What is the difference between Web Server and Application Server?

Answer 1

One serves up webpages, the other serves up software.

Answer 2

An application server is a server computer on a computer network dedicated to running certain software applications .Generally, an application server is a software engine that delivers applications to client computers. Moreover, an application server should handle most, if not all, of the business logic and data access of the application.

A webserver is an intermediate server between the application server and the client. It is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients, which are known as Web browsers, and serving them HTTP responses along with optional data contents, which usually are Web pages such as HTML documents and linked objects

Answer 3

WEB SERVER:
A computer that is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients, which are known as Web browsers, and serving them HTTP responses along with optional data contents, which usually are Web pages such as HTML documents and linked objects (images, etc.).
A computer program that provides the functionality described in the first sense of the term.

APPLICATION SERVER:
An application server is a server computer on a computer network dedicated to running certain software applications (as opposed to e.g. a file server or print server).

Generally, an application server is a software engine that delivers applications to client computers. Moreover, an application server should handle most, if not all, of the business logic and data access of the application. The main benefits of application server technology are ease of application development and centralization.

Although the term application server applies to all platforms, it has become heavily identified with the Sun Microsystems J2EE platform; however, it has also come to encompass servers of web-based applications, such as integrated platforms for e-commerce, content management systems, affiliate management systems and occasionally, even applied to simplistic web-site page builders. The paradigm is more similar to mainframe based applications than traditional client-server.

.....all the best.

Answer 4

An application server is a specialized network server whose job is to provide access to a client/server application and, sometimes, the data that belongs to that application as well

A web server is a special type of an application server which hosts web applications since the definition of an application server perfectly applies to it.

Hope this helps

Answer 5

Web server only handles HTTP protocol ie its meant to serve any requests on port 80( it can use other ports for admin and other stuff though), it can have any kind of processing capabilities or server components( modules to dynamically generate the response) in it for getting the response information .

an application server on the other hand can serve on any port ie the client software can make requests on any port. Esp.. application servers are used where a client-server environment is required where clients connect to the server using their proprietary protocol.

Answer 6

A web server is used to store online content to be viewed through a web browser....

An application server allows you to run applications on a remote computer while they are installed on the server....

Answer 7

Web servers are intended to host website while Application Servers are used to host and execute web services and application like ASP (Active Server Pages) and XML web services.