Best Web Servers for Linux of 2025

The Apache HTTP Server Project aims to create and sustain an open-source HTTP server compatible with contemporary operating systems such as UNIX and Windows. This project's primary objective is to deliver a secure, efficient, and adaptable server that aligns with the latest HTTP standards while offering reliable HTTP services. Additionally, it fosters community collaboration to continually improve and evolve the server's capabilities.

Since 2024 Jaisocx has supported PHP over HTTP/3. It switches between HTTP/1.1, H2 and H3 depending on the negotiation with HTTP client. Charset detection is a unique feature that detects the text content and displays it correctly, such as in German or French alphabets. It has a built-in engine for securing the endpoints using Basic Auth and JSON Web Token. c) Proxy Endpoints. d) The framework-like solution to publish SQL query results in JSON format is also available out of the box and requires minimal configuration. This software is well-documented on the same company website. f) The software is free. g) It has the Docker Hub repository. h) And Github.com repository that contains some basic samples of Laravel, Symfony, and WordPress apps using Docker Compose.

NGINX Open Source is the web server that supports over 400 million websites globally. Built upon this foundation, NGINX Plus serves as a comprehensive software load balancer, web server, and content caching solution. By opting for NGINX Plus instead of traditional hardware load balancers, organizations can unlock innovative possibilities without being limited by their infrastructure, achieving cost savings of over 80% while maintaining high performance and functionality. It can be deployed in a variety of environments, including public and private clouds, bare metal, virtual machines, and container setups. Additionally, the integrated NGINX Plus API simplifies the execution of routine tasks, enhancing operational efficiency. For today's NetOps and DevOps teams, there is a pressing need for a self-service, API-driven platform that seamlessly integrates with CI/CD workflows, facilitating faster app deployments regardless of whether the application utilizes a hybrid or microservices architecture, which ultimately streamlines the management of the application lifecycle. In a rapidly evolving technological landscape, NGINX Plus stands out as a vital tool for maximizing agility and optimizing resource utilization.

Node.js serves as an asynchronous event-driven JavaScript runtime specifically engineered for creating scalable network applications. Each time a connection is made, a callback function is triggered; however, if there are no tasks to execute, Node.js enters a sleep state. This approach stands in stark contrast to the more prevalent concurrency model that relies on operating system threads. Networking based on threads can be quite inefficient and often presents significant usability challenges. Additionally, Node.js users don't have to concern themselves with the complications of dead-locking the process since the architecture does not utilize locks. In fact, very few functions within Node.js handle I/O directly, ensuring that the process remains unblocked except when synchronous methods from Node.js's standard library are utilized. This non-blocking nature makes it highly feasible to develop scalable systems using Node.js. The design of Node.js shares similarities with, and draws inspiration from, frameworks like Ruby's Event Machine and Python's Twisted, extending the event model even further. Notably, Node.js incorporates the event loop as an integral runtime feature rather than relegating it to a mere library, thus enhancing its efficiency and functionality. This distinctive approach makes Node.js an attractive choice for developers looking to create high-performance applications.

Tornado is a web framework for Python that also serves as an asynchronous networking library, initially created at FriendFeed. Utilizing non-blocking network I/O, it has the capability to manage tens of thousands of simultaneous connections, making it particularly suited for applications requiring long-lived user connections, such as long polling and WebSockets. Unlike most Python web frameworks, Tornado does not follow the WSGI standard and is primarily operated with a single thread per process. Although the tornado.wsgi module offers some WSGI compatibility, it is not the main focus of development, and developers are encouraged to utilize Tornado’s own interfaces, like tornado.web, for building applications. It is important to note that Tornado code is generally not designed to be thread-safe. Since version 5.0, Tornado has been integrated with Python's standard library asyncio module, sharing the same default event loop. This integration allows for seamless mixing of libraries that are built for asyncio with Tornado, enhancing its versatility and functionality. As a result, developers can create highly efficient applications that leverage both Tornado's strengths and asyncio's capabilities.

