An Overview of the Boa Web Server

Gentu writes "There is a pretty new and little known, lite web server in town, named Boa. The server can run very fast on older machines, even on embedded devices, but it is only CGI-based. OSNews introduces Boa (running under Linux) and it includes some preliminary benchmarks against Apache and thttpd."

Comments

performance info is useless

[WPIDalamar]

The test performance against apache using a different test program for each server. Furthermore, it looks like Boa is designed for one thing... speed. Apache is designed to be feature complete. It's like comparing apples and pumpkins.

Re:performance info is useless

[tmark]

It's not useless or irrelevant if you happen to be using Apache, don't need it's full feature set, and really need performance. Or maybe you're in a situation where you're considering both, and it MIGHT be convenient to use the full Apache feature set, but might be willing to work around deficiencies to have better performance. In other words, this info is relevant any time when the user is prepared to trade-off features against performance or vice-versa, when the need for feature-set and performance is not absolute and written in stone. In any such circumstance, it's entirely appropriate to compare performance, as long as the user recognizes there are other differences.

Re:Disappointing

[peterb]

Why do we need to waste the time and effort of so many skilled coders and frontiersmen of the Open Source revolution on a Web server project that should clearly be marked -1, Redundant?

Wait a minute, who is "we"?

I mean, no offense, but who the hell are you to tell a programmer what she should work on? Oh wait, did I say "no offense?" I meant "plenty of offense." As long as the Boa guys are enjoying what they're doing, more power to them. Now, maybe you're whining about Slashdot writing an article on it, but that's hardly the Boa guys fault.

And, frankly, you sound like the type of person that's going to find something irritating to whine about no matter what.

I mean, think about it folks. Then, with their newly saved time, these Boa developers could have embarked on another project that's of high merit, something that we as Open Sourcers truly need, and, to quote typical manager talk, "needed yesterday".

Well, maybe some of us want to do work because it's fun, and we're interested in it, rather than because some random internet bozo thinks he 'needs' it.

I am doing my part for our revolution, people.

Yeah, I can see that -- you're already trying to impose your own narrowminded "managerial" (your label, not mine) viewpoint on the people that are trying to get work done, and touting your own superiority. Whooooo, how innovative and revolutionary.

So why don't you just crawl back into your hole and write whatever code you want to, instead of whining that other people are working on things that don't benefit you personally?

Re:Disappointing

[rmolehusband]

Why do we need to waste the time and effort of so many skilled coders and frontiersmen of the Open Source revolution on a Web server project that should clearly be marked -1, Redundant?

Maybe...

• For the fun of it!
  
• To see if we can!
  
• To hack, tinker, improve and innovate?
  

OK, so a lot of open source projects start up to fill a gap and a lot of open source projects start up to replace a proprietary or expensive solution, but a lot start up just to try and do something in a new way or innovative way, to experiment or to learn. It's the hacker way.

OS is so productive becasue of this hacker attitude, stifle it at your peril.

Re:Still slower than ZWS

[Moloch666]

For the price to performance ratio apache wins.

Re:This comes down to..

[Erasei]

I agree, and disagree.

I agree that this will never replace Apache. However, from what I have read about it so far, it was never meant to.

I disagree on the part that this is "dead". Just like Linux, web servers are going in two different directions. The first, and most common is serving web pages for web sites as we think of them today. Public sites either giving information or selling a product.

There is a new market emerging though, that Boa will be well suited for. The advanced-embedded market. I am not talking PIC processors or having a web server in a lightbult, but the more advanced devices that need a slightly more advanced webserver, without needing things like virtual hosting. This type of web server should do very well on home routers and firewalls and such devices.

"Medium-range" system, ha!

[Wonko42]

I spurted Coke out my nose when I got to the benchmarking portion of the article, where the author calls his 700MHz Duron system with 384MB RAM a "medium-range" system. Ha! Medium-range maybe if you're talking about big fat corporate servers. I host The Uptimes Project, which handles over a million database-driven dynamic page hits per day (including pages that generate large graphs on the fly), plus several other medium-traffic sites, all on a 350 MHz Pentium II running Apache under FreeBSD. This little server handles all that traffic without even blinking.

Before this, I used to host a medium-traffic database-driven website on an old Pentium 166 with 64 megs of RAM running -- get this -- Windows 2000 Server. And it never blinked either (except when I got Slashdotted once; that really hurt).

Anyway, in an article about a great low-overhead super efficient webserver like Boa, I'd really like to see benchmarks on systems that are actually low-end, as opposed to systems that are low-end if your other server is a quad Xeon with 16 gigs of RAM.