Web server

The term "Web Server" is an ambiguous term, because it describes one of two related things:

• A piece of software that can handle HTTP requests in order to generate a web page in HTML (optionally even in other languages). Various types of web servers on the Internet make the World Wide Web possible, and serve its content to web browsers on computers connected to the Internet.
• A specialized computer (or group of computers - see cluster) whose main task is to host web sites running web server software that handles the HTTP requests.

Web servers can be connected to the worldwide Internet for usage by the general public or to a local internal network such as a company for internal usage (called an intranet).

Popular web server software

Two of the most popular and widely used web servers include:

• The Apache HTTP Server, colliqually known as simply 'Apache'
• Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS)