What Is a Web Server?

• Web Server Definition

  Web Server Definition

  A web server is a computer system capable of delivering web content to end users over the internet via a web browser.
• How Web Servers Work

  How Web Servers Work

  The end user processes a request via a web browser installed on a web server. Communication between a web server or a browser and the end user takes place using HTTP. The primary role of a web server is to store, process, and deliver requested information or webpages to end users. It uses the following:

  • Physical storage:All website data is stored on a physical web server to ensure its safety; when an end user enters the URL of your website or searches it using a keyword on a browser, a request is generated and sent to the web server to process the data.
  • Web browser: The role of web browsers, such as Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer, is to find the web server on which your website data is located; once the browser finds your server, it reads the request and processes the information.

  Step-by-step process:

  1. The request (client to server)

  Address lookup: Your browser finds the server’s numerical IP address using the Domain Name System
  Connection: Your browser establishes a reliable connection to the server using TCP
  HTTP request: Your browser sends an HTTP request asking for a specific file (e.g., index.html)

  2. The processing (server action)

  Receive: The web server software receives the HTTP request
  Locate: The server finds the requested file in its file storage

  3. The response (server to client)

  HTTP response: The server sends an HTTP response back to the browser, including a status code (such as 200 OK for success) and the content itself
  Rendering: Your browser receives the content (usually HTML, Cascading Style Sheets, and JavaScript) and renders the webpage on your screen
• What Are Web Servers Used For?

  What Are Web Servers Used For?

  Web servers are primarily used to process and manage HTTP/HTTP Secure requests and responses from the client system.

  A web server can also perform several other functions, such as:

  • Store and protect website data: A web server can store and protect critical website data from unauthorized users
  • Control bandwidth to regulate network traffic: A web server can help eliminate the downtime caused by high web traffic; web hosts can set bandwidth to manage the rate of data transmission over the internet and minimize the excess network traffic
  • Server-side web scripting: The server-side web scripting feature enables users to create dynamic webpages using scripting languages such as Ruby, Python, and PHP
  • Virtual hosting: Web servers can also be used as virtual servers to run multiple applications, websites, datasets, and other services
• Dynamic and Static Web Servers Explained

  Dynamic and Static Web Servers Explained

  A web server can be static or dynamic:

  • Static web server: A static web server includes hardware or a computer with an HTTP server. These servers are static because they help display hosted content. The best example of a static web server is an NGINX web server.
  • Dynamic web server: Dynamic web servers include a static server, an application server, and a database. These servers are dynamic because they use the application server to update hosted files before sending them to the user’s browser via HTTP. A dynamic website can update and display different content, such as images, videos, and HTML text. One of the best examples of a dynamic web server is an Apache web server.
• Choosing the Right Web Server

  Choosing the Right Web Server

  Choosing a web server requires you to assess your project’s technical needs, your expected traffic, and your budget. The decision involves selecting both the type of hosting (the resource setup) and the server software (the program handling requests).

  
  

  1. Assess your project needs

  Start by answering these key questions:

  What kind of traffic do you expect? A small personal blog (low traffic) has different needs from a global e-commerce store (high, unpredictable traffic)

  What is your budget? Costs range dramatically from a few dollars per month to thousands

  What is your technical skill level? Some setups require constant manual administration, while others are fully managed

  Is your content dynamic or static? A site serving complex applications (dynamic) needs more processing power than a site serving basic HTML files (static)

  What software stack are you using? If your app is built on a specific platform (such as Active Server Pages [ASP].NET/C#), you may be locked into specific server software (Microsoft Internet Information Services [IIS])
  

  
  

  2. Choose the hosting type (resource allocation)

  The following points are about the physical resources your website gets:

  Shared hosting: This is the cheapest and easiest option, where your website shares resources (CPU and RAM) with hundreds of others on the same physical machine; it’s great for beginners and small low-traffic sites, but it offers poor performance and scalability

  Virtual Private Server: This is a step up, giving you dedicated, isolated resources on a VM; it offers better performance and control (including root access), making it suitable for growing businesses and developers, but it requires some technical knowledge to manage

  Cloud hosting: This setup uses a network of multiple interconnected servers and is highly scalable, allowing you to instantly adjust resources to handle unexpected traffic spikes; you’ll typically only pay for the resources you use, making it ideal for applications with unpredictable demands

  Dedicated hosting: This is the most powerful and expensive option, where you lease an entire physical server; it provides maximum performance, security, and control and is typically reserved for large enterprises or high-security applications
  

  
  

  3. Select the server software

  Selecting appropriate server software is a critical decision that must align directly with the server's intended function and the overall needs of the organization.

