Apache versus nginx versus Kestrel

With the release of .NET 5, Microsoft has managed to bring a full stack of C# deployment targets to Linux. ASP web applications, such as the popular ASP.MVC, can be hosted on Linux by using Kestrel, a development web server based on libuv. Libuv was primarily developed for use by Node.js and focuses on asynchronous input/output.

Nginx is still the first choice in embedded devices for managing HTTP traffic as an extremely fast and lightweight reverse proxy server, ahead of Apache.

Apache remains one of the more popular HTTP servers due to the fact that it comes bundled with images, but is also extremely easy to install and configure. However, it is typically used on full desktop machines or servers because it requires a lot of resources. It is not recommended to use Apache on a Raspberry Pi or other embedded device, and it will not be covered in this book.

From the Netcraft report, we can see that the three top servers are Apache, Microsoft, and nginx. Microsoft...