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Apache HTTP Server vs Gunicorn: What are the differences?

Both Apache HTTP Server and Gunicorn are popular web servers used to serve web applications. Let's explore the key differences between them.

  1. Architecture: Apache HTTP Server is a traditional process-based web server that follows the pre-fork model, where multiple processes are created to handle incoming requests. Each process handles one request at a time, which can lead to higher memory consumption and slower performance for applications with heavy concurrent traffic. On the other hand, Gunicorn (Green Unicorn) is a pre-fork worker model web server specifically designed for running Python web applications. It utilizes multiple worker processes, typically equal to the number of CPU cores, to handle concurrent requests efficiently. This architecture allows Gunicorn to handle a higher number of concurrent requests with lower memory consumption.

  2. Deployment: Apache HTTP Server is a standalone web server that can be easily deployed on various platforms. It supports a wide range of modules and extensions, making it highly customizable and suitable for serving static and dynamic content. Gunicorn, on the other hand, is typically used as a backend server in a larger deployment stack. It is often combined with a reverse proxy server like Nginx or Apache to handle incoming requests and distribute them to multiple Gunicorn worker processes. This deployment pattern provides additional benefits like load balancing, caching, and SSL termination.

  3. Configuration: Apache HTTP Server has a rich and extensive configuration system that allows fine-grained control over server settings. Configuration is typically done using the Apache Configuration Language (ACL) or its variants, and changes require a server restart to take effect. Gunicorn, on the other hand, provides a simpler configuration interface, typically using command-line arguments or a configuration file written in Python format. Changes to the Gunicorn configuration can usually be applied by restarting the Gunicorn process without affecting other components in the deployment stack.

  4. Performance: Apache HTTP Server is known for its stability and reliability, offering good performance for medium to high traffic websites. It can handle a large number of concurrent connections efficiently, thanks to its multi-threaded and multi-process architecture. Gunicorn, being a lightweight server focused on Python web applications, provides excellent performance and concurrency for Python-based frameworks like Django or Flask. Its efficient handling of multiple worker processes allows it to scale well and handle a high number of concurrent requests.

  5. Community and Ecosystem: Apache HTTP Server is an open-source project with a large and active community. It has been around for many years and has a vast ecosystem of plugins, modules, and extensions. This extensive community support makes it easy to find solutions, troubleshoot issues, and extend the functionality of the server. Gunicorn, while not as widely known as Apache HTTP Server, has a strong following within the Python web development community. It benefits from the popularity of Python and has a growing ecosystem of libraries and tools specifically designed for seamless integration with Gunicorn.

  6. Supported Platforms: Apache HTTP Server is a cross-platform web server that can be deployed on various operating systems, including Windows, Linux, macOS, and more. It is highly versatile and can run on both dedicated servers and cloud infrastructure. Gunicorn, being a Python-specific server, can be run on any platform that supports Python. This includes popular operating systems like Linux, macOS, and Windows. It is often used in combination with Linux-based server environments for optimal performance and compatibility.

In summary, Apache HTTP Server is a powerful and widely used web server that supports various operating systems and is highly configurable. It's known for its stability and performance, especially for serving static content. On the other hand, Gunicorn is a WSGI HTTP server designed to serve Python web applications. It's lightweight and easy to use, often used in conjunction with application frameworks like Django or Flask.

Advice on Apache HTTP Server and Gunicorn

I am diving into web development, both front and back end. I feel comfortable with administration, scripting and moderate coding in bash, Python and C++, but I am also a Windows fan (i love inner conflict). What are the votes on web servers? IIS is expensive and restrictive (has Windows adoption of open source changed this?) Apache has the history but seems to be at the root of most of my Infosec issues, and I know nothing about nginx (is it too new to rely on?). And no, I don't know what I want to do on the web explicitly, but hosting and data storage (both cloud and tape) are possibilities. Ready, aim fire!

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Replies (1)
Simon Aronsson
Developer Advocate at k6 / Load Impact · | 4 upvotes · 723.5K views
Recommends
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I would pick nginx over both IIS and Apace HTTP Server any day. Combine it with docker, and as you grow maybe even traefik, and you'll have a really flexible solution for serving http content where you can take sites and projects up and down without effort, easily move it between systems and dont have to handle any dependencies on your actual local machine.

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Needs advice
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From a StackShare Community member: "We are a LAMP shop currently focused on improving web performance for our customers. We have made many front-end optimizations and now we are considering replacing Apache with nginx. I was wondering if others saw a noticeable performance gain or any other benefits by switching."

