LiteSpeed - hosting software with the best of both worlds
Servers are the memory of the Internet. All over the world, hosters store and manage content from websites that have been hosted by them. They are waiting to be retrieved by interested parties, to find themselves somewhere in the world on a screen for displaying this website with all its created functions. In order for this to happen quickly and without loss, each web server needs its own software that can manage, retrieve and submit masses of stored information. One of them is LiteSpeed, though not the most dominant one. Over the last few years, the share of LiteSpeed in use by web servers has been steadily increasing. In the summer of 2021, it was found on 10 % of all web servers, which gives it the fourth place in popularity among its competitors. LiteSpeed Web Server is not a freely available web server software, but is distributed licensed by LiteSpeed Technologies. However, there is also a free open source variant called 'OpenLiteSpeed'.
A brief review of the history of LiteSpeed
LiteSpeed Technologies was founded in 2002 with team leader George Wang at the helm. The official launch of the first LiteSpeed web server was then made on July 1, 2003 as a full-featured web server. In 2007 the name changed to LiteSpeed Web Server Enterprise, the software was configured as a compatible replacement to Apache, another web server software. In the same year, an integration of cPanel, DirectAdmin and Plesk completed. The new generation for websites HTTP/2 was supported with version 5.0 in 2015, and the latest generation HTTP/3 was added in July 2019. It is said to have been the first web server ever for HTTP/3, among all web server providers. LiteSpeed Web Server has offered support for QUIC since 2017. Updates to version generation 6.0 began in late March 2021, and LiteSpeed's current latest version number stands at 6.0.10. dated October 21, 2021. LiteSpeed is written in the C and C++ programming languages. It runs on Linux operating systems such as CloudLinux, AlmaLinux, Centos, Fedora, Bebian,Ubuntu on FreeBSD with Unix, and Red Hat from IBM.
Competing with Apache and Nginx
In April 2020, LiteSpeed is said to have been in use on 69 % of all QUIC websites, and on 47.6 % of all websites that were already using HTTP/3 at that time. Compatibility with the widely used Apache certainly plays a role in this. After all, 60 % of all Linux-managed websites (as of September 2021) are served via Apache or Nginx. LiteSpeed is able to load Apache configurations directly and thus work like Apache, while it can be found fully integrated in widely used system controls. However, while replacing Apache functions 1:1, LiteSpeed, like Nginx, uses an incident-driven approach to handle requests. Apache, on the other hand, is process-oriented. LiteSpeed has always taken the approach of being developed with a focus on performance. This is noticeable when compared to Apache and Nginx. While LiteSpeed can handle Apache's .htaccess file, Nginx can't do anything with it and requires its own configuration. For LiteSpeed, there is a considerable performance gain, an Reduced reaction time and higher scalability.
Performance optimization with LiteSpeed
This event-oriented web server architecture is becoming increasingly popular where performance is a decisive factor. Resource management is trimmed to the hilt for efficiency, which significantly reduces the need for CPU processing power and RAM usage for the website. Thousands of connections can be handled simultaneously with minimal use of resources, without any concessions to compatibility or security. The demand on resources decreases significantly, which is due to the event orientation instead of process orientation. LiteSpeed has this in common with the competing software Nginx, but at the same time does not forego the fat plus of advantages through compatibility with Apache commands. So to speak, the best of two worlds combined in itself. Strictly speaking, scripts written for Apache do not even have to be reformulated for LiteSpeed, since they can be processed by it. In practice, many websites use the .htaccess file to control requests. Litespeed supports 100% Apache and can therefore also handle the .htaccess files. Switching from Apache to Litespeed is therefore done within a few minutes.
Google is happy about fast loading
Not only the operator of a website is happy about fast loading times, but it also benefits the evaluation by Google for the ranking of search results. Those who are available faster end up further ahead. In the race for the best positions, it is therefore advisable to take a look at the performance of the web server software - and this is one of the strengths of LiteSpeed. With a process-oriented basis, a separate process is created for each established connection. If many of them arrive at the same time, performance will suffer because the server will be pushed to its resource limits more quickly. This is different with an event-driven process. Here, all connections are combined into a single process, which naturally conserves resources. Hardware has to be less lavish, therefore costs the server operator less, and DDoS attacks can be better intercepted. DDoS attacks are dangerous because they can bring entire servers to a standstill by deliberately overloading them with huge numbers of unsolvable requests. Protection against them is therefore more than desirable. LiteSpeed does this by limiting the IP addresses identified as attackers, using a reCAPTCHA on the server side that requires human intervention, and employing optimized ModSecurity and SSL renegotiation protection.
