Detailed understanding and comparative analysis of servers Apache, Tomcat and Nginx

1 Question

The company's server uses Apache, the backend is PHP, and the server uses Linux C/C++. I often hear about Apache servers. The server of the company where I interned before used Java. I vaguely remember using nginx reverse proxy server and tomcat. The request first goes through nginx and then forwards the request through tomcat. Then my understanding of Apache server, tomcat and nginx is a bit vague. Then today I consulted relevant information to compare the usage scenarios and

2 Apache, Tomcat, Nginx terminology

1) Apache

Apache HTTP server is a modular server that can run on almost all widely used computer platforms, such as Linux, Unix, Windows, etc. It is an application server.

Apache supports many modules and has stable performance. Apache itself is a static parse, suitable for static HTML, pictures, etc. For example, I have used freemarker before, which is also static, but it can support dynamic pages through extended scripts and modules.

Apache can support PHP, cgi, and perl, but if you want to use Java, you need Tomcat to support it in the background of Apache, and forward Java requests from Apache to Tomcat for processing.

Disadvantages: The configuration is relatively complex, and it does not support dynamic pages. It needs plug-in extensions to assist in supporting dynamic page parsing, such as FastCGI and Tomcat. Friends who work with j2ee know that our dynamic pages need to use jsp, so we need Tomcat to parse dynamic pages. Tomcat is a servlet container. Of course, it can be independent of Apache and directly use tomcat as a server.

2) Tomcat

Tomcat is an application (Java) server. It is just a Servlet (JSP is also translated into Servlet) container. It can be considered as an extension of Apache, but it can run independently of Apache. In other words, without Apache, only Tomcat can parse static pages and dynamic pages (jsp).

3) Nginx

Nginx is a very lightweight HTTP server written by Russians. It is a high-performance HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as an IMAP/POP3/SMTP proxy server.

3. Comparison

1) Comparison between Apache and Tomcat

Similarities:

Both are developed by the Apache organization, both have HTTP service functions, and both are open source and free.

Differences:

a) Apache is used to provide HTTP services and related configurations (such as virtual hosts, URL forwarding, etc.), while Tomcat is a JSP server developed by the Apache organization in accordance with the JSP and Servlet standards of Java EE.

b) Apache is a web server environment program. It can be used as a web server by enabling it, but it only supports static web pages such as ASP, PHP, and Freemarker. If you want to use dynamic languages ​​​​such as jsp on the Java server, you will need the Tomcat interpreter to parse jsp. Apache cannot parse it. Remember this.

c) Apache focuses on HTTP Server, while Tomcat focuses on Servlet container. It supports JSP, but is not ideal for static web pages. In other words, Apache is better at handling static files than Tomcat. Tomcat is more practical for parsing dynamic languages ​​(jsp). We can use Apache to handle static files and Tomcat to handle dynamic files.

d) Apache is a web server, Tomcat is an application (Java) server and can be considered an extension of Apache, but can run independently of Apache

Actual use:

Apache+Tomcat (if it is a Java server)

If the client requests a static page, only the Apache server needs to respond to the request.

When the client requests a dynamic page, the Tomcat server responds to the request. JSP is interpreted by the server, so this integration can reduce Tomcat's service overhead.

It can be understood that Tomcat is an extension of Apache.

2) Comparison between Nginx and Apache

1 Advantages of Nginx

a) Lightweight. As a web service, it occupies less memory and resources than Apache.

b) Anti-concurrency, nginx processes requests asynchronously and non-blockingly, multiple connections (10,000 levels) can correspond to one process, while Apache is a synchronous blocking type, a synchronous multi-process model, one connection corresponds to one process

c) Highly modular design, writing modules is relatively simple.

d) Provide load balancing

e) Simple configuration

f) Nginx static processing performance is more than 3 times higher than Apache

e) nginx is only suitable for static and reverse proxy

Understanding of reverse proxy:

Reverse Proxy refers to using a proxy server to accept connection requests from the Internet, and then forward the requests to the server on the internal network for processing. It does not process the requests itself.

The result obtained from the server is returned to the client requesting the connection on the Internet. At this time, the proxy server appears to the outside world as a web server, which actually only forwards the data without performing any processing.

2 Apache Advantages

a) Apache's rewrite is more powerful than nginx's.

b) Support dynamic pages.

c) It supports many modules, basically covering all applications.

d) Stable performance.

e) Apache's support for PHP is relatively simple

f) Compared with nginx, it is better for apache to handle dynamic requests.

3) Comparison between Nginx and Tomcat

We know that Nginx is generally very capable of handling static processing, but it cannot parse dynamic languages ​​such as (jsp). We also need Tomcat to interpret jsp, so we generally use Tomcat for dynamic processing and Nginx for static processing. The website of the company where I interned before used a combination of Nginx + Tomcat. Nginx acts as a reverse proxy. If static processing is handled by Nginx, dynamic requests will be processed by Tomcat in the background. This is Nginx's dynamic separation mechanism. I didn't quite understand it before, but now I finally understand why it is matched like this. In the final analysis, Nginx's static processing capabilities are stronger than Tomcat, so we need the request to pass through Nginx first, and there is no need to use the Apache server here.

4 Summary

a) Static processing capability:

Nginx (at least 3 times as fast as Apache) > Apache > Tomcat

b) Advantages of Nginx: load balancing, reverse proxy, and processing static files. This is why the Java server Tomcat must first be processed by the Nginx server (it only forwards requests and does not perform other operations. You can see the explanation of reverse proxy above). Nginx has better concurrency and low CPU and memory usage.

c) Advantages of Apache: Compared with Tomcat server, it has the advantage of processing static files and fast speed. Apache is a static parser, suitable for static HTML and images. Of course, it has strong reading and writing capabilities. If rewrites are frequent, Apache is more suitable because it is more stable and has advantages in handling dynamics. The premise is that there is no Tomcat, that is, it is not a Java server.

d) Tomcat: A dynamic parsing container that processes dynamic requests and is a container for compiling JSP and Servlet. Nginx has a dynamic separation mechanism. Static requests can be processed directly by Nginx, and dynamic requests are forwarded to the backend for processing by Tomcat.

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