FAQ Background - Frequently Asked Questions Background information about the Apache HTTP Server.
Background
What is Apache?

The Apache Software Foundation provides organizational, legal, and financial support for a broad range of open source software projects. The Foundation provides an established framework for intellectual property and financial contributions that simultaneously limits contributors potential legal exposure. Through a collaborative and meritocratic development process, Apache projects deliver enterprise-grade, freely available software products that attract large communities of users. The pragmatic Apache License makes it easy for all users, commercial and individual, to deploy Apache products.

For more details about the Foundation, please see the Apache Software Foundation FAQ

The Apache HTTP Server -- sometimes called Apache httpd -- is a project of the Apache Software Foundation aimed at creating a robust, commercial-grade, featureful, and freely-available source code implementation of an HTTP (Web) server. For more information, please see the About Apache page.

What is the Apache HTTP Server?
  • is a powerful, flexible, HTTP/1.1 compliant web server
  • implements the latest protocols, including HTTP/1.1 (RFC2616)
  • is highly configurable and extensible with third-party modules
  • can be customised by writing 'modules' using the Apache module API
  • provides full source code and comes with an unrestrictive license
  • runs on Windows 2003/XP/2000/NT/9x, Netware 5.x and above, OS/2, and most versions of Unix, as well as several other operating systems
  • is actively being developed
  • encourages user feedback through new ideas, bug reports and patches
How thoroughly tested is Apache?

Apache is run on millions of Internet servers. It has been tested thoroughly by both developers and users. The Apache HTTP Server Project maintains rigorous standards before releasing new versions of our server, and our server runs without a hitch on over 70% of all WWW servers available on the Internet. When bugs do show up, we release patches and new versions as soon as they are available.