OpenLiteSpeed 1.0 Released under GPL3(open.litespeedtech.com)
open.litespeedtech.com
OpenLiteSpeed 1.0 Released under GPL3
http://open.litespeedtech.com/
5 comments
> but it's compatibility with Apache configuration might, just might give it some ex-Apache users
Looks like this open source version doesn't even offer Apache compatibility. That's for the "Enterprise" version only. From their home page:
"LiteSpeed Enterprise Edition provides some features above and beyond OpenLiteSpeed: hosting control panel compatibility, .htaccess file compatibility, mod_security compatibility, and page caching."
I'm not sure why would anyone want to use this instead of Nginx.
Looks like this open source version doesn't even offer Apache compatibility. That's for the "Enterprise" version only. From their home page:
"LiteSpeed Enterprise Edition provides some features above and beyond OpenLiteSpeed: hosting control panel compatibility, .htaccess file compatibility, mod_security compatibility, and page caching."
I'm not sure why would anyone want to use this instead of Nginx.
This is a huge problem for "open core" projects. The open-source core will never be able to implement the "Enterprise" features that are charged for, so open source projects without this split will win out.
You know, apache 2.4 is quite comparable to nginx in performance and overall badaness. I wouldn't write Apache off so easily.
See, I know you're probably right, but here's the thing: I have a 1Gb VPS that I run multiple web applications off for my personal use. With Apache2, I can get it to run them all under my RAM usage with a lot of tweaking. With nginx, I just install it.
It took me 2 years to finally realize this. Before that, I jumped from one beefed up dedicated server to another just to host few measly, low traffic websites. In my experience, even the most optimized apache installation will not have similar memory footprint as a default nginx install.
I have a question for people who are more proficient in web-servers, what are some of the scenarios where apache is a better choice (feature/speed/stability) than nginx?
I have a question for people who are more proficient in web-servers, what are some of the scenarios where apache is a better choice (feature/speed/stability) than nginx?
Apache has much more features, more modules, supports more auth schemes, etc.
And the documentation is awesome.
Apache configuration is generally better, less WTF.
E.g. the nginx headers module [1] allows you to either set a single header, or an expires directive, but not both. There is a HeadersMoreModule, which is more flexible, but in general nginx configuration looks like that.
Aliases/url rewrites/per-dir/per-location configuration are a mess in nginx. Want to set some special directives for the /assets location ? no problem. Want to set special directives for .css files ? no problem. Well, actually if you have .css files in /assets, if will have either directives for /assets or .css, but not both.
[1] http://wiki.nginx.org/HttpHeadersModule
And the documentation is awesome.
Apache configuration is generally better, less WTF.
E.g. the nginx headers module [1] allows you to either set a single header, or an expires directive, but not both. There is a HeadersMoreModule, which is more flexible, but in general nginx configuration looks like that.
Aliases/url rewrites/per-dir/per-location configuration are a mess in nginx. Want to set some special directives for the /assets location ? no problem. Want to set special directives for .css files ? no problem. Well, actually if you have .css files in /assets, if will have either directives for /assets or .css, but not both.
[1] http://wiki.nginx.org/HttpHeadersModule
All I remember about setting up nginx, is that it was a huge nightmare in terms off the configuration whereas installing apache was pretty easy. This seems even easier.
Litespeed is STILL faster than nginx and php-fpm.
Their PHP SAPI is second to none for performance.
You have to understand, you can drop litespeed into a working apache environment and replace apache entirely within an hour with a massive performance improvement (that exceeds nginx+php-fpm). It obeys 99% of apache httpd.conf and .htaccess directives. No other product has even attempted that.
Oh I see now the open version won't do apache compatibility. That kind of kills it.
But if the SAPI can be lifted for php-fpm, that would be amazing.
Their PHP SAPI is second to none for performance.
You have to understand, you can drop litespeed into a working apache environment and replace apache entirely within an hour with a massive performance improvement (that exceeds nginx+php-fpm). It obeys 99% of apache httpd.conf and .htaccess directives. No other product has even attempted that.
Oh I see now the open version won't do apache compatibility. That kind of kills it.
But if the SAPI can be lifted for php-fpm, that would be amazing.
PHP LSAPI itself has been open-source BSD forever, mainlined into PHP since version 5.3. There's no reason an nginx upstream module for lsapi was not written, in fact, there was talk of doing so from all the way back in 2009: http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,10755,10755
Don't ask me why it hasn't made its way to nginx in the form of mainline or a 3rd party module yet.
Don't ask me why it hasn't made its way to nginx in the form of mainline or a 3rd party module yet.