  Key considerations include:

  • Operating system: The OS (e.g., Windows Server, Linux distributions such as Ubuntu or Red Hat) determines compatibility with applications and required administration skills
  • Application software: Web servers (Apache, Nginx), database systems (MySQL, PostgreSQL), or mail transfer agents (Postfix) must be evaluated for scalability, security features, licensing costs, and ease of integration with the existing IT infrastructure
• Web Server Software List

  Web Server Software List

  Some of the most common web servers are outlined below:

  • Linux web server software: A Linux server is built on an open-source Linux OS that enables you to deliver content, applications, and services to end users. Linux servers are flexible, consistent, and high-performing servers with snapshot capabilities, optimized security, and scalable cloud technologies. These servers help address the increasing requirements of web services, applications, database management, and more.
    
  • NGINX web server software: NGINX is a popular open-source web server that runs and utilizes resources efficiently. It can handle huge volumes of traffic and offers reverse proxy, HTTP caching services, email proxy, and load balancing. NGINX is a scalable, lightweight, and powerful web server capable of handling concurrent connections and is ideal for delivering static content.
    
  • Apache web server software: Apache web server, or Apache HTTP server, is an open-source server that processes user requests and delivers web assets and content via HTTP. This web server uses the MySQL database to store critical information in an easily readable format. With the help of the PHP programming language, Apache can create and serve dynamic web content.
    
  • IIS web server software: Microsoft IIS web server is also known as a Windows web server. It’s one of the most commonly used web servers on a Windows OS. IIS is a versatile and stable web server widely used to host ASP.NET web applications, static websites, and PHP-based web applications. It can also be used as an FTP server to host Windows Communication Foundation services. Although it has a built-in authentication option such as Windows, ASP.NET, and basic authentication, it’s easier for Windows users to sign in to various web applications using their domain account. Other built-in security features include Transport Layer Security certificate management, request logging, FTP-specific security options, and more.
    
  • LiteSpeed Web Server: This is a high-performance commercial alternative that is often faster than NGINX, especially for dynamic content such as WordPress sites. It is designed to be a drop-in replacement for Apache, meaning it can use the same configuration files while providing superior speed through integrated caching.
• Web Server Versus Application Server Differences

  Web Server Versus Application Server Differences

  Web server: A web server accepts and processes requests from end users for static website content and handles requests and responses via HTTP only. Web servers are generally helpful in serving static content or static HTML webpages. They consume fewer resources such as CPU or memory compared to application servers and provide a runtime environment for web applications.

  Application server: Application servers can deliver web and dynamic content required for displaying decision support, transaction results, or real-time analytics. However, their primary role is to enable interactions between the end user and server-side application code. These servers enhance interactive content or website components depending on the request. Application servers use web containers and more resources compared to web servers and provide a runtime environment for enterprise applications. These servers also support HTTP and RPC/Remote Method Invocation protocols.
• Benefits of Optimizing a Web Server

  Benefits of Optimizing a Web Server

  Optimizing a web server requires regular monitoring of web and application servers. Outlined below are the few benefits of monitoring and optimizing your server:

  • Helps solve critical problems quickly: It’s crucial to monitor web and application servers to ensure availability and performance, as tracking web servers provides vital insights into application pools (worker processes, cache, and requests), connections (current and total connections), websites (network and files), and cache (memory usage and file cache)
  • Optimizes infrastructure resources: It helps you understand key performance metrics and website load so you can effectively use infrastructure resources such as CPU utilization, network traffic, and disk capacity, and it provides crucial insights such as client connections, web server traffic and status, and server load