Linux, the open-source operating system created by Linus Torvalds in 1991, has a variety of common server programs used for hosting websites, applications, databases, and more. Some of the most popular Linux server programs include Apache HTTP Server, Nginx, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Docker, Kubernetes, Ansible, and more.
Quick Answers
The most common web server programs on Linux are Apache HTTP Server and Nginx. The most common database servers are MySQL and PostgreSQL. For containerization, Docker is the leading program on Linux. For orchestration of containers, Kubernetes is widely used. Ansible is a common configuration management and automation tool on Linux servers.
With Linux being open-source, free to use, and highly customizable, it has become one of the most popular server operating systems over the past decades. Linux runs on everything from personal computers to smartphones to servers powering some of the largest websites in the world. Its versatility, stability, security and active open-source community make Linux well-suited for hosting all kinds of server applications.
But with so many Linux distributions and server programs to choose from, which ones are the most common and popular in production environments? Let’s take a closer look at some of the leading server software programs commonly run on Linux.
Web Servers
A web server is software that stores, processes and delivers web pages to clients. Some of the most popular web server programs on Linux include:
Apache HTTP Server
Apache HTTP Server is by far the most widely used web server software on Linux and on the internet as a whole. Created in 1995, Apache played a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. It is fast, reliable, highly customizable and open source.
Some key features of Apache HTTP Server:
- Open source with large community support
- Runs on a wide variety of operating systems
- Extensible through modules and scripts
- Secure and highly configurable access controls
- Handles large traffic loads efficiently
Apache powers over 30% of all active websites on the internet, including some of the most heavily trafficked sites like Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube. Its widespread use makes it a common choice to run on Linux servers.
Nginx
Nginx (pronounced “engine-x”) is a lightweight high performance web server program for Linux. It began gaining popularity in the early 2000s as a faster alternative to Apache.
Benefits of Nginx include:
- Very fast – handles thousands of concurrent connections with low memory usage
- Asynchronous architecture ideal for RESTful APIs and microservices
- Extensible with modules for additional functionality
- Load balancing and reverse proxy capabilities
- Handles high traffic workloads with efficiency
Nginx now powers around 15% of active websites, including high-demand sites like Netflix, Hulu, Pinterest and Airbnb. It’s often used in conjunction with other programs like PHP and MySQL.
Database Servers
A database server manages databases containing organized data that can be quickly accessed, managed and updated. Some common open source database servers used with Linux include:
MySQL
MySQL is one of the most popular open source relational database management systems used with Linux, PHP, Python and many other platforms. Key features include:
- Relational database structure
- ACID compliant for data integrity
- High performance with low memory overhead
- Cross-platform support
- Scales well with large datasets and multiple users
- Flexible user privilege controls
MySQL excels at high volume transactional processing for ecommerce and other data-driven applications. Major sites using MySQL include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google and more.
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL is another widely used open source relational database with a strong reputation for reliability, data integrity and robust feature set. Benefits include:
- Highly extensible through custom functions
- MVCC compliance for best-in-class multiuser concurrency
- Excellent performance for complex queries
- Fully ACID compliant with advanced transaction support
- Multi-version concurrency control
- Asynchronous replication and failover capabilities
PostgreSQL powers many large websites and applications. Its extensive features make it well suited for a wide range of workloads.
NoSQL Databases
NoSQL databases are non-relational and store data in ways other than structured tables. They are optimized for big data, web and mobile applications. Some popular NoSQL databases for Linux include:
MongoDB
MongoDB is an open source NoSQL program that stores data in flexible JSON-like documents. Key features include:
- Document model allowing varied, dynamic structure
- Auto-sharding for horizontal scaling
- Indexing for fast queries
- Tunable consistency for performance vs integrity tradeoff
- Replication and automated failover
With its flexible schemaless data model, MongoDB is popular for modern applications and web services. It is used by companies like eBay, Cisco, Adobe, Salesforce and Symantec.
Apache Cassandra
Apache Cassandra is a distributed NoSQL database designed to handle large amounts of structured data across commodity servers with no single point of failure. Benefits include:
- Linear scalability to thousands of nodes
- Fast writes optimized for disks
- Tunable data consistency
- Column-based structure ideal for access on columns
- Data replication across multiple data centers
Cassandra excels at high availability and fault tolerance while scaling massive datasets across distributed commodity hardware. It’s used by Apple, Netflix, Reddit, Cisco, IBM and more.
