What Is LiteSpeed?
LiteSpeed is considered to be one of the fastest web servers available in the industry. LiteSpeed Hosting is faster and better than the Apache web server that we all know and have been using. But what made LiteSpeed web hosting so popular in recent years? What are the LiteSpeed features that every hosting provider is after and are implementing in their plans?
Perhaps the most significant difference between Apache and LiteSpeed is the architecture. You probably may know already that Apache is process-based. It means it would create a new process or thread for every single connection; as a result, it would heat the server. On the other hand, the LiteSpeed web server is considered to be even-driven. Meaning, it would run every connection on a few processes; as a result, it would save resources and makes the LiteSpeed web server run faster and smoother.
In this article, we would like to discuss what LiteSpeed is, LiteSpeed features, and LiteSpeed hosting.
What is LiteSpeed?
LiteSpeed web server gained popularity due to its high performance as well as high scalability that it offers. LiteSpeed technology can easily replace the Apache web server without even having to change any of the already running programs on the server. Perhaps, one of the notable features of the LiteSpeed web server is that it can be integrated into any server without breaking any of the previous programs and configurations.
LiteSpeed has a friendly and easy-to-use dashboard that anyone can use without having any knowledge of web servers. LiteSpeed is available in three editions. OpenLiteSpeed, Standard, and Enterprise.
1. Standard LiteSpeed
Standard LiteSpeed is typically used for low-traffic and small websites; it can work well with cPanel and DirectAdmin web hosting dashboards that are popular and favorited by many people. The Standard edition of LiteSpeed is free and can be used for both commercial or personal uses.
2. OpenLiteSpeed
OpenLiteSpeed is typically used for large websites that have high traffic each month. Sadly, OpenLiteSpeed is not compatible with most hosting dashboards, and you have to find dashboards that are compatible with it. Moreover, OpenLiteSpeed is also free to use for both commercial and personal uses.
3. Enterprise
Enterprise edition of LiteSpeed web server is generally used by hosting providers, and it is compatible with most hosting dashboards. Enterprise is most suitable for large websites with high traffic. Enterprise edition is known to have the highest stability out of all other editions, and cPanel and DirectAdmin support it.
What Are LiteSpeed Features?
As you probably can guess, the LiteSpeed web server is way faster than Apache in both raw speed as well as scalability. LiteSpeed is perfect for content management systems that use PHP, such as WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.
LiteSpeed Performance
LiteSpeed is known to increase the performance and scalability of web hosting servers due to its architecture being event-driven. LiteSpeed is capable of serving thousands of clients with minimum server usage. Due to the low use of CPU and memory, the LiteSpeed web server is incredibly fast. By default, LiteSpeed is known to manage DDOS attacks without having to install and configure any DDOS software.
Security
As mentioned above, LiteSpeed comes with DDOS protection by default, and it is compatible with Apache’s security mod features, making it one of the most secure web servers available. With LiteSpeed, you can block connections and IPs that request too much bandwidth, which prevents attackers before they could flood your server with unnecessary requests.
Reasonably Priced
Switching from Apache web server to LiteSpeed web server is cheap in terms of support. LiteSpeed doesn’t cost much as most of them are free to use, and upgrading it doesn’t require many optimizations in the server. Due to LiteSpeed’s features make life easier for support experts as there isn’t much traffic occupying the server.
Compatibility
Other than the features mentioned above, LiteSpeed is known for its compatibility with Apache mods. LiteSpeed is compatible with Apache features such as .htaccess, mod_security, mod_rewrite, etc. Moreover, once you have installed the LiteSpeed web server, you can easily import and use Apache configurations. Also, most LiteSpeed editions are compatible with cPanel, DirectAdmin, and Plesk, which are the three most known hosting control panels that most hosting companies use.
LiteSpeed Hosting
LiteSpeed hosting is the most suitable for content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla due to PHP’s speed. As mentioned above, LiteSpeed is a replacement for the traditional Apache web server. LiteSpeed is a high-performance web server perfect for e-commerce websites that run on PHP-based content management systems. Any web hosting that runs Apache should be able to run LiteSpeed without any issues.
Most hosting providers are replacing Apache with LiteSpeed for their CMS plans due to the features it offers.
Conclusion
In this article, we talked about LiteSpeed and what LiteSpeed is. LiteSpeed is a new web server software that has taken the world in recent years. Especially with the rise of PHP-based content management systems such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, many hosting providers have started opting in for LiteSpeed as it offers more features any website owner is dreaming of.
By default, LiteSpeed comes with DDOS protection. It would block any IP addresses that request too much bandwidth from the server. Traditionally, Apache web servers would let any IP access the web server without any restriction; as a result, it would make websites that run on Apache easier to target by DDOS attackers.
LiteSpeed has event-driven architecture, and it would use the minimum number of resources that would make the server run faster and smoother than Apache and any other web server out there.
