Apache Server 2.4
Apache is a popular open-source, cross-platform web server that is, by the numbers, the most popular web server in existence. It’s actively maintained by the Apache Software Foundation.
Some high-profile companies using Apache include Cisco, IBM, Salesforce, General Electric, Adobe, VMware, Xerox, LinkedIn, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, Siemens, eBay, and many more (source).
Changelog Apache 2.4 to be informed that you are up to date. Keep Server Online If you find the Apache Lounge, the downloads and overall help useful, please express your satisfaction with a donation. Apache is the most widely used Web Server application in Unix-like operating systems but can be used on almost all platforms such as Windows, OS X, OS/2, etc. The word, Apache, has been taken from the name of the Native American tribe ‘ Apache’, famous for its skills in warfare and strategy making. Changelog Apache 2.4 to be informed that you are up to date. Keep Server Online If you find the Apache Lounge, the downloads and overall help useful, please express your satisfaction with a donation.
In addition to its popularity, it’s also one of the oldest web servers, with its first release all the way back in 1995. Many cPanel hosts utilize Apache today. Like other web servers, Apache powers the behind-the-scenes aspects of serving your website’s files to visitors.
Because Apache doesn’t perform as well in some benchmarks, especially for static websites or websites with high traffic, Kinsta uses the NGINX web server instead of Apache. Though NGINX hasn’t been around for as long as Apache, it’s quickly grown in popularity and market share since its launch in 2004.
How Does Apache Work? Web Server Basics Explained
While there’s a lot of complexity underpinning how a web server functions, the basic job of all web servers is to accept requests from clients (e.g. a visitor’s web browser) and then send the response to that request (e.g. the components of the page that a visitor wants to see).
The Apache web server has modules which add more functions to its software, such as MPM (for handling multi-processing modes) or mod_ssl for enabling SSL v3 and TLS support (suggested reading: TLS vs SSL). Some common features seen in Apache include:
- IPv6
- FTP
- Perl, Lua, and PHP
- Bandwidth throttling
- WebDAV
- Load balancing
- URL rewriting
- Session tracking
- Geolocation based on IP address
While a web server is an essential part of any website, it’s important to note that casual WordPress users are unlikely to interact with their web server directly most of the time.
Apache vs Nginx Usage Stats
When you look at every single website on the Internet, Apache is the most popular web server. It powers 47% of the websites with a known web server, according to W3Techs.
However, Apache’s usage greatly drops when you start looking at the web’s most highly trafficked sites. Apache only powers:
- 27.1% of the 100,000 most popular sites
- 21.5% of the 10,000 most popular sites
- 16.2% of the 1,000 most popular sites
This drop-off likely stems, at least in part, from Apache’s lower benchmarks for high traffic websites.
Conversely, NGINX, the web server that Kinsta uses, is used by a majority of high-traffic sites, powering:
- 56.1% of the 100,000 most popular sites
- 63.2% of the 10,000 most popular sites
- 57% of the 1,000 most popular sites
If you check the Google Search trends since 2004, you can see this trend play out where Apache’s popularity (as a search term) is decreasing while NGINX’s is creeping up.
How To Check Which Web Server You’re Using
If you want to see whether you’re using Apache or NGINX, you can often (but not always) look at your site’s HTTP header.
To view your site’s HTTP header, you can:
- Use the Network tab of Chrome Developer Tools
- Use a tool like Pingdom or GTmetrix
Apache HTTP header
This method may not work if you’re using a service like Cloudflare, though.
Apache and the Apache feather logo are trademarks of The Apache Software Foundation.
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Apache or, more precisely, the Apache httpd server, is one of the most trusted web server available now days. Mostly used on Linux, Unix and BSD systems, it can be installed on Windows without difficulties.
The purpose of a web server is to build and serve, not only every page of a website, but also all the resources they are containing: images, videos, medias of all kind as well as documents of all types. Most of them offer extra functionalities like the ability to compress those resources, or to send them over secure connections.
First released in 1996, Apache has since then been very well tested. For now more than twenty years it has proved itself as one of the most reliable httpd server available. Generally used in association with other open source software like PHP and MySQL, it powers more than 50% of all active websites.
An Apache server can be customized and adapted to your particular needs by loading external modules. For example the PHP module, mod_php, allow Apache to interpret, build and serve dynamic web pages from PHP scripts.
Other modules offers support for different programming languages, secure connections, load balancing, security features as well as a vast collection of features and protocols.
Installing Apache on a Linux system can usually be done via the standard distribution package manager. On a Red Hat or CentOS system, you just need to install it with yum: sudo yum install httpd
The more experienced users can easily compile and install the Apache httpd server by themselves. It's really nothing complicated with the help of the usual configure and make commands. Note that additional packages might be required (Apache Portable Runtime libraries in particular)
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Configuration is done via traditional text configuration files, or with the help of management tools like Webmin.
Apache does not come with its own web analytics module. So you will have to install some software like Piwik. Or use online web statistics services.
There are of course different alternatives to Apache. NGiNX is certainly the most popular.r. But you should check also LightTPD and LiteSpeed Web Servers. Finally some high level programming compilers or interpreters, like Node.js or Go lang, offer the possibility to easily build your own httpd server.
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Comments
Apache is a very good serving system for http. In the beggining if you don't know much about configuring and switching files or editing files... you WILL have complications. Apache is indeed a very good server you can customize it to your own needs, and its pretty secure depending on the OS that your using.
APACHE server is simply great !!!
Nice site. Apache Server is the fastest growing web server way ahead of the windows revolution because it's a lot cheaper, runs on a lower spec machine and doesn't crash every day. This site looks good, I guess it is run using php which is amazingly versatile for a few lines of code. Unfortunately, the general public need a little education about the virtues of using a non-window-y platform and the advantages. Hope this site does well, as it deserves too, once found. best, kev
It has been almost a year, and now Apache 2.x.x has replaced Apache 1.3.27 to serve my web sites. I use php extensively and the 2.0.44 - PHP 4.3.0 combo really rocks! Nice job to the developers. Thanks Sander and the developers gang for this particular build!
Apache Server 2.4 Stig
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