Apache vs Node.js – What’s the Difference ? (Pros and Cons). At the outset, let’s start with one of the most popular web servers. Well Apache advantage is that it works by accepting requests from a web browser. On the other hand, the second platform that we will introduce is Node js.
In contrast, node js is a cross platform runtime environment that is used to run web applications outside the client’s browser.
Also worth noting is that it is used for development and deployed to event driven non blocking servers. Simply put, sites can be run using a unified “stack” which makes it quick and easy to build and maintain.
In this article, we will learn what Apache and Node js are, how they work, and we will also learn about their pros and cons. What’s more, we will learn about their benefits along with their features. Finally, at the end, we will compare them both.
Let’s start with article Apache vs Node.js – What’s the Difference ? (Pros and Cons).
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What is Apache?
Firstly, the first open source cross platform server Apache, hosts web content on the internet. Maintained and developed by the Apache Software Foundation. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that files from the web server or database servers are stored on a physical server just to be able to use it when needed.
Second, the web server stores files from the internet and runs between the physical servers in question and the client computers to make the content of user requests available and deliver it to the web service. Hence, the connection is established between the server and the browser. Then, Apache runs on Windows and UNIX to deliver files.
Also, worth adding that the open source web server was started by the American developer McCool. In 1995, Apache was released. At the beginning of 2020, these servers were implementing as much as about 30% of internet content, giving only Nginx priority.
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How does Apache work?
In nutshell, the software runs on the web server. First step is to establish a connection between the server and web browsers. This allows users from those web browsers to send requests to the server, and Apache is responsible for handling this.
The way a web server works is very simple. The basic task element of all web servers will be accepting what the customer requires. Here we are talking about the visitor’s web browsers. The responses to the customer’s request is then sent in the form of page components that the visitor wants to see.
Module of Apache adds more functionality to the program. MPM are used to support multiprocessing mode, as well as mod_ssl, which allows you to enable SSL v3 and TLS support.
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Features of Apache
- Load balancing.
- Gzip compression and decompression.
- Loadable dynamic modules.
- Handling of static files.
- Supports HTTP/2.
- Geolocation based on IP address.
- Better support for non Unix platforms.
- New Apache httpd API.
- Multilanguage error responses.
- Regular expression library updated.
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Pros
- Flexible due to its module based structure.
- Optimized delivery of static files and compatibility with any programming language (PHP,Python, etc.)
- Huge community and easily available support in case of any problem.
- Easy to configure and beginner friendly.
- Works out of the box with WordPress sites.
- Ability to add more features and modules to improve functions.
- Impressive documentation that is extensive and helpful.
- Straightforward to install.
Cons
- Strict updating policy is necessary and needs to be done at regular intervals.
- Performance problems on extremely traffic heavy websites.
- Too many configuration options can lead to security vulnerabilities.
- Recognizing and disabling unwanted services and modules.
Up next with Apache vs Node.js – What’s the Difference ? we will introduce Node.js.
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What is Node.js?
Next is open cross platform Node. Js, a JavaScriptserver environment. Additionally, this web server has the option of a library that it uses to run web applications beyond the client’s browser. In 2009, Dahl developed the latest version 15.14, and it was released in April 2021.
Node.js runs the V8 JavaScript engine outside the browser, which is the core of Google Chrome. This makes Node.js very powerful.
To point out, Node.js applications run in a single process without creating a new thread for each request. To explain, Node.js provides a set of asynchronous I/O alternatives in its standard library. Why? That is to avoid blocking JavaScript code. Node.js libraries are generally written using a non blocking model. As a result, this makes the behaviour blocking and is the exception rather than the rule.
It is also worth adding that the developers rely on Node js to create, create web applications on the server side. What’s more, it is even perfect for applications that require a lot of data because it uses an asynchronous event driven model.
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How does Node js work?
Node.JS runs and runs on VB’s JavaScript engine. The important thing to understand is that Node is not a web server but a runtime environment.
The way how Node js works:
- Node.js maintains a limited set of threads to process requests.
- When a request arrives, Node.js queues it.
- The main component is now running a single-threaded “event loop“. This event loop waits indefinitely for requests.
- When a request arrives, the loop retrieves it from the queue and checks to see if it needs to block I/O operations. If not, process the request and send a response.
- If the request has a blocking operation that needs to be executed, the event loop allocates a thread from the internal thread pool to process the request. The internal themes available are limited. This group of auxiliary drivers is called a working group.
