Comparison With Related APIs and Protocols
NSAPI can be compared to an earlier protocol named Common Gateway Interface (CGI). Like CGI, NSAPI provides a means of interfacing application software with a web server. Unlike CGI programs, NSAPI plug-ins run inside the server process. Because CGI programs run outside of the server process, CGI programs are generally slower than NSAPI plug-ins. However, running outside of the server process can improve server reliability by isolating potentially buggy applications from the server software and from each other.
In contrast to CGI programs, NSAPI SAFs can be configured to run at different stages of request processing. For example, while processing a single HTTP request, different NSAPI SAFs can be used to authenticate and authorize the remote user, map the requested URI to a local file system path, generate the web page, and log the request.
After Netscape introduced NSAPI, Microsoft developed ISAPI and the Apache Software Foundation developed the Apache API. All three APIs have a number of similarities. For example: NSAPI, ISAPI and the Apache API allow applications to run inside the server process. Further, all three allow applications to participate in the different stages of request processing. For example, Apache API's hooks closely resemble those used in NSAPI.
Read more about this topic: Netscape Server Application Programming Interface
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