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Apache 2.4 Takes Direct Aim At Nginx
darthcamaro writes "The world's most popular web server is out with a major new release today that has one key goal — deliver more performance than ever before. Improved caching, proxy modules as well as new session control are also key highlights of the release. 'We also show that as far as true performance is based — real-world performance as seen by the end-user- 2.4 is as fast, and even faster than some of the servers who may be "better" known as being "fast", like nginx,' Jim Jagielski, ASF President and Apache HTTP Server Project Management Committee, told InternetNews.com." Here's list of new features in 2.4.
I have been running Release Candidiates of Apache 2.4 for a few months, on an underpowered and overloaded old laptop. The performance improvements over 2.2 on that same computer are really quite noticeable.
We need a fully async web server, like nginx, but with *full* support for fastcgi/http1.1 and connection pooling to the backend servers.
In case some people don't know, nginx uses http1 to connect to the servers, which means a new connection for reach request. Same thing for FastCGI. nginx opens a new FastCGI connection for each request, then tears it down once done, even though FastCGI supports persistent connections and true multiplexing.
nginx is awesome and I love competition, especially between opensource.
I think this is a fairly common sentiment towards Apache from developers who have to deploy their own stuff. I've certainly been in that camp more than a few times in the past. We're talking about:
- RAM usage
- Just being slow to push out simple files
- mod_php being the worst thing ever written
- mod_python disproving the last statement and taking the crown
- Various FastCGI/WSGI toolchains just not being up to scratch either.
I moved to nginx and Cherokee and suddenly configuration was both compact and modular and the settings seemed to make a real difference. RAM usage is completely minimal and performance is scorchingly hot. In more than one case I took an Apache box, switched Apache out and we were using half the RAM for the same jobs, and getting better performing websites, with less configuration.
I'm certain Apache could have been tuned but I don't think it's unreasonable for a developer to blame the software if you have to do a three year BSc in Apache Administration just to get something equivalent to 30 minutes playing in nginx.
I truly do hope that things are improving (competition is key in this environment!) but now I've left Apache on multiple servers, they're going to need to do more than just say "If you tune it, it can now match nginx speed", because my time is valuable too. I'm not going to jump back in until for most deployments it "just works".