- The event loop monitors and blocks the request queues while the blocking jobs are being processed. This is how it maintains its unobstructed nature.
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Features of Node js
Single threaded but highly scalable– Uses a thread model with an event loop. The event mechanism helps the server to respond in a non-blocking manner and makes the server highly scalable, unlike traditional servers that create limited threads to handle requests. Node.js uses single threaded applications, and the application itself can handle many more requests than traditional servers such as Apache HTTP Server.
Maintainable– Is an easy choice for developers because the front end and backend can be handled using JavaScript as a single language.
Easy– Quite easy to start with. It’s a go to choice for web development beginners. With a lot of tutorials and a large community getting started is very easy.
Packages– There are several open source Node.js packages available to simplify your work. There are currently over 1 million packages in the NPM ecosystem.
Speed– The implementation of an unlocked thread makes Node.js faster and more efficient.
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Pros and cons of Node.js
Pros
- Offers the freedom to develop apps.
- Getting support for commonly used tools.
- Handles the requests simultaneously.
- Node.js is highly extensible.
- The support of large and active community.
- Node.js is used as a single programming language.
Cons
- High demand with a few experienced Node.js developers.
- Choose wisely – lack of library support can endanger your code.
- Reduces performance when handling heavy computing tasks.
- Generally Node.js invites a lot of code changes due to unstable API.
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Key differences between Apache vs Node.js
Service
Apache is a topic and a process, ie. each request is handled by a separate thread or process (depending on configuration). That means that if a process is waiting for I/O, the entire thread will block.
The node JS contains asynchronous event driven I/O. Each instance of nodejs runs on a single thread and, due to its asynchronous nature. Therefore, handles more concurrent requests than Apache.
Task
When Apache receives a CPU-intensive request, other requests are not blocked due to context switching between threads.
But with NodeJs, when it receives a CPU intensive request and all other requests are blocked until that CPU intensive request stops I/O. When using Node Js, it is a good idea to delegate CPU intensive requests to workers or other processes.
Safety against failure
Moreover Apache is thread dependent, so if there is an unexpected problem processing a request, only that thread will be terminated and all other requests and threads will continue as is.
Forthwith. Node Js uses a single thread to handle multiple requests. If something goes wrong, the entire node.js instance will crash and all global data is stored in javascript variables or arrays. It can restart automatically with “forever” or other modules, but the current request and data is gone.
Construction
Apache PHP is commonly used as a scripting language, which is very easy for beginners and is designed for the web.
Node js is just a v8 javascript engine and was not originally intended as a web service.
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Build applications
Many popular CMS programs like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla as well as Yii, Laravel, Code Ignitor and Cake PHP work on development frameworks provided by Apache. These frameworks are useful for organizing the code base of a large application.
Node Js also has web frameworks like Express and sails js but they are new and support is not readily available compared to Apache framework.
JSON
Apache modules (such as PHP) can take longer because they cannot parse and process JSON efficiently because they require a command to process the data.
Here, Node.js uses JavaScript, so it can be very fast to loop through and process JSON obtained from external web API sources like MongoDB. In turn, that reduces the time required for each request.
Components
Apache executes sequential requests on a repository and cannot reuse threads when one of its modules is waiting for a task to complete. Apache will then queue the request until the thread becomes available again in the pool.
Node.js can delegate query execution to a separate component and focus on the new query until the delegated component returns the processed results. This is asynchronous code that is executed by the event model.
Migrations
When you’re doing a lot of small queries that take a long time to run sequentially, Apache will get to them faster.
Node.js will work more efficient, when you have a lot of arithmetic tasks.
Thank you for reading Apache vs Node.js – What’s the Difference ? (Pros and Cons). We shall conclude
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Apache vs Node.js – What’s the Difference ? Conclusion
Well Apache is a web server such as listening for requests, and serving the content up that matches that request. On the other hand, Node.js is a runtime environment ( where javascript is executed outside of the browser). Imagine Node.js as a language interpreter.
Summing up, do not use Node.js if you don’t need to deal with complex and more CPU intensive logic, usually cryptographic logic. In this case, it is better to choose Apache server or any other multi threaded server. If your application is a simple set of CRUD based services without any complicated and expensive tasks, there is nothing better than NodeJS.
If you wanna know more about Apache and Node.js click here and here.
