, though again, I'd be interested in opinions about closed software as well.
  
• Why is Apache so popular, almost the defacto standard? For example, I have found Xitami pretty good, but it doesn't seem to get mentioned much except in the context of test environments.
  

Thanks
Shawn

[eaden]

"What are the best web servers?"

Under what criteria?

All you have given is "Preferably opensource software" - Under that criteria - Apache, becasue it's stable, flexable, powerful and has an active open source development community.

For a general webserver, you can't go past apache. But it really depends, if you have specialized needs there may be a better option. I.e. if you were just going to serve static images to millions of viewers, then you could go for something like thttpd, which would be faster than apache.

As for Xitami it seems you have to pay $2500US if you want SSL in a commercial environment. ( It has licencing issues which prevent it from becoming a truly open source product )

[ShawnR]

Thanks Eaden.

Sorry it is a vague question. I guess I am interested in the pros and cons of all the servers, and interested to get a better understanding of what the issues I should be considering are. (In other words, I don't know enough to know what I should be asking. I don't wish to be a drain/irritation to this forum, but I was hoping you and your fellow experts might be able to educate me, either by directly answering the question as you have done, or else by pointing me to some reference material to show what features one should look for, and how the available servers perform against these.)

Thanks again.

[txbakers]

All of them are good. It depends on your needs.

I run IIS without difficulty and like the graphical interface to manage it. Plus, it's native to W2K so there are no extra installation or Environment Variable issues.

But I also have several ASP based sites which run native on IIS.

If you don't want to run ASP, rather JSP or PhP then you won't need IIS and can use Apache.

It all depends how much time you want to spend administering a web server vs. designing web sites.

[universalis]

Apache is king, there is no doubt about it - the only debate there is whether to go for version 1 or 2. I find Apache 2 very promising, but there are very few people making the switch yet.

For a commercial solution for really heavy-duty stuff, you might want to look at Zeus - it's in third place behind Apache and IIS, and is a very good high-performance webserver.

For general server statistics, I find that [netcraft.com...] is a valuable resource (and it is a quick way of finding out what other sites are running!).

Of course, there is always Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Server Edition, which has been just released and is an all-in-one OS/server offering.

[TheWebographer]

Yes Apache is A#1. I prefer Apache/Linux/PHP/MySQL

Can do just about anything with combo - and its FREE!

[ShawnR]

Thanks, all. Pity... I really was getting to like Xitami :(

[universalis]

> Pity... I really was getting to like Xitami :(

If you like it, use it! If Xitami does what you want it to do, then why change? There is no "best", just what is right for you. Let's face it, using something just because it is popular is hardly the right way to go about things.

I'm off to look at some Xitami documentation - perhaps I'll like it too, its just that I knew nothing about it before.

[ShawnR]

> "... If Xitami does what you want it to do, then why change..."

Well in another thread (http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum23/2007.htm) I asked if anyone knew how to slow it down to simulate a dial-up for testing purposes, and I got a response that it can be done in Apache, but no-one has come forward with a Xitami solution yet. Also, Eeden pointed out that there is a hefty licence fee for an SSL version.

But you have a point, for a quick 'local machine' test environment it does the job for me.

Shawn