Web Server vs Application Server – Difference Between Them
Key Difference between Web Server and Application Server
- Web Server is s responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients and serving back that HTTP response, whereas the Application server exposes business logic to the clients, which generates dynamic content.
- Web servers are used for producing produce static or dynamic hypertext documents, and Application servers use for text document generation for the computation on provided data.
- Web server consumes fewer resources like CPU memory compared with the application server, while the application server utilizes more resources.
- The web server supports HTTP/s Protocol, but the application server supports HTTP/s and RPC/RMI protocols.
- Web server provides an environment to run a web application, but the application server gives an environment to run the web with enterprise applications.
What is Server?
A server is a central repository where data and computer programs are stored and accessed by the clients in the network. It helps you to manage network resources, and provides shared services to connect workstations. It also allows you to shared data or hardware and software resources among clients. There are mainly two types of server 1) Webserver and 2) Application serve
What is a Web Server?
A Web Server is a computer program or a computer that runs the application. It is the main feature of accepting HTTP requests from clients and deliver webpage and then serving back HTTP responses. It could also be determined as a virtual machine program. This type of delivery consists of HTML documents or additional content like style sheets and JavaScript.
What is an Application Server?
An application server is a sever type that helps you to host applications. It provides both facilities to create a web app and a server environment to run them.
This type of application server clients can include a webserver, GUIs running on a PC, or even other application servers. All the information is traveling back and forward between an application server and its client. It is also not restricted to just display mark-up.
The information is program logic, which takes the form of data and method and not static HTML. The client allows you to employ the exposed business logic whenever they want.
For example, application servers, like the Apache Tomcat, power the interactive parts of a website, which may appear depends on the context of the request.
Differences Between Web Server vs Application Server
Here are some important differences between Web Server and Application Server:
| Web Server | Application Server |
|---|---|
| Web Server is a computer program or a computer that runs the application. | An application server is a sever type that helps you to host applications. |
| It is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients and serving back that HTTP responses. | It exposes business logic to the clients, which generates dynamic content. |
| Subset of the application server. | Superset of a web server. |
| Web servers are used for producing produce static or dynamic, hypertext documents. | Application servers use for text document generation for the computation on provided data. |
| Web servers need a web browser to display the result of the HTTP request. This is commonly known as an HTTP response. | The client-side application is need to continuous data exchange between the application server and client application. |
| It provides an environment for server-side programs to execute and produce HTTP response in results. | The application server offers an ambiance to expose the functionality of the software installed at the server-side to the clients. |
| Web servers are accessed using HTTP request and HTTP protocols. | Application servers are accessed using APIs. |
| The result is a hypertext document storing the information which is displayed to the user on a web browser. | The result is XML, JSON, and HTML, etc. files that contain required data and can serve a special purpose depending upon the user’s needs. |
| The web server delivers static content. | The application server delivers dynamic content. |
| Reduces longer running processes that are resource-intensive. | Reduces web traffic, which is not resource-intensive. |
| Web server consumes fewer resources like CPU memory compared with the application server. | The application server utilizes more resources. |
| The web server supports HTTP Protocol. | The application server supports HTTP and RPC/RMI protocols. |
| Web server enables to serve web-based applications. | The application server helps you to serve web-based applications as well as enterprise-based applications. |
| Web servers support scripting languages like PHP, Perl, JSP, ASP, etc. | Assist Application server services such as transaction support, connection pooling, object pooling. |
| The web server does not support multithreading. | Application server assists multithreading and distributed transactions. |
| Web servers are primarily designed to serve HTTP content. | Application server can also serve HTTP content. However, it is also assists protocol like RMI/RPC. |
| It provides an environment to run a web application. | The application server gives an environment to run the web with enterprise applications. |
Features of Web Server:
Here are important features of a web server:
- Handles HTTP Protocol (static contents)
- No Server-side Programming.
- Support web-Based Applications (JSP, Servlets, PHP, HTML, etc.)
- Not support Database Connection Pooling.
- Not provide EJB support.
Features of Application Server:
Here are important features of a web server:
- Serves dynamic business logic.
- It helps you to manage backend logic like calculations, database, processing, etc.
- It helps you to deploy applications, dependency injection, security, etc. database pooling, and EJB.
- The superior server of Web Server.