Can Apache HTTP Server serve dynamic content?

Question

Can Apache HTTP Server serve only static content? Tomcat is used to serve Servlets/JSP. Can Tomcat serve other dynamic contents like perl, PHP etc?

Answer 1

Apache HTTP Server (http://httpd.apache.org) has:

• CGI support: mod_cgi. This will run almost any dynamic content, you can even write a CGI in Bash.

• WSGI support: mod_wsgi

• FastCGI support: mod_fcgid (CGI, but more efficient)

• Perl support: mod_perl

• PHP support: mod_php

• Python support: mod_python (using mod_wsgi is recommended)

• Ruby support: mod_ruby (thanks to David Holm)

• Bridge to serve Java content through a servlet container such as Tomcat: mod_jk, mod_proxy_ajp

• Plus, an API to program your own apache modules that'll enable you to do as you wish, here's a repository of some of the existing modules: http://modules.apache.org

If you meant if Tomcat can, it cannot outside of a Java environment, it is only a servlet container. That said, Java can execute some other scripting languages and thus you could write programs to generate content in all supported scripting engines.

Answer 2

Of course Apache is able to serve dynamic content! mod_perl, mod_php, and so are the modules you plug to Apache to give him the ability to serve them.