Difference between Application Server and Web server? [ 2024 ]
Application Server and Web server
In this tutorial, we will learn the difference between an Application Server and a Web Server and learn about the examples of each in this post. Note that all application servers can be considered and function like web servers.
What is a Server?
A server is a software program or hardware device that can service multiple clients on a computer network. Server can handle requests from the client, processes it and responds with a response to the clients.
Web server
Web Server can only handle, process and respond to web requests from its clients on HTTP/(s) protocols. We can only deploy web applications (.war files) that server web pages to its clients on the Web container.
Examples
- Apache HTTP Server
- Microsoft IIS ( Internet Information Services)
Application Server
Application servers on the other hand can support other protocols or specifications like JSP/Servlets, EJB(Enterprise Java Beans) etc. We can deploy enterprise applications( .ear files ) on the EJB container.
Examples
- JBoss / Wildfly
- Redhat EAP
- Microsoft IIS
- Weblogic
- WebSphere
Related
Apache HTTP server installed on Linux
JBoss server installed on Linux