Topic: Apache version from www.apachelounge.com - Advantages

[flatcircle]

Hello,

Maybe a simple (noob) question. But what is/are the advantage(s) when using the Apache build from this site instead of the 'official' from apache.org?

Kind regards.

[tdonovan]

The Apache Lounge version is built with Visual Studio 2008, while the "official" build from apache.org is built with Visual C++ 6.0.

The AL build has better performance and a smaller memory footprint, due to using the newer C compiler.
To be perfectly fair - these differences are large enough to be consistently measurable, but they are not huge.

The AL build also has DBD enabled. The apache.org build does not - but you could rebuild the "official" version yourself from source code with DBD enabled if you wanted to.
DBD allows you to access SQL databases for authentication, virtual hosts, logging, etc.
Note that you will also need a DBD driver for your database and (except for authentication) a 3rd-party Apache module in order to use DBD.

A temporary advantage is that the AL 2.2.8 build has a problem corrected when you start Apache from the command-line.
This problem will probably (...eventually...) get fixed in the official version, so this is just a short-term advantage.

Another small difference is that SSL in the AL build has the "Camellia" algorithm enabled.
This algorithm is recommended by the European Union NESSIE project and the Japanese CRYPTREC project - so if they are of interest to you this could be a small advantage.

One disadvantage of the AL build is that you must first install the "Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86)" to run Apache, and usually you will also need to install the "Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86)" for most modules on the Downloads page.

Hope this answers your questions. If not, please post again.

-tom-

[flatcircle]

Thank you for your very clear answer!