OpenResty® is a comprehensive web platform that combines an enhanced version of the Nginx core, a refined LuaJIT, numerous well-crafted Lua libraries, a variety of high-quality third-party Nginx modules, and their associated external dependencies. Its primary purpose is to empower developers to effortlessly create scalable web applications, web services, and dynamic web gateways. By utilizing a range of thoughtfully designed Nginx modules—many of which are developed by the OpenResty team—OpenResty® transforms the Nginx server into a robust web application server, allowing web developers to leverage the Lua programming language to script various existing Nginx C modules along with Lua modules. This capability enables the construction of exceptionally high-performance web applications that can manage between 10,000 to over a million connections on a single server. OpenResty® is designed to execute your server-side web application entirely within the Nginx server, effectively utilizing Nginx's event-driven model to facilitate non-blocking I/O with HTTP clients, resulting in improved efficiency and responsiveness for applications. The platform not only enhances performance but also simplifies the development process for complex web solutions.

This project's primary aim is to excel in a singular task: effectively serving static web directories. Many existing solutions tend to be overly complicated with features like CGI support and reliance on third-party libraries, or they fall short by lacking essential functionalities such as TLS, virtual hosts, or support for partial content. Quark seeks to strike a balance by focusing solely on static content while still incorporating advanced features typically found in more cumbersome alternatives, all while prioritizing security through methods such as chroot, privilege dropping, and strict parsing without dynamic memory allocation. We maintain that the majority of the web can operate without dynamic components, arguing that the escalating complexity of server-side applications significantly contributes to the web's growing inefficiency. In contemporary practices, the trend leans towards handling everything server-side, from parsing requests to altering files and databases, and generating HTML, often using inappropriate languages like PHP or JavaScript, which leads to significant security vulnerabilities and inefficiencies. By simplifying these processes, we aim to create a more streamlined and secure web environment.

H2O represents a modern HTTP server that significantly enhances user response times while minimizing CPU usage compared to traditional web servers. Built from scratch, it leverages the advanced capabilities of HTTP/2, such as prioritized content delivery and server push, ensuring an exceptional experience for website visitors. It features comprehensive support for dependency and weight-based prioritization through server-side configurations. Thanks to community contributions, H2O is available as a binary package in various environments, allowing for an initial installation via your preferred package manager before considering a source installation. It is generally advisable to use LibreSSL for running H2O, as it is deemed more secure than OpenSSL and supports additional ciphersuites. Ultimately, choosing H2O can lead to improved performance and security for your web applications.

Jetty serves as both a web server and a servlet container, offering capabilities for HTTP/2, WebSocket, OSGi, JMX, JNDI, JAAS, among other integrations. These elements are open source, allowing for free commercial use and distribution. Jetty finds application in a diverse range of projects and products across development and production environments. Developers have preferred Jetty for years due to its strong history of easy embedding in devices, tools, frameworks, application servers, and contemporary cloud services. It is a robust, standards-compliant framework that is open source and usable commercially, featuring flexibility, extensibility, a small footprint, and support for asynchronous operations, all while being enterprise scalable and dual-licensed under both Apache and Eclipse. It is utilized in large-scale clusters like Facebook Presto and in cloud computing platforms such as Google AppEngine. As Java and the JakartaEE project (previously JavaEE) evolved in 2020, the current recommended Jetty version hinges on factors such as the servlet API version and licensing preferences. Jetty continues to adapt, ensuring it meets the evolving needs of modern software development.

Monkey serves as a lightweight yet robust web server and development stack tailored for Linux and OSX systems. It is engineered for exceptional scalability while maintaining minimal memory and CPU usage, making it an ideal choice for embedded devices. Designed to operate on ARM, x86, and x64 architectures, Monkey not only excels in lightweight applications but also provides a scalable solution suitable for high-performance production servers. With a primary focus on embedded systems, its architecture ensures efficient resource management, promoting low consumption rates. The server employs a hybrid approach that combines a fixed number of threads, each capable of servicing thousands of clients through an event-driven model utilizing asynchronous sockets. Furthermore, the lock-free interaction between the scheduler and worker threads significantly enhances performance, reducing the likelihood of race conditions and establishing Monkey as a superior alternative among web server options. This unique design and capability make Monkey not just a practical solution for embedded devices but also a formidable contender for handling demanding server environments.