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Replies (3)
Recommends
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I use nginx because it is very light weight. Where Apache tries to include everything in the web server, nginx opts to have external programs/facilities take care of that so the web server can focus on efficiently serving web pages. While this can seem inefficient, it limits the number of new bugs found in the web server, which is the element that faces the client most directly.

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Leandro Barral
Recommends
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I use nginx because its more flexible and easy to configure

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Christian Cwienk
Software Developer at SAP · | 1 upvotes · 689.2K views
Recommends
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Apache HTTP ServerApache HTTP Server

I use Apache HTTP Server because it's intuitive, comprehensive, well-documented, and just works

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Decisions about Apache HTTP Server and Gunicorn
Daniel Calvo
Co-Founder at Polpo Data Analytics & Software Development · | 8 upvotes · 271.6K views

For us, NGINX is a lite HTTP server easy to configure. On our research, we found a well-documented software we a lot of support from the community.

We have been using it alongside tools like certbot and it has been a total success.

We can easily configure our sites and have a folder for available vs enabled sites, and with the nginx -t command we can easily check everything is running fine.

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Grant Steuart
  • Server rendered HTML output from PHP is being migrated to the client as Vue.js components, future plans to provide additional content, and other new miscellaneous features all result in a substantial increase of static files needing to be served from the server. NGINX has better performance than Apache for serving static content.
  • The change to NGINX will require switching from PHP to PHP-FPM resulting in a distributed architecture with a higher complexity configuration, but this is outweighed by PHP-FPM being faster than PHP for processing requests.
  • The NGINX + PHP-FPM setup now allows for horizontally scaling of resources rather vertically scaling the previously combined Apache + PHP resources.
  • PHP shell tasks can now efficiently be decoupled from the application reducing main application footprint and allow for scaling of tasks on an individual basis.
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I was in a situation where I have to configure 40 RHEL servers 20 each for Apache HTTP Server and Tomcat server. My task was to 1. configure LVM with required logical volumes, format and mount for HTTP and Tomcat servers accordingly. 2. Install apache and tomcat. 3. Generate and apply selfsigned certs to http server. 4. Modify default ports on Tomcat to different ports. 5. Create users on RHEL for application support team. 6. other administrative tasks like, start, stop and restart HTTP and Tomcat services.

I have utilized the power of ansible for all these tasks, which made it easy and manageable.

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Pros of Apache HTTP Server
Pros of Gunicorn
  • 479
    Web server
  • 305
    Most widely-used web server
  • 217
    Virtual hosting
  • 148
    Fast
  • 138
    Ssl support
  • 44
    Since 1996
  • 28
    Asynchronous
  • 5
    Robust
  • 4
    Proven over many years
  • 2
    Mature
  • 2
    Perfomance
  • 1
    Perfect Support
  • 0
    Many available modules
  • 0
    Many available modules
  • 34
    Python
  • 30
    Easy setup
  • 8
    Reliable
  • 3
    Light
  • 3
    Fast

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Cons of Apache HTTP Server
Cons of Gunicorn
  • 4
    Hard to set up
    Be the first to leave a con

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    What is Apache HTTP Server?

    The Apache HTTP Server is a powerful and flexible HTTP/1.1 compliant web server. Originally designed as a replacement for the NCSA HTTP Server, it has grown to be the most popular web server on the Internet.

    What is Gunicorn?

    Gunicorn is a pre-fork worker model ported from Ruby's Unicorn project. The Gunicorn server is broadly compatible with various web frameworks, simply implemented, light on server resources, and fairly speedy.

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    What are some alternatives to Apache HTTP Server and Gunicorn?
    Apache Tomcat
    Apache Tomcat powers numerous large-scale, mission-critical web applications across a diverse range of industries and organizations.
    NGINX
    nginx [engine x] is an HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as a mail proxy server, written by Igor Sysoev. According to Netcraft nginx served or proxied 30.46% of the top million busiest sites in Jan 2018.
    JBoss
    An application platform for hosting your apps that provides an innovative modular, cloud-ready architecture, powerful management and automation, and world class developer productivity.
    Jetty
    Jetty is used in a wide variety of projects and products, both in development and production. Jetty can be easily embedded in devices, tools, frameworks, application servers, and clusters. See the Jetty Powered page for more uses of Jetty.
    XAMPP
    It consists mainly of the Apache HTTP Server, MariaDB database, and interpreters for scripts written in the PHP and Perl programming languages.
    See all alternatives