Apache HTTP Server vs. Cowboy vs. Java vs. Tengine Comparison Chart

Cowboy is the ultimate server for the modern Web with support for Websocket, HTTP/2 and REST. Cowboy is a small, fast and modern HTTP server for Erlang/OTP. Cowboy aims to provide a complete modern Web stack. This includes HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, WebSocket, server-sent events and Webmachine-based REST. Cowboy comes with functions for introspection and tracing, enabling developers to know precisely what is happening at any time. Its modular design also easily enables developers to add instrumentation. Cowboy is a high-quality project. It has a small code base, is very efficient (both in latency and memory use) and can easily be embedded in another application. Cowboy is clean Erlang code. It includes hundreds of tests and its code is fully compliant with the Dialyzer. It is also well documented and features a function reference, a user guide and numerous tutorials. Knowledge of the HTTP protocol is recommended but not required, as it will be detailed throughout the guide.

Tengine is a web server originated by Taobao, the largest e-commerce website in Asia. It is based on the Nginx HTTP server and has many advanced features. Tengine has proven to be very stable and efficient on some of the top 100 websites in the world, including Taobao and tmall. Tengine has been an open source project since December 2011. It is being actively developed by the Tengine team, whose core members are from Taobao, Sogou and other internet companies. Tengine is a community effort and everyone is encouraged to get involved. All features of Nginx-1.17.3 are inherited, i.e., it is compatible with Nginx. Support the connect HTTP method for forward proxy. Enhanced operations monitoring, such as asynchronous log & rollback, DNS caching, memory usage, etc. Sends unbuffered upload directly to HTTP and FastCGI backend servers, which saves disk I/Os. More load balancing methods, e.g., consistent hashing, session persistence, upstream health check, etc.