Daemon Hypertext Protocol Software, HTTPD
Apache HTTP Server
Since its invention in 1995, Apache has become the most popular public domain HTTP daemon server software on the Web. Later versions of Apache began to include modular structure and API for better extensibility, pool-based memory allocation, and an adaptive pre-forking process model. Though, Apache isn't a “stand alone” server package, Apache is an open source, cross platform system with extreme compatibility with a variety of platforms. The Apache HTTP server model uses a threaded or process-oriented approach to handling requests, even when those requests cause an inefficient use of system resources.
Today, Apache is the Grandfather of multi task web server applications. Apache provides all the necessary support for most people, but the coding in its platform work is slower than the newer more stream lined webs server software products. Apache gets the work done but is not always the best choice, there are advancements in serving content with Nginx, light httpd and others that will be further explained later.
Lighttpd
Lighttpd is about fifth place on the Netcraft "Web Server Survey". Lighttpd is popular with the Python, Perl, Ruby and Lua programming communities. Lighttpd supports interfacing protocols for FastCGI, SCGI and CGI. Lightttpd is a popular web server for the Catalyst and Ruby on Rails web Frameworks.
Lighttpd Based Websites
The three most famous torrent listing websites, The Pirate Bay, Mininova and isoHunt use Lighttpd. They have more than 1,000 hits per second. Lighttpd is used by a large number of high-traffic websites, for example Meebo, YouTube, Wikimedia and SourceForge.
Nginx
Nginx is a new kid on the block. Nginx uses an asynchronous event-driven approach to handling requests, delivering static content with most efficient use of system resources. Nginx provides a predictable performance under load, deploying dynamic HTTP content on a network using FastCGI handlers for scripts. Netcraft's Web Server Survey showed that Nginx is the fourth most widely used web server across all domains.
Nginx and the Web
Nginx was developed to fill the needs of various websites run by Rambler. Rambler served 500 million requests per day as of September 2008. Nginx services about .3% of the top 1 million websites worldwide, and gains around 0.2% per month. These prominent sites use Nginx in one capacity or another, WordPress.com, Hulu, and SourceForge.
Thttpd, Short Hand for tiny/turbo/throttling HTTP server
Thttpd is ranked by Netcraft's Web Server Survey as the seventh most popular web server. Thttpd is designed for simplicity, a small execution footprint and high speed. Single-threaded and portable, thttpd compiles cleanly on most Unix-like operating systems. It is compatible with FreeBSD, SunOS 4, Solaris 2, BSD/OS, Linux, and OSF/1.
Thttpd Features and Capabilities
Thttpd is uniquely suited to service high volume requests for static data such as images, in locations that do not require a feature-rich server. Thttpd has a bandwidth throttling feature which is not available in other open source web server software such as Apache. This feature enables the server administrator to limit the maximum bit rate for any files transferred and prevents the connection from being loaded down.
Websites that use Thttpd
Header sites that use thttpd in some capacity are demon.net, bluelight.com, mtv.com, The Drudge Report, and garfield.com. Thttpd is used in some capacity by these companies; Acme.com, global.net.uk, img.gamespot.com, download.napster.com, stephenking.com, news.excite.com, valueclick.com, sealandgov.com, and images.paypal.com. Thttpd gets around.
TUX
The TUX web server is an in-kernel web server for Linux. TUX is limited to serving only static web pages, coordinating between kernel space modules, user space modules, and the regular user space web server daemons which provide dynamic content. TUX serves as a test bed for many features which were later integrated separately into other systems. One major component of TUX is the Native POSIX Thread Library, which, with the right tuning parameters, allows user space web servers to serve web pages at a speed very close that of a regular kernel space web server.
Advantages of TUX
TUX serves pages faster than traditional web servers. Due to its place directly within the kernel, TUX can improve performance by taking advantage of facilities not normally available. Although TUX can launch CGI programs that provide dynamic content, there is no performance advantage. TUX is able to redirect any request it cannot process to a traditional userspace web server. TUX is used by less than 0.1% of all the websites.
TUX Websites
TUX is used in some capacity by these websites; crystalxp.net, www.Talend.com/Open_Source_ETL , http://100mb.nl/, free-penguin.org, supertuxkart.sourceforge.net, kysoh.com, , tuxmagazine.com, 73lab.com, It.com.cn, Seo-blackhat.com, Edu.ro,