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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Apache HTTP Server

    Score9.7 out of 10
    N/AApache Web Server (Apache HTTP Server) is an open source HTTP web server for modern operating systems including UNIX and Windows.N/A

    Apache Tomcat

    Score7.9 out of 10
    N/ATomcat is an open-source web server supported by Apache.N/A

    NGINX

    Score9.1 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    NGINX, a business unit of F5 Networks, powers over 65% of the world's busiest websites and web applications. NGINX started out as an open source web server and reverse proxy, built to be faster and more efficient than Apache. Over the years, NGINX has built a suite of infrastructure software products o tackle some of the biggest challenges in managing high-transaction applications. NGINX offers a suite of products to form the core of what organizations need to create…N/A
    Pricing
    Apache HTTP ServerApache TomcatNGINX
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Apache HTTP ServerApache TomcatNGINX
    Free Trial
    NoNoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details———
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    Apache HTTP ServerApache TomcatNGINX
    Application Servers
    Comparison of Application Servers features of Apache HTTP Server and Apache Tomcat and NGINX
    Feature
    Apache HTTP Server
    -
    Ratings
    Apache Tomcat
    9.2
    24 Ratings
    15% above category average
    NGINX
    8.8
    43 Ratings
    10% above category average
    IDE support00 Ratings10.022 Ratings8.127 Ratings
    Security management00 Ratings9.024 Ratings8.638 Ratings
    Administration and management00 Ratings8.224 Ratings8.939 Ratings
    Application server performance00 Ratings8.124 Ratings9.139 Ratings
    Installation00 Ratings10.024 Ratings9.040 Ratings
    Open-source standards compliance00 Ratings10.024 Ratings9.037 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Apache HTTP ServerApache TomcatNGINX
    Small Businesses
    Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
    Score8.2 out of 10
    NGINX
    Score9.1 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    AWS Auto Scaling
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Oracle WebLogic Server
    Score7.3 out of 10
    Oracle WebLogic Server
    Score7.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
    Score8.2 out of 10
    NGINX
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Red Hat JBoss EAP
    Score8.5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Apache HTTP ServerApache TomcatNGINX
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (20 ratings)
    9.0
    (24 ratings)
    9.3
    (72 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    8.3
    (25 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.3
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Apache HTTP ServerApache TomcatNGINX
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Apache
    As I mentioned earlier, the Apache HTTP Server has a small disadvantage compared to the competition (NGINX) in terms of performance. If you run websites that really have a lot of visitors, NGINX might be the better alternative.
    On the other hand, the Apache HTTP Server is open source and free. Further functionalities can be activated via modules. The documentation is really excellent.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Apache
    Excellent value for companies wishing to host Java applications in the cloud. Utilizing hosting tools such as load balancers and network and application firewalls, Tomcat can be part of a powerful system to host web applications to thousands of users. There has been consistency in the development and support of Tomcat since its initial release in the late '90s and the best commonalities have been carried forward. If you host Java web applications, Tomcat is as good as any for an application server.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    Nginx is well-suited for any web server scenarios, such as web applications, backend or reverse proxy for both application and HTTP requests, and distribution. It is less appropriate for Windows-based applications that run directly on a Windows Server host. In any case, it is very easy to manage, through separate conf files for each application or site you want to host with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Apache
    • Street Cred: Apache Web Server is the Founder for all of Apache Foundation's other projects. Without the Web Server, Apache Foundation would look very different. That being said, they have done a good job of maintaining the code base, and keeping a lot of what makes Apache so special
    • Stability: Apache is rock-solid. While no software is perfect, Apache can parse your web sources quickly and cleanly.
    • Flexibility: Need to startup your own Webpage? Done. Wordpress? Yup. REST Endpoint? Check. Honeypot? Absolutely.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Apache
    • Fast to start up, which is useful when we need to just check that our changes are working correctly.
    • Free, which allows us to not be involved with the finance/legal team about using it.
    • Bundled with Spring Boot, which makes it even more convenient for our testing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    • Very low memory usage. Can handle many more connections than alternatives (like Apache HTTPD) due to low overhead. (event-based architecture).
    • Great at serving static content.
    • Scales very well. Easy to host multiple Nginx servers to promote high availability.
    • Open-Source (no cost)!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Apache
    • The default configurations which comes with Apache server needs to get optimized for performance and security with every new installation as these defaults are not recommended to push on the production environment directly.
    • Security options and advanced configurations are not easy to set up and require an additional level of expertise.
    • Admin frontend GUI could be improved to a great extent to match with other enterprise tools available to serve similar requirements.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Apache
    • Using tomcat manager to troubleshoot is not very informative. Error messages are vague, you have to dig into log files for more information about the problems.
    • Is great for simple web applications, but may not work for heavy development which may require a full J2EE stack, might like JBoss better.
    • Security in tomcat is not straightforward, as I discovered that you have to understand how to set up realms in tomcat in order to hash passwords, which I was not overly familiar with, which is a big deal when setting up users in the tomcat-users.xml file.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    • Customer support can be strangely condescending, perhaps it's a language issue?
