I am new to the python web dev world and kind of confused about why we need a apache enviroment while we could run python web app with its build-in http sever? Also, from my experience, I could run an django app without setting up anything else. then why we still need apache + mod_wsgi? for performance?
actually what really confuse me is…. how my entry point of code should be written? e.g. I heard there are other advanced ‘web server’ as well like cherrypy/Tornado and every single of them will require different entry-point code. so I wonder if apache(+ mod_wsgi) is not overlapping with other web framework(I called them web server above)? (in most case) we should be using apache on production but use others as an ‘addon’? thanks
Performance, stability, scalability, security, …
The built in HTTP server is useful for simple testing or quickly running a web app on your development machine, but is in no way as scalable as the Apache server. Security will also likely be less hardened on the built-in one.
Also, Apache allows you to handle many extra things, such as vhosts, multiple kinds of server-side platforms (for instance, a Ruby on Rails app and a Django one on the same port/IP), which are harder to achieve with the built-in server.