Performance
Although the main design goal of Apache is not to be the "fastest" web server, Apache does have performance similar to other "high-performance" web servers. Instead of implementing a single architecture, Apache provides a variety of MultiProcessing Modules (MPMs) which allow Apache to run in a process-based, hybrid (process and thread) or event-hybrid mode, to better match the demands of each particular infrastructure. This implies that the choice of correct MPM and the correct configuration is important. Where compromises in performance need to be made, the design of Apache is to reduce latency and increase throughput, relative to simply handling more requests, thus ensuring consistent and reliable processing of requests within reasonable time-frames.
The Apache 2.2 series was considered significantly slower than nginx for delivering static pages, although remaining significantly faster for dynamic pages. To address this issue, the Apache version considered by the Apache Foundation as providing high-performance is the multi-threaded version which mixes the use of several processes and several threads per process. This architecture, and the way it was implemented in the Apache 2.4 series, provides for performance equivalent or slightly better than event-based webservers.
Read more about this topic: Apache HTTP Server
Famous quotes containing the word performance:
“Kind are her answers,
But her performance keeps no day;
Breaks time, as dancers,
From their own music when they stray.”
—Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
“They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The way to go to the circus, however, is with someone who has seen perhaps one theatrical performance before in his life and that in the High School hall.... The scales of sophistication are struck from your eyes and you see in the circus a gathering of men and women who are able to do things as a matter of course which you couldn’t do if your life depended on it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)