Get Notified when the Software is Updated
Apache HTTP Server, often referred to simply as “Apache,” is free, open-source, cross-platform web server software. It is released under the permissive Apache License 2.0 and developed and maintained by a collaborative community of developers under the guidance of the Apache Software Foundation.
This project is jointly managed by a group of volunteers worldwide, who leverage the Internet and the Web to seamlessly communicate, plan, and develop the server and its related documentation.
Apache HTTP Server is a robust, cross-platform solution offering smooth operation across many operating systems. It supports Unix-like systems, including macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD, as well as Windows. Approximately 92% of Apache HTTP Server instances run on Linux distributions.
This project is a collaborative software development effort to create a robust, commercial-grade, feature-rich, and freely available source code implementation of an HTTP web server.
This project is part of the Apache Software Foundation, a community-driven organization that fosters open-source software development. Hundreds of users and developers have contributed to this project, sharing their ideas, code, and documentation. The Apache Software Foundation aims to provide robust and commercially viable implementations of various software types. This foundation serves as a vital platform, empowering both individuals and institutions to build highly reliable systems for experimental research and mission-critical applications.
Apache HTTP Server Features:
- Loadable Dynamic Modules
- Multiple Request Processing modes (MPMs) include Event-based/Async, Threaded, and Prefork.
- Highly scalable (easily handles more than 10,000 simultaneous connections)
- Handling of static files, index files, auto-indexing, and content negotiation
- .htaccess support
- Reverse proxy with caching
- Load balancing with in-band health checks
- Multiple load-balancing mechanisms
- Fault tolerance and Failover with automatic recovery
- WebSocket, FastCGI, SCGI, AJP, and uWSGI support with caching
- Dynamic configuration.
- TLS/SSL with SNI and OCSP stapling support, via OpenSSL.
- Name- and IP address-based virtual servers
- IPv6-compatible
- HTTP/2 protocol support
- Fine-grained authentication and authorization access control
- gzip compression and decompression
- URL rewriting
- Headers and content rewriting
- Custom logging with rotation
- Concurrent connection limiting
- Request processing rate limiting
- Bandwidth throttling
- Server-side Includes
- IP address-based geolocation
- User and Session tracking
- WebDAV
- Embedded Perl, PHP, and Lua scripting
- CGI support
- public_html per-user web pages
- Generic expression parser
- Real-time status views
- XML support
Apache HTTP Server – Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| ✓ Supports Unix-like systems and Windows, giving administrators flexibility when choosing a server operating system. | ✗ Its multiple request-processing modes and loadable module system provide flexibility but require administrators to understand and configure the appropriate server components. |
| ✓ Loadable modules and multiple request-processing modes allow the server to be adapted to different hosting and application workloads. | ✗ Advanced reverse-proxy and load-balancing configurations include multiple mechanisms, health checks, caching, and failover options, which can add configuration complexity. |
| ✓ Built-in reverse proxy, caching, load balancing, health checks, and failover capabilities support more advanced web architectures. | ✗ The wide range of authentication, authorization, rewriting, logging, and traffic-control options can require careful server configuration for specific deployment needs. |
| ✓ Includes TLS/SSL, virtual hosting, IPv6, HTTP/2, authentication, authorization, compression, and URL rewriting for managing modern websites and web applications. | ✗ Supporting application technologies such as PHP, Perl, Lua, CGI, FastCGI, SCGI, AJP, and uWSGI means administrators may need to manage additional application interfaces alongside the web server itself. |
| ✓ Provides extensive administration features such as custom logging, rate limiting, bandwidth throttling, WebDAV, scripting support, CGI, and real-time status views. | ✗ The provided requirements section contains management-server, MySQL, and hypervisor requirements that appear unrelated to the Apache HTTP Server itself, so the supplied page does not provide a clean set of application-specific minimum hardware requirements. |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Apache HTTP Server used for?
Apache HTTP Server is a free, open-source web server used to deliver websites and web applications over HTTP and HTTPS. It can serve static content, host multiple websites through virtual hosting, work with application interfaces such as CGI and FastCGI, and operate as a reverse proxy.
Can Apache HTTP Server host multiple websites on one server?
Yes. Name-based and IP address-based virtual hosting let one server instance handle multiple websites or domains. This is useful when several sites need to share the same physical or virtual server infrastructure.
What is Apache HTTP Server MPM?
MPM stands for Multi-Processing Module, which controls how the server handles client requests and connections. The project supports Event-based/Async, Threaded, and Prefork processing modes for different server workloads.
Does Apache HTTP Server support .htaccess files?
Yes. It supports .htaccess, which provides per-directory configuration for applicable server settings. This can be useful for managing website behavior without changing the main server configuration file.
Official Homepage – https://httpd.apache.org
Minimum System Requirements
Management Server, Database, and Storage System Requirements
Machines running the Management Server and MySQL database must match the needed requirements. These machines may handle primary and secondary storage through local disk or NFS. The Management Server may be placed on an Instance.
- Operating system:
- Preferred: EL8+ or Ubuntu 22.04 or higher
- 64-bit x86 CPU (more cores result in better performance)
- 4 GB of memory
- 250 GB of local disk (more results in better capability; 500 GB recommended)
- At least 1 NIC
- Statistically allocated IP address
- Fully qualified domain name as returned by the hostname command
Host/Hypervisor System Requirements
Host is where cloud services appear as guest virtual machines. Each host is one machine that meets the following requirements:
- Must support HVM (Intel-VT or AMD-V enabled).
- 64-bit x86 CPU (more cores result in better performance)
- Hardware virtualization support is required
- 4 GB of memory
- 36 GB of local disk
- At least 1 NIC
- Latest hotfixes applied to hypervisor software
- When you deploy CloudStack, the hypervisor host must not have any VMs already running.
- All hosts within a cluster must be homogeneous. The CPUs must be of the same type, count, and feature flags.
Size: 10.3 MB