    • I find it a little weird how the release versions used for Nginx+ aren't the same as for open source version. It can be very confusing to determine the cross-compatibility of modules, etc., because of this.
    • It seems like some (most?) modules on their own site are ancient and no longer supported, so their documentation in this area needs work.
    • It's difficult to navigate between nginx.com commercial site and customer support. They need to be integrated together.
    • I'd love to see more work done on nginx+ monitoring without requiring logging every request. I understand that many statistics can only be derived from logs, but plenty should work without that. Logging is not an option in many environments.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Apache
    No answers on this topic
    Apache
    We have a huge knowledge of the product within our company and we're satisfied with the performance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    Great value for the product
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Apache
    No answers on this topic
    Apache
    Tomcat has a very rich API set which allows us to implement our automation script to trigger the deployment, configure, stop and start Tomcat from the command line. In our projects, we embedded Tomcat in our Eclipse in all of the developer's machines so they could quickly verify their code with little effort, Azure Webapp has strong support for Tomcat so we could move our application to Azure cloud very easy. One drawback is Tomcat UI quite poorly features but we almost do not use it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    This tool is really easy to use and configure. Consumes very less system resources. It is highly modular and configurable. You can easily use it with other tools like certbot for SSLs. You can configure basic security with configuration and headers
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Apache
    No answers on this topic
    Apache
    Tomcat doesn't have a built-in watchdog that ensures restart upon failure, so you have to provide it externally. A very good solution is java service wrapper. The community edition is able to restart Tomcat upon out of memories exceptions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Apache
    No answers on this topic
    Apache
    Tomcat support to customize memory used and allow us to define the Connection pool and thread pool to increase system performance and availability, Tomcat server itself consume very little memory and almost no footprint. We use Tomcat in our production environment which has up to thousands of concurrent users and it is stable and provides a quick response.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Apache
    I give this rating because there is so much Apache documentation and information on the web that you can literally do anything. This has to do with the fact that there is a huge Open Source community that is beyond mature and perhaps one of the most helpful to be found. The only thing that should hold anyone back from anything is that they can not read. RTFM, my friend. And I must say that the manual is excellent.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Apache
    Well, in actuality, I have never needed support for Apache Tomcat since it is configured and ready-to-go with no configuration needed on my end.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    Community support is great, and they've also had a presence at conferences. Overall, there is no shortage of documentation and community support. We're currently using it to serve up some WordPress sites, and configuring NGINX for this purpose is well documented.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Apache
    I has a lot more features, except that IIS is more integrated in a Windows environment. But now with .net core also possible from Apache it would work anywhere really. Only in a full Windows environment where full integration is needed I would chose to go for IIS. Otherwise Apache it is.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Apache
    Eclipse Jetty is the best alternative for Apache Tomcat because which is also an open-source and lightweight servlet container like Tomcat. A major advantage of this over Tomcat is that Jetty server can easily be embedded with the source code of web applications. Since it requires less memory to operate, you may realize that it is very efficient.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    I have found that [NGINX] seems to perform better throughout the years with less issues although I've used Apache more. I would definitely recommend [NGINX] for any high volume site and I've seen this to usually be the case from most provided web hosts who will pick [NGINX] over alternatives
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Apache
    No answers on this topic
    Apache
    It's very easy to add instances to an existing deployment and, using apache with mod proxy balancer, to scale up the serving farm
    Incentivized
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    F5
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Apache
    • Works as intended, so it's less to worry about.
    • Works great on elastic environments (like EC2).
    • As an Open Source project, you can get support for almost any problem you can have.
    • Configuration files, while powerful, can be tricky to dominate for some.
    Incentivized
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    Apache
    • Tomcat is cheap and very quick to deploy, so it has benefited much when situation needs applications to be deployed quickly without wasting time on licensing and installations.
    • Plenty of documentation available so no vendor training is required. Support contract is not needed as well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    • By using Nginx, we can host multiple web services on a single server, keeping our infrastructure costs lower.
    • Nginx maintains our HTTPS connections, allowing us to keep our promise to our customers that their data is safe in transit.
    • Due to Nginx's extremely low failure rate, our web addresses always return something meaningful, even when individual services go down. In sense, this means we are "always online" and allows us to maintain brand and support our customers even in the face of catastrophe.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    NGINX Screenshots

    Screenshot of Overview of the NGINX Application PlatformScreenshot of NGINX Controller - MonitoringScreenshot of NGINX Controller - Configuration