Personal Web Servers

When creating web sites or web applications, it can be frustrating to spend hours creating pages only to have them display differently when you upload to your ISP or hosting provider. Even with state of the art page creation tools like DreamWeaver, pages frequently display differently in your HTML editor to how they are displayed in a user's browser. Browser preview in DreamWeaver or other tools can help, but it cannot run your scripts or back-end logic. The result is pages that are only 1/2 right and are missing all their dynamic content such as critical database information. To fix this problem, you need a real web server to host your pages locally. One that can run your scripts and render the pages with all their dynamic data present.

Running a full enterprise web server on your local system is often not an effective solution nor is it the best use of your system's resources -- enter the personal web server. AppWeb is an ideal personal web server because it compatible with the Apache Web server which is the most common hosting web server. AppWeb will not slow your system down as it requires only minimal system resources. The result is you can test your site or application locally, completely and quickly and will see your pages as your users see them..

Installing AppWeb

AppWeb comes with packaged installations to make installing on Windows or Linux a breeze. Once installed, you can edit the AppWeb configuration file to point to your local web site and serve the pages directly and view complete pages as your users will see them. There is no need to upload to your hosting provider uploading just to view how a page will look when complete.

Ideal Qualities for a Personal Web Server

Most existing personal web servers are missing many of the key features to enable them to be a viable testing platform for web sites and applications. The following lists the ideal qualities of an embedded HTTP server:

Configuration that is compatible with Apache
Ability to use PHP and other standard page creation environments
Strong security (SSL, digest authentication)
Compact with a small memory footprint
Be easy to install and operate

Mbedthis AppWeb is a 2nd generation design that fulfills today's requirements. It is secure, compact and easily installed. It is compatible with Apache and has an extensive set of features to meet any personal web server needs.

AppWeb Specifications

AppWeb requires very little system resource to run. AppWeb will consume less than 1% of the CPU when serving an active user and can serve over 3,500 requests per second on a PC class device.

The AppWeb personal web server has the following features:

PHP scripting
CGI
Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
Server-side Embedded JavaScript
Digest Authentication
HTTP Client program to test site load and throughput
Extensive logging
Fastest performance in its class
Cross-platform and portable
Full documentation provided

Read about Mbedthis AppWeb and download to try it out.