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Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 4:24 am
When it comes to running PHP applications, choosing the right web server is critical. To accurately assess the performance of popular servers, we tested them not on synthetic data, but on real data. We did not want to compile our own rating of web servers for running PHP applications. Our goal was to show the conditions under which a particular web server will demonstrate the best results.
In the beginning, there was CGI. It was one of the first technologies for running server scripts, which appeared in the 90s. CGI supports different languages, which makes this interface quite universal, but with its drawbacks. For example, for each request, the server creates a separate process for each CGI script, which leads to an north korea company email list overuse of system resources and greatly affects the performance and response speed of the server. Another known problem is running a script with the rights of a web server user. That is, if the server is configured incorrectly, the CGI script can access not only the files and resources of another application, but also the logs and configuration of the server, which creates a potential vulnerability.
To solve these problems, Apache and the mod_php module were developed, which allowed PHP code to be run directly inside the web server and to set up individual file access rights for each host. Although a separate process was still created for each request, some data was cached, which significantly accelerated execution compared to CGI. This gave a significant increase in speed.
Apache + mod_php became popular due to its ease of configuration. Apache is still one of the popular web servers for the web and is often used to create something quickly and without much configuration.
In the beginning, there was CGI. It was one of the first technologies for running server scripts, which appeared in the 90s. CGI supports different languages, which makes this interface quite universal, but with its drawbacks. For example, for each request, the server creates a separate process for each CGI script, which leads to an north korea company email list overuse of system resources and greatly affects the performance and response speed of the server. Another known problem is running a script with the rights of a web server user. That is, if the server is configured incorrectly, the CGI script can access not only the files and resources of another application, but also the logs and configuration of the server, which creates a potential vulnerability.
To solve these problems, Apache and the mod_php module were developed, which allowed PHP code to be run directly inside the web server and to set up individual file access rights for each host. Although a separate process was still created for each request, some data was cached, which significantly accelerated execution compared to CGI. This gave a significant increase in speed.
Apache + mod_php became popular due to its ease of configuration. Apache is still one of the popular web servers for the web and is often used to create something quickly and without much configuration.