Web Services

What WWW servers does DirectAdmin support?

DirectAdmin has support for a variety of WWW servers. To check which one is in use, and possible options:

da build opt_help | grep webserver
> webserver: apache, nginx, nginx_apache, litespeed, openlitespeed. Current value: openlitespeed. Default value: apache.

Where:

• apache is the most popular. This is the Apache HTTP server from https://httpd.apache.org/
• nginx is high performance open-source web server, great for static files but has limitations for .htaccess files, so it may require manual adjustments. https://www.nginx.com/
• nginx_apache is a powerful reverse proxy where nginx serves static files, while dynamic files and .htaccess are processed by Apache. It's a good choice without needs to modify existing scripts or mod_rewrite rules. It mainly benefits slow connections.
• litespeed is a commercial web server. It is a drop-in replacement for Apache from LiteSpeed Technologies. It provides faster response times and reduced server load average when compared with Apache.
• openlitespeed is the open source edition of the LiteSpeed Web Server, and contains all essential features and benefits from it, with some limitations. It's not a drop-in replacement for Apache though, due to lack of full .htaccess support and different configuration syntax.

Which WWW server is the recommended one?

Every system may have specific needs, a comparison table:

Web Server	Advantages	Disadvantages	Suitable for shared hosting?
Apache	industry standard, highly customizable	high memory usage and slow for static files	YES
Nginx	great performance and response times	has no support for .htaccess, needs manual configuration for URL rewrites	NO
Nginx+Apache	great performance and response times, full support for .htaccess	high memory usage	YES for servers with 8+ GB of RAM
OpenLiteSpeed	great performance, HTTP/3 support, built-in page caching	minimal .htaccess support	YES
LiteSpeed	great performance, HTTP/3 support, page caching available, suitable for high-traffic sites, stunning performance	commercial	YES

OpenLiteSpeed might be a great option for WordPress-only hosting or other CMSs that have the LSCache caching plugin.

How to switch between webservers?

::: code-group-item Apache

bash

da build set webserver apache
da build php1_mode php-fpm
da build apache
da build php
da build rewrite_confs

More about apache ::: ::: code-group-item NGINX

bash

da build set webserver nginx
da build set php1_mode php-fpm
da build nginx
da build php
da build rewrite_confs

More about NGINX ::: ::: code-group-item NGINX+Apache

bash

da build set webserver nginx_apache
da build set php1_mode php-fpm
da build nginx_apache
da build php
da build rewrite_confs

More about NGINX+Apache ::: ::: code-group-item OpenLiteSpeed

bash

da build set webserver openlitespeed
da build set php1_mode lsphp
da build openlitespeed
da build php
da build rewrite_confs

More about OpenLiteSpeed ::: ::: code-group-item LiteSpeed

bash

da build set webserver litespeed
da build set php1_mode lsphp
da build litespeed
da build php
da build rewrite_confs

More about LiteSpeed :::