Containerization
Containerization allows applications and services to run in isolated user-space instances called containers. This provides more flexibility, portability and scalability than traditional virtualization. Popular containerization platforms on Linux include:
Docker
Docker is the leading open platform for building, packaging, deploying and managing containerized applications on Linux. Key features include:
- Package applications in container images
- Simple commands to manage containers
- Host isolated app instances on the same Linux machine
- Versioning of container images
- Portability across machines and cloud providers
- Encapsulate dependencies and configuration
- Lightweight and fast startup times
Docker provides a complete framework and ecosystem for container lifecycle management. It enables predictable deployments across diverse infrastructure.
Podman
Podman is an open source container engine that is functionally equivalent to Docker but does not require a daemon or root access to run containers. Benefits include:
- Secure by default with user namespaces and rootless capabilities
- Integrates with Kubernetes for orchestration
- Manages OCI compliant containers and container images
- Automatable API and advanced CLI
- Compatible with Docker images and automation workflows
Podman provides a user-friendly container management experience with advanced security configurations suitable for enterprise use. It can be a Docker alternative on Linux systems.
Orchestration
Container orchestration automates deploying, scaling and managing of containerized applications across clusters of hosts. A popular orchestration choice on Linux is:
Kubernetes
Kubernetes provides automated deployment, scaling and operations for containerized applications through a declarative configuration approach. Its key traits are:
- Automatically schedules and replicates containers
- Scales container instances as needed
- Supports zero-downtime rolling updates
- Manages different environments and multi-host networking
- Desired state configuration via YAML files
- GUI dashboard to visualize infrastructure
As an open platform, Kubernetes has become the de facto standard for container orchestration. It powers complex applications at global scale across industry leaders.
Configuration Management
Configuration management tools help automate provisioning, deployment and orchestration of Linux infrastructure. Ansible is one popular option:
Ansible
Ansible is an automation engine for configuring Linux systems and applications via YAML playbooks. Key features include:
- Agentless – uses OpenSSH and WinRM to push configurations
- Idempotent resource modules and playbooks
- No separate security infrastructure or daemons
- Playbooks can orchestrate entire application environments
- Ansible Galaxy library with pre-built modules
- Large user community provides modules and integrations
Ansible combines simple YAML blueprints, modules and API to automate scalable multi-tier deployments. It is used by companies like Google, AT&T, Cisco and Juniper.
Infrastructure Monitoring
Infrastructure monitoring tools track performance metrics across Linux servers, apps and services to provide observability and alerting. Popular options include:
Prometheus
Prometheus is an open source monitoring system optimized to work with containers and orchestration layers like Kubernetes. Features include:
- Pull-based HTTP scraping to collect metrics
- Customizable visual dashboards and graphs
- Powerful query language for analysis
- Alerting based on metric thresholds
- High dimensional data model
- Targets dynamic container environments
Prometheus excels at monitoring ephemeral infrastructure and microservices, making it well-suited for cloud-native application stacks.
Grafana
Grafana is an analytics platform that visualizes time-series metric data with customizable graphs and dashboards. It is commonly paired with monitoring systems like Prometheus. Key traits include:
- Interactive graphs with drilling, overlays and annotation
- Drag-and-drop dashboard authoring
- Visualize metrics from multiple data sources
- Client libraries for sending metrics from apps
- Alert notification support
- Open source with active community
Grafana makes monitoring data accessible with beautiful visuals that can elegantly track infrastructure diagnostics and application metrics.
Linux Distributions
These server programs can run on various Linux operating system distributions. Some of the most popular general purpose Linux distros used for hosting servers include:
| Distribution | Description |
|---|---|
| Ubuntu Server | Leading open source server OS with long term support releases every 2 years. |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux | Robust commercial server OS with certification and long life cycles. |
| CentOS | Free community version built from Red Hat source code. |
| Debian | All open source server OS with reputation for stability. |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server | Secure, reliable enterprise distribution from SUSE. |
Many other distributions like Fedora, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, Oracle Linux and openSUSE also provide excellent server platforms. Additionally, Linux container hosts like Fedora CoreOS and Ubuntu Core optimize minimal environments for running containerized apps.
Conclusion
Linux offers tremendous flexibility in choosing server software for applications ranging from web hosting to databases to automation. Apache and Nginx are standard web server options. MySQL and PostgreSQL lead in open source SQL databases, while NoSQL databases like MongoDB and Cassandra handle big distributed data. Container platforms like Docker and Kubernetes are central for cloud native deployments. Ansible enables automation across Linux infrastructure.
The open source Linux ecosystem includes solutions for practically every server need. This wealth of mature, proven programs and ability to customize is why Linux runs a majority of servers in the world.