Apache goes back a long way – it was launched in 1995, so it is now well over 20 years old. It’s full name is Apache HTTP Server, and some people refer to Apache just as httpd. Recent statistics suggest that Apache is the web server that powers more than half of the websites on the internet, it is without doubt the most popular web server available.
Apache is OS agnostic, so you can run Apache on anything from Windows to Mac OS X. However, Apache is usually run on some variant of the Linux OS. Apache is open source and it is licensed under Apache License V2. You can easily extent Apache thanks to its modular nature, simply by adding extra modules to enable additional features.
One popular example of an extension for Apache is mod_proxy which enables you to use a gateway or proxy on your Apache server – it also makes it easy to use load balancing across all of the supported protocols. HTTP2 is also supported by Apache thanks to an add-in module called mod_http2, but you can only use mod_http2 if you have Apache version 2.4 or alter.
The Apache open source web server has been the most popular way to serve web pages since 1996 and therefore benefits from extensive passive support – you will find bags of Apache documentation, alongside integrated support for Apache offered by many other software products. Apache is managed by the Apache Foundation, there is a page for the Apache project here.
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