Working with QUIC and HTTP/3
Without Hypertext Transfer Protocol - HTTP - nothing works on the Internet. The standard was established in 1991 as a norm for loading web pages and was improved by new generations in 1999, 2015 and 2016 to successively HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3. This last major update processed data from Google and introduced the QUIC protocol. LiteSpeed was one of the first web servers to adapt to the new technology. HTTP/3 is still backward compatible and lets the browser switch to HTTP/2 or even further back if the site does not support the new standard, but you should not do without HTTP/3 if only for the sake of performance. QUIC is the new transport protocol, which is based on UDP and compensates for the deficiencies of TCP and TLS encryption in HTTP/2 leaves behind.
LSCache with static content
The rule is that requests on a server are handled in such a way that with each call, data is loaded from the server hard disk and made available to the requestor. Although newer storage technologies such as SSD storage have shortened access times, a bottleneck still occurs with large installations of a dynamic nature if the information cannot be read from the storage medium as quickly as it should be. Relief for the web server is achieved by web caching - and that's where LSCache comes in. Once retrieved by a request, the information is not dropped, but stored by the cache. If the same information is then requested again, it is available more quickly and there is no need to access the database.
LSCache with dynamic content
Even more important becomes the LSCacheif not static content on a web page is to be handled by means of caching in RAM, but dynamic content. The cache needs instructions on how to handle this. This can be content that is only assigned to a specific user, such as a shopping cart on a web store. Or even more sensitive, the stored bank data. Such details must never be inadvertently passed on to another user via a cache. Well-known web caches such as Varnish, Nginx or at Apache must be fine-tuned with high standards of care and technical knowledge. Which is why they are often missing or incorrectly configured. LiteSpeed's LSCache, on the other hand, is easy to set up, and with many CMSs this can be done in a few simple steps. For the LSCache no scripts have to be adapted, it is enough to activate the LSCache plugin in the application for the web. In addition to caching in RAM, this is associated with an optimization that compresses CSS, HTML and Java files for additional speed and only outputs functions of the respective page that are needed for display. This saves unused CSS code.
LSCache and Magento
For LSCache, there is no restriction on how many objects can be edited and cached simultaneously. The supported applications include WordPress, Joomla, Prestashop, Opencart, Xenforo and Drupal. However, it gets more complicated if the web server is to host Magento. Starting with the Site Owner license (see section on licenses), LiteMage Starter can be selected in addition to LSCache, at no extra charge. LiteMage is a kind of special LSCache for Magento webshops. Here you can choose between LiteMage Starter, which can handle up to 1500 Magento objects, with LiteMage Standard the customer is assured the next higher threshold of maximum 25000 Magento objects. LiteMage Unlimited finally knows no upper limits anymore, neither for a pure LSCache nor for a Magento object count. Both Magento 1 and Magento 2 get their own LiteMage plugins.
OpenLiteSpeed - the open source variant, what does it bring?
A version of LiteSpeed is on the way as an open source variant and costs nothing. It is usable for private sites that do not change frequently. To load a .htaccess file OpenLiteSpeed would have to be restarted first. The cache is a bit slimmed down compared to the web server versions, instead of full Apache compatibility OpenLiteSpeed gives you Apache compatible rewrite rules. The compatibility to CyberPanel and DirectAdmin is given, not yet to cPanel and Plesk. Support is limited to what expertise the user community can give, full pro support is reserved for higher versions. SSL offloading and protection against WordPress brute force attacks are not yet available for OpenLiteSpeed. Magento 1 and Magento 2, also PrestaShop and Shopware are not supported by plugins. Also Edge Side Includes (ESI) as a tool to allow website developers to separate out a part of the page to be processed separately is not found in OpenLiteSpeed. LiteSpeed is also available with trial licenses valid for 15 days - for this 'Web Host Professional' with LiteMage Unlimited + LSCache is offered.
The versatile licensing models
At LiteSpeed Technologies, a LiteSpeed application for a single (top-level) domain, limited to 2 GB of data, costs nothing at first as a starter package license. Above that, there are staggered prices according to the range of functions and the size of the web server requirements. After the 'Free Starter' there is a differentiation between 'Site Owner' and 'Site Owner Plus', and for host companies the packages 'Web Host' Lite / Essential / Professional / Enterprise / Elite. Domains are limited to five for 'Site Owner' versions, with 8 GB or unlimited RAM usage. While 'Web Host Lite' is also limited to 8 GB RAM, all other 'Web Host' licenses are unlimited in domain count and RAM usage, their differences are in work processes - the number for this is 1 for all subordinate licenses - from 'Web Host Professional' the number increases from 2 (Professional) to 4 (Enterprise), or is configurable (Elite). If you try to run a LiteSpeed license on a web server with more RAM than allowed by the specific license, you will get an error message. It is always possible to switch up or down between licenses if the features should be too small or too large for hosting. LiteSpeed offers both leasing and purchase (ownership) of licenses, the latter with one year of free updates included. A German Litespeed Partner is the webhoster.de AG which uses the Litespeed Enterprise Server for its hosting servers and managed servers.