Tengine, developed by Taobao, the largest e-commerce platform in Asia, is a web server that builds upon the Nginx HTTP server and boasts a range of advanced capabilities. This server has demonstrated exceptional stability and efficiency, serving some of the top 100 websites globally, including its parent site Taobao and tmall. Since becoming an open-source project in December 2011, Tengine has continued to thrive, with ongoing development led by a dedicated team composed of core members from Taobao, Sogou, and various other internet firms. The project fosters community involvement, encouraging contributions from developers everywhere. Notably, Tengine retains all features from Nginx-1.17.3, ensuring full compatibility with its predecessor. It supports the connect HTTP method for forward proxying and offers enhanced operational monitoring capabilities, including asynchronous logging, rollback features, DNS caching, and memory usage tracking. Furthermore, Tengine optimizes performance by allowing unbuffered uploads directly to HTTP and FastCGI backend servers, effectively reducing disk I/O operations. In addition, it incorporates multiple load balancing techniques, such as consistent hashing, session persistence, and upstream health checks, making it a robust choice for modern web applications. Overall, Tengine is an essential tool for developers seeking a reliable and feature-rich web server solution.

Kestrel serves as a versatile web server for ASP.NET Core applications, being the default server integrated into project templates. It provides support for various protocols including HTTPS and HTTP/2, though the latter is not available on macOS, and facilitates WebSockets through an opaque upgrade feature, along with Unix socket support for enhanced performance when operating behind Nginx. This web server is compatible with all platforms and versions that .NET Core accommodates. Developers must be aware that some browsers necessitate explicit permission to accept the local development certificate, and project templates are pre-configured to utilize HTTPS by default while also integrating HTTPS redirection and HSTS features. Kestrel offers specific configuration options that are particularly beneficial for deployments exposed to the internet, with distinct connection limits for those upgraded from HTTP or HTTPS to other protocols, such as during WebSocket requests. Notably, the server has a default limit for the maximum request body size set at approximately 28.6 MB, or 30,000,000 bytes, ensuring efficient handling of requests. Additionally, the flexibility of Kestrel allows developers to fine-tune these parameters according to their application's specific requirements.

Mongoose transforms software products, devices, or appliances into web servers that can be accessed through a browser. A prevalent application of Mongoose is to integrate a web-accessible control panel for various devices. It provides ready-made examples and tutorials for functionalities such as authentication, live logging, and video streaming. By utilizing Mongoose, users can effortlessly create APIs to manage their devices or applications remotely using a web browser, mobile devices, or automation solutions. Additionally, we have developed a highly memory-efficient and user-friendly JSON library, available under the MIT license, to enhance the capabilities of Mongoose. It supports real-time, full-duplex communication via MQTT or WebSocket protocols, allowing users to exchange unformatted data or encapsulate it in JSON for JSON-RPC usage. Furthermore, Mongoose facilitates the uploading of device data to any cloud server of your preference, whether it's a third-party provider or your own setup, ensuring flexibility and ease of use. This versatility makes Mongoose a powerful tool for modern web-enabled devices.

Lighttpd (pronounced lighty) is a web server that embodies security, speed, compliance, and flexibility, making it a game-changer in the realm of server efficiency, specifically tailored for high-performance environments. With its minimal memory usage in comparison to other web servers and its ability to effectively manage CPU load, lighttpd offers an impressive array of features, including FastCGI, SCGI, authentication, output compression, URL rewriting, and much more, making it an ideal choice for servers grappling with heavy load issues. Additionally, being open-source and licensed under the revised BSD license, lighttpd is accessible to a wide range of users. It also powers numerous well-known Web 2.0 platforms, demonstrating its reliability and performance in real-world applications. The server's superior input/output infrastructure enables websites to achieve remarkable scalability, significantly outperforming alternatives while utilizing the same hardware resources.

Hiawatha has been developed with a strong emphasis on security, resulting in a webserver that is both robust in code and rich in security features. It effectively protects against threats such as SQL injections, XSS, and CSRF attacks, as well as various exploit attempts. With a unique monitoring tool, users can easily oversee all their webservers in real-time. You don’t have to be an expert in HTTP or CGI to successfully deploy Hiawatha, as its configuration syntax is user-friendly and straightforward. The comprehensive documentation and practical examples provided on the website offer all the necessary guidance to get your webserver configured in just minutes. Despite encompassing all the essential elements of a modern webserver, Hiawatha remains lightweight and compact, making it an excellent choice for older hardware or embedded systems. Special optimization techniques are employed to ensure minimal resource consumption, further enhancing its appeal to users with limited hardware capabilities. Overall, Hiawatha strikes a perfect balance between security and efficiency.

