Apache

Apache Server, also known as Apache, is most famous and widely used web server software. It gained its popularity because it is an open source and is free to use.

It supports plenty of features and includes some well-known modules that extend its core functionality, e.g. mod_rewrite which is a common way to create custom URL’s for websites.

Apache supports multiple platforms, like Linux, Windows and Macintosh operating systems.

It is worth mentioning that virtual hosting allows using single Apache installation to serve different websites. This means single machine with Apache installed on it may serve www.somesite.com, www.somesite.org, test.somesite.com etc.

While the Apache web server is commonly called just “Apache”, its technical name is “Apache HTTP Server” since the software serves webpages over the HTTP protocol.

Apache can host static websites as well as dynamic ones which use such scripting languages as PHP, Python, etc. Therefore, instead of being a unified system, Apache uses a set of multiprocessing modules to support aforementioned languages.

With the above being said, Apache was able to become this popular among web hosting companies since they are able to offer Apache-based web hosting solutions at minimal costs.