Apache, IIS, NGINX, GWS - What’s Your Choice

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Apache, IIS, NGINX, GWS Whats Your Choice?
The web is operated on the basis of many
protocols. These include HTML (HyperText Markup
Language), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and
URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) some people
also call it URL. However, behind all these
protocols there is the quick and dirty version
of the ways in which information is created and
distributed over the internet. Web pages are
served by web servers is this the only
truth? The term web server basically has two
meanings One is the physical or the virtual
server that hosts the applications and the other
is the software or application that distributes
the web content or some other tasks. This depends
on the application for the end user or the
system. The platform that actually hosts the
applications can be either physical or virtual.
If you have a server rack or if you operate a
data center, there is a possibility that you have
a complex infrastructure. At times these servers
perform various combined roles. For example, all
the applications and web servers might be on the
same machine. However, this totally depends on
the organizational security requirements,
performance and complexity of the infrastructure.
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It is also possible for you to host applications
within the virtual or cloud environments and you
can also have dedicated virtual instances for
every type of server. Again, all this is
dependent on what exactly you are trying to
achieve. Utilizing a specific type of virtual or
physical server determines the type of web server
software you use. If you prefer Microsoft, then
you will prefer to use IIS (Internet Information
Services / Server) by Microsoft as your primary
web server application solution. If you use
Linux distribution, you have other alternatives
like Apache, NGINX and LiteSpeed. The Most
Popular Web Servers So which web server should
you use for operating your website? The answer to
this question depends on various factors.
However, first lets have a look on the
popularity. The web server space is dominated by
four web servers Microsoft IIS, Apache, NGINX
and Google Web Server. A NetCraft survey
conducted in April 2014 featured the following
market share breakdown
Web Server Share (All Sites) Share (Active Sites) Share (Top Million Busiest)
Apache 38.60 52.44 53.44
IIS 31.10 11.37 12.40
NGINX 15.56 14.22 17.82
Google Web Server 2.28 8.33 2.96

• Selecting The Right Web Server
• Unlike any infrastructure decision, your
  selection of the web server should be based on
  some important factors
• Cost
• Support
• Capabilities

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• The two most important factors cost and
  support, tend to go hand in hand. While you may
  select a specific web server because it is open
  source, there might be hidden costs involved for
  maintaining your server. Everyone wants to have a
  professional support for dealing with the issues
  of the server, some open source companies have
  started charging for this. Therefore, whenever
  you have any issue, you can jump to the front of
  the line by getting in touch with the dedicated
  and experienced support team instead of solving
  the problem yourself or searching for solutions
  online.
• The server configurations you are looking for
  also determine which web hosting server you
  should select. One popular stack to be
  considered is the pairing of the operating
  systems. The main factors taken into
  consideration here are performance of the web
  server, database and the programming server. Here
  are some combinations that can be considered
• LAMP Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP
• WIMP Windows, IIS, MySQL/MS SQL Server and PHP
• WAMP Windows, Apache, MySQL/MS SQL Server and
  PHP
• LEMP Linux, NGINX, MySQL and PHP
• There are other variations as well. If you go by
  the free and open source root, higher
  efficiency can be achieved through LAMP and LEMP
  server combinations. It is crucial to note that
  you can install MySQL, Apache and PHP on the
  Windows-based machines.
• A Breakdown Of Every Server
• According to the statistics, NGINX, Apache and
  IIS are the primary players along with Google
  Web Server and LiteSpeed
• A Quick Overview Of Apache, Microsoft IIS, NGINX
  and LiteSpeed
• Apache
• Cost Open source, free, no licensing fees

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• Disadvantages
• It is a process based server this means that
  every simultaneous connection requires a thread
  that can take significant overhead
• Microsoft IIS
• Cost Comes with Windows (this means additional
  cost is involved for licensing)
• Advantages
• It is supported by Microsoft
• Access to .NET framework ASP scripts is
  provided
• Microsoft IIS integrates with the other Microsoft
  services like MS SQL, ASP, Active Directory etc.
• Disadvantages
• With IIS, you cannot customize as much as
  open-source web servers
• NGINX

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server. It is important to carefully consider all
the available options along with cost, support,
features, and capabilities offered. Even though
selecting the most popular server makes sense,
your choice should depend on what you want to
accomplish within your hosting environment. Looki
ng for Cloud Hosting Services India? Look no
further than MilesWeb Hosting!
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