NGINX Plus serves as a software load balancer, reverse proxy, web server, and content cache, equipped with the enterprise-level features and support that users anticipate. This solution is favored by modern application infrastructure and development teams for its efficiency. Beyond being recognized as one of the fastest web servers, NGINX Plus enhances the beloved attributes of NGINX Open Source by incorporating enterprise-grade functionalities such as high availability, active health checks, DNS service discovery, session persistence, and a RESTful API framework. It stands out as a cloud-native, user-friendly reverse proxy, load balancer, and API gateway. Whether your goal is to enhance monitoring capabilities, bolster security measures, or manage Kubernetes container orchestration, NGINX Plus ensures you receive the exceptional support synonymous with the NGINX brand. Additionally, it offers scalable and dependable high availability, equipped with monitoring tools to assist in debugging and diagnosing intricate application architectures. With active health checks, NGINX Plus continually monitors the status of upstream servers, allowing teams to anticipate and address potential issues before they escalate.

Caddy streamlines your infrastructure by managing TLS certificate renewals, OCSP stapling, serving static files, reverse proxying, Kubernetes ingress, and more. Its modular design allows for enhanced functionality within a single, static binary that can be compiled for any platform. Caddy operates exceptionally well in container environments due to its lack of dependencies, including libc. You can deploy Caddy almost anywhere. It automatically acquires and renews TLS certificates for your websites and even includes OCSP response stapling. The innovative certificate management capabilities of Caddy are among the most advanced and dependable available. Developed in Go, Caddy provides improved memory safety compared to servers built with C. A robust TLS stack supported by the Go standard library underpins a substantial portion of global Internet traffic. Caddy serves as both an adaptable, efficient static file server and a formidable, scalable reverse proxy, making it a versatile choice for a variety of applications. Additionally, its user-friendly configuration and seamless integration make it an appealing option for developers seeking simplicity and effectiveness.

Cherokee stands out as a cutting-edge, feature-laden, ultra-fast, and user-friendly open source web server tailored for the demands of the next generation of secure, highly concurrent web applications. Configuration is seamlessly managed through Cherokee-Admin, an elegant and robust web interface that simplifies the setup process. This server is compatible with a wide array of popular web technologies such as FastCGI, SCGI, PHP, uWSGI, SSI, CGI, LDAP, TLS/SSL, HTTP proxying, video streaming, and content caching, among others. It operates efficiently on platforms like Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and BSD, showcasing remarkable lightweight performance and exceptional stability. One of its standout features is the intuitive cherokee-admin interface, which offers a hassle-free way to configure every aspect of the server without the complexities of text file syntax. This focus on user experience makes Cherokee an attractive option for developers seeking both power and ease of use. Additionally, the ongoing development and community support further enhance its capabilities, ensuring it remains relevant in the evolving landscape of web technologies.

Cowboy serves as the premier server for contemporary web applications, offering compatibility with WebSocket, HTTP/2, and REST protocols. This lightweight, efficient, and modern HTTP server is built on Erlang/OTP and strives to deliver a comprehensive web stack. Its capabilities encompass HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, WebSocket, server-sent events, and REST based on Webmachine. With built-in functions for introspection and tracing, developers can monitor system behavior in real-time, and its modular architecture allows for straightforward integration of additional instrumentation. Recognized for its high quality, Cowboy features a compact codebase that ensures optimal performance in terms of both latency and memory utilization, making it suitable for embedding within other applications. The code is crafted in clean Erlang style and undergoes rigorous testing, ensuring full compliance with the Dialyzer. Furthermore, extensive documentation is available, including a function reference, user guide, and various tutorials, making it accessible for users. While familiarity with the HTTP protocol is beneficial, it is not mandatory, as the guide provides thorough coverage of the essentials throughout. Overall, Cowboy continues to be a reliable choice for developers seeking a robust server solution.

