lighthttpd the right tool for some jobs

Posted on February 14th, 2008 by Yousef Ourabi

Fans of any thing, any sports team, product, or software package tend to over exagerate the greatness the object of their affection may or may not exhibit.

lighthttpd and its fans are no different. There is an interesting thread in the wikipedia mailing list inquiring about the “advertised” use of lighthttpd — pronounced “lighty” — on wikipedia servers.

The truth of the matter is that Apache is running the “wiki” portion, while lighthttpd serves up static content like CSS and images. And that is what they are both good at, lighty built for speed is dedicated to serving static files like CSS and images, and apache for generating dynamic content.

1) More people know apache, can configure it, and properly secure it

2) It is really not geared towards generating dynamic content (think php…)

3) Has fewer plugins.

So, no, you should not apply lighthttpd everywhere. Apply it where it will shine, serving static files quickly. Use Apache for everything else.

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