Thread: Difference between Application Servers and Web Servers

What is the difference between the 2 servers?

An app server is a software framework. It is dedicated to do one task and includes programs, routines, scripts for the the construction of applications. An app server is used to manage business logic and works over http, https, gui, webserver and other protocols based clients. Examples of Java application servers - JBoss, Apache Geronimo, Weblogic. Zend offers an application server called Zend Serve for PHP applications. Zope is another app server written in Python. App servers are complex to design.

A web server only handles HTTP and HTTPS protocol and used to create html pages only. You can use PHP, Python, Perl cgi script for dynamic page generation. Web servers are easy to design. Examples of web servers - Apache, lighttpd, IIS, nginx.

See - App server, Web server: What's the difference? - JavaWorld

Can't we use the Application Server to do the job of a Webserver and eliminate the need for a webserver?

Difference between AppServer and a Web server
(1) Webserver serves pages for viewing in web browser, application server provides exposes businness logic for client applications through various protocols

(2) Webserver exclusively handles http requests.application server serves bussiness logic to application programs through any number of protocols.

(3) Webserver delegation model is fairly simple,when the request comes into the webserver,it simply passes the request to the program best able to handle it(Server side program). It may not support transactions and database connection pooling.

(4) Application server is more capable of dynamic behaviour than webserver. We can also configure application server to work as a webserver.Simply applic! ation server is a superset of webserver.

hai...

Web server supports only http protocol
Where as application server supports any type of protocols
such as tcp/ip,http etc..