Web server and Appln server

Hi Fredy, welcome to the WebmasterWorld and that is NOT a stupid question at all, in fact, it's a topic many people don't understand.

A WEB server is software designed to do one thing - serve HTML pages to a browser. Apache, IIS, Xitami all will "serve" pages to be read in a web browser.

an application server is also software, but it takes static HTML pages and activates them, making them dynamic, allowing you to run high level language routines behind them and connect to a database. IIS has a built-in application server called Active server Pages (ASP). Other App servers include TOMCAT (which allows you to run Javaserver Pages), PHP, BEA WebLogic, ColdFusion and IBM's WebSphere.

Generally speaking, they are two separate layers. You can run TOMCAT on a Windows platform or a Unix platform, same with WebLogic, PHP and WebSphere. ASP, which is a Microsoft proprietary format, is native to IIS, but through the Sun ONE products can be run on UNIX platforms as well now.

For the most basic webmastering, PHP/ASP/TOMCAT are the most accessible. For highly advanced applications (hence the name) WebLogic, WebSphere and Cold Fusion are used.