FPM is stuck with the overhead of latency and IPC delay from its CGI legacy.
Litespeed threw all that out with their approach to PHP, it's far more lightweight and why it's so much faster.
I really hope that someday, someone will sponsor a module for a FPM replacement inside nginx like Automattic did for spdy and CloudBees/Apcera did for websockets.
Given the sheer number of PHP and nginx users, you'd think this would have happened even before spdy or websockets but maybe the impression is php-fpm is "good enough".
Litespeed threw all that out with their approach to PHP, it's far more lightweight and why it's so much faster.
I really hope that someday, someone will sponsor a module for a FPM replacement inside nginx like Automattic did for spdy and CloudBees/Apcera did for websockets.
Given the sheer number of PHP and nginx users, you'd think this would have happened even before spdy or websockets but maybe the impression is php-fpm is "good enough".
FPM is a FastCGI server. That is, it does socket-based IPC (TCP or unix), with a binary protocol (FastCGI), with one process per request.
Litespeed seems very close to that: socket based IPC, with a seemingly custom binary protocol, one process per request.
Could you tell what's better in Litespeed module ?
Litespeed seems very close to that: socket based IPC, with a seemingly custom binary protocol, one process per request.
Could you tell what's better in Litespeed module ?
There is one. It's called Phusion Passenger (https://www.phusionpassenger.com). At this time it supports Ruby and Python. More languages are planned.
What are the performances differences between using LSAPI and FPM. Are we talking > 10%? If so, it does seem strange there has not been a nginx module developed?
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Their VPS licensing still perplexes me given the movement to VM based infrastructure.
"VPS license is a limited edition with the restriction of 2G memory and 500 concurrent connections. VPS license will NOT run on a server with more than 2GB of memory."
"VPS license is a limited edition with the restriction of 2G memory and 500 concurrent connections. VPS license will NOT run on a server with more than 2GB of memory."
> LiteSpeed Enterprise Edition provides some features above and beyond OpenLiteSpeed...
I can't get around the fact that any bug fixes, improvements, or edits to the GPL code will not be portable into the non-GPL branch.
I'd imagine that's a huge issue that stops most businesses from doing the 2 edition thing - community/open-source and pro edition.
Does anyone know of a license that allows this?
I can't get around the fact that any bug fixes, improvements, or edits to the GPL code will not be portable into the non-GPL branch.
I'd imagine that's a huge issue that stops most businesses from doing the 2 edition thing - community/open-source and pro edition.
Does anyone know of a license that allows this?
if contributions require copyright assignment they are free to relicense the code.
That is true, but a would-be contributor might fork the GPL-ed part instead of assigning copyrights, for example because he doesn't want to assign copyright to a commercial entity or because his country does not allow him to give away all his rights.
It only takes one such a would-be contributor who contributes a highly useful feature for that fork to become the canonical version of the software (any features appearing in the original GPL-ed version later on can be ported into it, if desired; the reverse is not true)
It only takes one such a would-be contributor who contributes a highly useful feature for that fork to become the canonical version of the software (any features appearing in the original GPL-ed version later on can be ported into it, if desired; the reverse is not true)
LiteSpeed was released at right around the same time as nginx, and there was a lot of hype about it at the time. In terms of performance, they were fairly neck-and-neck but one was completely free and the other, well, wasn't.
Now, after pretty much the entire web has rallied behind nginx as the new defacto open source HTTP web server (definitely replacing Apache as the server of choice for new deployments), they choose to release it open source? And GPLv3 to boot (compared to nginx's awesome BSD-based license).
Here's from Wikipedia:
According to a Netcraft May 2006 web server survey, LiteSpeed powered over 254,000 domains and was the 6th most popular web server platform in the world.[3] By August 2007 it had fallen to the 19th position, with its customer base falling below 150,000;[4] however, it rebounded to the 11th position as of January 2008, with its customer base raising above 430,000,[5] only to drop to 26th by January 2009 with a base below 90,000.[6] According to W3Techs, it is used by 1.9% of all websites.[7]
This move would have saved them.... 7 years ago. LiteSpeed won't poach any of nginx's userbase, but it's compatibility with Apache configuration might, just might give it some ex-Apache users.... then again, Apache still wins out in terms of license (Apache, obviously), community support, modules, etc. [EDIT: See comments below. No Apache compatibility for the free version]
For example, SPDY and mod_pagespeed are huge fads right now. Apache and Nginx have both, thanks to awesome contributors and Google itself. I don't see LiteSpeed getting this tech for a while.