What is the difference between application server and web server?

Question

What is the difference between application server and web server?

Answer 1

On a first hand, a web server serves web content (HTML and static content) over the HTTP protocol. On the other hand, an application server is a container upon which you can build and expose business logic and processes to client applications through various protocols including HTTP in a n-tier architecture.

An application server thus offers much more services than an web server which typically include:

• A (proprietary or not) API
• Object life cycle management,
• State management (session),
• Resource management (e.g. connection pools to database),
• Load balancing, fail over...

AFAIK, ATG Dynamo was one of the very first application server in late 90's (according to the definition above). In early 2000, it was the reign of some proprietary application servers like ColdFusion (CFML AS), BroadVision (Server-side JavaScript AS), etc. But none really survived the Java application server era.