Apache Traffic Server™ is a high-performance, scalable, and adaptable caching proxy server that supports HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2 protocols. Once a proprietary product, it was gifted to the Apache Foundation by Yahoo! and is now employed by numerous leading content delivery networks and website owners. By caching and reusing frequently accessed web pages, images, and web service calls, it significantly enhances response times while alleviating server load and minimizing bandwidth consumption. The server is designed to efficiently scale on contemporary symmetric multiprocessing hardware, managing tens of thousands of requests per second with ease. Users can seamlessly incorporate features such as keep-alive connections, content filtering, anonymization of requests, or implement load balancing through a proxy layer. It also offers APIs for developing custom plug-ins, providing the flexibility to modify HTTP headers, process ESI requests, or create unique caching algorithms. Successfully handling over 400TB of data daily at Yahoo! in both forward and reverse proxy configurations, Apache Traffic Server has proven its resilience and reliability in high-demand environments. This makes it an ideal choice for organizations seeking a robust solution for their caching proxy needs.

OpenLiteSpeed is the Open Source version of LiteSpeed Web Server Enterprise. Both servers are maintained and actively developed by the same team. They also adhere to the same high-quality code standard. OpenLiteSpeed includes all the essential features of LiteSpeed Enterprise and is a sign of our support for the Open Source community. Events driven processes, lower overhead, and great scalability. You can keep your existing hardware. OpenLiteSpeed is compatible with mod_rewrite, so there's no need to learn a new syntax. You can continue to use your existing rules for rewriting. The built-in full-page cache module can be customized and optimized for exceptional user experience. Mod_pagespeed module automatically implements Google's PageSpeed optimization process. Just one click install OpenLiteSpeed, MariaDB, and WordPress on different operating systems.

Abyss Web Server is a lightweight web server compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms. It may be compact, but it boasts a wide range of features, including support for HTTP/2 and secure SSL/TLS connections (HTTPS), automated provisioning and renewal of free Let's Encrypt® certificates (ACME v2), and full IPv6 support. Additionally, it offers functionalities such as on-the-fly HTTP compression, dynamic content generation via CGI/FastCGI scripts, ISAPI extensions, native ASP.NET support, and reverse proxying for HTTP, HTTPS, and WebSocket connections. The server also allows for eXtended Side Includes (XSSI), custom error pages, password protection mechanisms, IP address control, anti-leeching capabilities, bandwidth throttling, and log rotation. Furthermore, it comes equipped with an automatic anti-hacking system and a user-friendly multilingual remote web management interface, which simplifies the configuration process to the ease of browsing a website while ensuring robust security and performance.

Apache Tomcat® is an open-source software that serves as a realization of the Jakarta Servlet, Jakarta Server Pages, Jakarta Expression Language, Jakarta WebSocket, Jakarta Annotations, and Jakarta Authentication specifications, which fall under the Jakarta EE umbrella. This versatile software is integral to a vast array of large-scale, essential web applications utilized by various industries and organizations. You can find stories from some of these users on the PoweredBy wiki page. The Apache Tomcat Project is excited to announce the launch of version 10.0.10 of Apache Tomcat, which incorporates specifications from the Jakarta EE 9 platform. This new version aims to enhance performance and provide improved features for developers and organizations alike.

Our lightweight Apache alternative saves resources without compromising performance, security, compatibility, and convenience. LiteSpeed Web Server's event-driven architecture doubles the capacity of your Apache servers. It can handle thousands of concurrent clients and consume minimal memory and CPU usage. ModSecurity rules are already in place to protect your servers. You can also take advantage of many built-in antiDDoS features like bandwidth and connection throttling. You can save capital by reducing the number servers required to support your growing web hosting business or online application. Reduce complexity by eliminating the need to use an HTTPS reverse proxy or other 3rd party caching layer. LiteSpeed Web Server can load Apache configuration files directly and is compatible with all Apache features, including ModSecurity and Rewrite Engine.

The preview version of MacHTTP-js has been launched for macOS, showcasing innovative features that were not part of the original application released in 1992. Developed entirely on the node.js platform, MacHTTP-js is a cross-platform web server solution compatible with macOS, Windows, and Linux. This application is designed to serve the needs of modern desktops and servers alike. Currently, Mac users can access the preview version, with plans for a general release on Windows 10 and Linux, which will also incorporate Docker support. Notably, this initial release is robust for macOS, with other operating systems set to receive updates soon after. The anticipation for its wider availability reflects the growing demand for versatile web server solutions in today’s digital landscape.