Caddy, nginx and Apache: How Their Configurations Compare in 2025

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A technical comparison of three widely used web servers — Caddy v2.11.4, nginx 1.31.3, and Apache httpd 2.4.68 — examines how each handles static file serving, TLS termination, and reverse proxying. The three servers differ most significantly in their configuration languages: Caddy uses a JSON-native format with a human-friendly Caddyfile adapter, while nginx and Apache both rely on directive-based files scoped by blocks or container sections. Directive ordering works differently across all three — Caddy largely ignores file order in favour of built-in handler sequencing, nginx uses file order to resolve regular expression location matches, and Apache applies a fixed group-merge order where file position only matters within a group. The servers also differ in licensing, release cadences, and how official binaries are distributed, with Caddy offering static binaries across major platforms and Apache providing source-only releases for most systems. All configurations in the comparison were tested on official Alpine-based Docker images using localhost and non-privileged ports.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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