Boa is a single-tasking HTTP server. Boa does not fork a copy of itself or spawn a thread to handle each incoming connection, but rather internally multiplexes the connections. Boa only forks for CGI programs, automatic directory generation, and automatic file gunzipping, each of which must be a separate process. The primary design goals of Boa are speed and security, in the sense of "can't be subverted by a malicious user", not "fine grained access control and encrypted communications". Boa is not intended as a feature-packed server; if you want one of those, Boa is probably not the right choice.
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This definitely looks like a Web server with potential. Not everyone needs the power of Apache and this could be an excellent alternative to Insecure Internet Server (IIS).
Only problem I find for a small web server project is that it does not support PHP directly (mySQL/PostgreSQL).
You may as well make a post about mathopd (www.mathopd.org) while you are at it. Just as small, but dramatically faster and supports php and such (through CGI). Anyways, only reason why I tout this one is because I've been running it succesfully for a couple years now.
Well, it used to be that I was poor student with parttime work. And I wanted to setup one of those cool firewall/router/server boxes that everyone was setting up. Sadly the only machine I could get at the time was a 386 with a 1.2 and a 800mb drives and 16mb of ram(maxed out). Running epic sessions over ssh only worked a blowfish cypher, etc..reiserfs & lvm took quite a bit of my boottime.
So anyway apache wasn't an option, but I wanted virtual host support. So guess what, I used boa since it ran fast..but gee..it only has ip-based(doesnt work for cheap people like me) virtual hosting. So i spent a few hours modifying the source to support that. And let me say..the code sucks, their structure just refuses to be altered. I see very little room for expansion. Anyway just my rant..
Btw, later i got a pIII 550 to replace the 386, and setting up virtual hosts on apache took me about 2x as long cos i forgot to include the default handler 
Silly using other people's code
So i spent a few hours modifying the source to support that. And let me say..the code sucks, their structure just refuses to be altered. I see very little room for expansion. Anyway just my rant.
That's a typical problem with uniprocess internal multiplexing. I'm guessing it relies heavily on non-blocking I/O as well.
This sort of structure just leads to messy and difficult to maintain code.
Most likely this server would crumple under any sort of load as well.
Boa is great frontend for apache+perl. Boa servs static pages and acts as redirector for apache with mod_fastcgi. I'm very happy with that configuration.
thttp is slowly climbing the ranks over at netcraft.
One of the best little full web servers out there. So easy to setup and run and damn fast.
http://www.acme.com
Either thttp or Tux for me if not Apache.
(also, X15 from Chromium Communications was looking to be the BEST even over Apache, but I think development has stopped.)
Just my 2cents
I think this article is a bit OT @ osnews.com also it has been written by the boa author...
there are soo many Webserver alternatives on all common & outbattled OSes, that it's just a nice read.
RobinHood, BONE, PostgreSQL & PHP on a 500MHz PII/w BeOS R5 PE is all I need.
Streaming Internet Radio integrated ;-) (big hooray to Soundplay, THE multi - versatile Medialayer).
All for free & simple.
I read the first page of the article, an interesting read, but i had to stop, for the love of god, someone tell that guy how to use pronouns. I got tired of "Boa can..." and stuff like that.
You may as well make a post about mathopd (www.mathopd.org) while you are at it. Just as small, but dramatically faster and supports php and such (through CGI). Anyways, only reason why I tout this one is because I've been running it succesfully for a couple years now.
Quite right. And why wasn't more said about thttpd which is a great tiny fast webserver?
Yeah. And why doesn't Eugenia register httpdnews.com while she's at it? 
Mr. Nelson apparently submitted an article about Boa, thus the article is only about Boa. If you want an article about http server X, I suggest you write one and submit it for our reading pleasure 
.
>I think this article is a bit OT @ osnews.com
Not at all. It is a great subject and OSNews is not just about OSes. How many times will I have to say that?
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=363
>also it has been written by the boa author...
Yes indeed. I asked Jon to write an article for OSNews about Boa a few months ago, and this article is the result of this request.
Use of sendfile() syscall boa far more better. With previous versions, my celeron 366 with shitty realtek card was able to serve file with speed about 4-5 MiB/s. But was completetly unusable at the same time - mouse in X hardly worked, keys won't respond, overall performance was sluggish.
With latest boa I can serve files with speed 6 MiB/s (as long as this file is in cache) without any slowdown. In fact, I don't even realizing that somebody is getting from me an .iso image over LAN - everything goes smooth!
It's performance is GREAT! Doesn't fork, and you can load in modules or use the built in TCL interpreter. did I mention it doesn't fork and handles database connection pooling quite well?
AOL uses it...it handles large loads really well.
I'm constantly amazed by the horsepower people throw at web serving. My primary server is still the same K5t-133 with 64M of RAM that it was running on in 1996, and it runs Boa very well indeed. When I turn off the Distributed.net code cracker, the CPU load while Boa is actively serving files and all system overhead is less than .2.
The real magic is that Boa doesn't try to be everything to everybody the way that Apache does.
Yes, there are other web servers. They work well too. That's not the point. The article was about Boa, not abut comparisons between small web servers.
Bob-