Comparison of web server software
Web server software allows computers to act as web servers. The first web servers supported only static files, such as HTML, but now they commonly allow embedding of server side applications.
Some web application frameworks include simple HTTP servers. For example the Django framework provides
runserver, and PHP has a built-in server. These are generally intended only for use during initial development. A production server will require a more robust HTTP front-end such as one of the servers listed here.Overview
| Server | Developed by | Software license | Last stable version | Latest release date |
| AOLserver | NaviSoft | 4.5.2 | 2012-09-19 | |
| Apache HTTP Server | Apache Software Foundation | 2.4.65 | 2025-07-23 | |
| Apache Tomcat | Apache Software Foundation | 11.0.14 | 2025-11-05 | |
| Boa | Jon Nelson and Larry Doolittle | 0.94.13 | 2002-07-30 | |
| BusyBox httpd | Glenn Engel, Vladimir Oleynik, BusyBox Team | 1.36.1 | 2023-05-18 | |
| Caddy | Matt Holt | |||
| Caudium | The Caudium Group | 1.4.18 | 2012-02-24 | |
| CERN httpd | CERN, W3C, Tim Berners-Lee, Ari Luotonen and Henrik Frystyk Nielsen | MIT Copyright Statement with acknowledgement to CERN | 3.0A | 1996-07-15 |
| Cherokee HTTP Server | Álvaro López Ortega | 1.2.103 | 2013-04-21 | |
| GlassFish | Sun Microsystems, Oracle Corporation, since 2019 Eclipse Foundation | 6.2.5 | 2022-02-13 | |
| Hiawatha | Hugo Leisink | |||
| HFS | Rejetto | 2.3m | 2018-08-16 | |
| IBM HTTP Server | IBM | proprietary | 9.0.5.17 | 2023-09-19 |
| Internet Information Services | Microsoft | proprietary | 10.0.17763.1 | 2018-10-02 |
| Jetty | Eclipse Foundation | 12.0.2 | 2023-10-10 | |
| Jexus | Bing Liu | proprietary | 6.2.x | 2020 |
| lighttpd | Jan Kneschke | |||
| LiteSpeed Web Server | LiteSpeed Technologies | 6.1.2 | 2023-05-24 | |
| Mongoose | Cesanta Software | 7.20 | 2025-11-19 | |
| Monkey HTTP Server | Monkey Software | 1.6.9 | 2016-06-04 | |
| NaviServer | Various | 4.99.25 | 2023-05-01 | |
| NCSA HTTPd | Robert McCool | proprietary | 1.5.2a | 1996-10-08 |
| Nginx | NGINX, Inc. | |||
| OpenBSD httpd | Reyk Floeter | 7.4 | 2023-10-16 | |
| OpenLink Virtuoso | OpenLink Software | 8.3.3329 | 2023-09-01 | |
| Oracle HTTP Server | Oracle Corporation | proprietary | 12cR2 | 2021-02-?? |
| Oracle iPlanet Web Server | Oracle Corporation | 7.0.27 | 2017-10-01 | |
| Oracle WebLogic Server | Oracle Corporation | proprietary | 14c | 2020-03-30 |
| Resin Open Source | Caucho Technology | 4.0.66 | 2021-12-08 | |
| Resin Professional | Caucho Technology | proprietary | 4.0.66 | 2021-12-08 |
| Tengine | Taobao | 3.1.0 | 2023-10-27 | |
| thttpd | Jef Poskanzer for ACME Laboratories | 2.29 | 2018-05-24 | |
| TUX web server | Ingo Molnár | 3.2.6.18 | 2006-09-20 | |
| WEBrick | Ruby Community | 1.8.1 | 2023-01-27 | |
| Xitami | iMatix Corporation | 5.0a0 | 2009-02-19 | |
| Yaws | Claes Wikström | 2.1.1 | 2022-02-02 | |
| Zeus Web Server | Zeus Technology | proprietary | 4.3r5 | 2010-01-13 |
| Zope | Zope Corporation | 2.13.30 | 2020-02-14 | |
| Server | Developed by | Software license | Last stable version | Latest release date |
Features
Some features may be intentionally not included to web server to avoid featuritis. For example:- TLS/HTTPS may be enabled with a separate stunnel daemon that terminates TLS and redirects raw HTTP packets to http daemon.
- NGINX and OpenBSD httpd authors decided not to include CGI interpretation but instead use FastCGI. For OpenBSD was developed a slowcgi gateway.
- BusyBox httpd doesn't have automatically generated directory listing but it may be implemented as a CGI script
Operating system support