What is the best alternative to Gunicorn?

By number of websites, the most widely used alternatives to Gunicorn are Nginx, Apache, LiteSpeed, IIS, OpenResty. The right one depends on your needs; compare them on adoption, authority, and audience above.

How many alternatives to Gunicorn are there?

Site Stats Database tracks 12 other web servers used by 100 or more websites, plus a long tail of rarer ones. Gunicorn itself is used by 268 websites.

Which web server has the most websites?

Nginx leads this category with 133,349 websites in our catalog.

Where does this data come from?

Adoption is counted from Site Stats Database's own crawl; authority (Ahrefs Domain Rating) and traffic come from Ahrefs and DataForSEO. Everything reflects the sites we track and refreshes at least monthly.

Gunicorn Alternatives & Competitors

Last updated July 1, 2026 · refreshes automatically as new data lands.

Looking for an alternative to Gunicorn? Site Stats Database tracks 12 other web servers; the top ones are below, ranked by adoption, with authority and traffic for each and the leading sites that use them. Gunicorn itself is used by 268 websites. Back to Gunicorn.

Web Server	Websites	Share	Median DR	Median traffic	Compare
Gunicorn (this page)

The top Gunicorn alternatives in depth

Nginx

#1 in Web Servers · 133,349 websites

Nginx is a high-performance web server, reverse proxy, and load balancer.

133,349

Websites

45.8%

Share of Web Server

Median DR

3,984

Median traffic

Top sites using Nginx

merriam-webster.com tiktok.com harvard.edu biblegateway.com nasa.gov

Compare Gunicorn vs Nginx →See all Nginx sites →

Apache

#2 in Web Servers · 91,556 websites

The Apache HTTP Server is a long-established open-source web server.

91,556

Websites

31.4%

Share of Web Server

Median DR

3,314

Median traffic

Top sites using Apache

weather.gov unitconverters.net nps.gov wordhippo.com

LiteSpeed

#3 in Web Servers · 43,161 websites

LiteSpeed is a high-performance commercial web server, popular for WordPress with its caching plugin.

43,161

Websites

14.8%

Share of Web Server

Median DR

2,065

Median traffic

Top sites using LiteSpeed

sugarspunrun.com gigacalculator.com billyparisi.com 5-letter-words.com

IIS

#4 in Web Servers · 14,679 websites

Internet Information Services (IIS) is Microsoft's web server for Windows Server.

14,679

Websites

5.0%

Share of Web Server

Median DR

6,306

Median traffic

Top sites using IIS

ciclt.net gotquestions.org uhaul.com tjx.com

OpenResty

#5 in Web Servers · 4,190 websites

OpenResty is a web platform that bundles Nginx with Lua scripting.

4,190

Websites

1.4%

Share of Web Server

Median DR

3,169

Median traffic

Top sites using OpenResty

grubhub.com themoviedb.org ncaa.com paramountplus.com

Google Web Server

#6 in Web Servers · 1,644 websites

Google Web Server (GWS) is the front-end web server Google uses for its own properties.

1,644

Websites

0.6%

Share of Web Server

Median DR

5,880

Median traffic

Top sites using Google Web Server

google.com blog.google justwatch.com google.cat

Kestrel

#7 in Web Servers · 952 websites

Kestrel is the cross-platform web server built into ASP.NET Core.

952

Websites

0.3%

Share of Web Server

Median DR

9,622

Median traffic

Top sites using Kestrel

msn.com mathway.com 365scores.com pullapart.com

Phusion Passenger

#8 in Web Servers · 943 websites

Phusion Passenger is an application server for Ruby, Node.js, and Python apps.

943

Websites

0.3%

Share of Web Server

Median DR

6,327

Median traffic

Top sites using Phusion Passenger

deepai.org wordunscrambler.me earthquaketrack.com scrabblewordfinder.org

Caddy

#9 in Web Servers · 585 websites

Caddy is a modern open-source web server with automatic HTTPS.

585

Websites

0.2%

Share of Web Server

Median DR

2,619

Median traffic

Top sites using Caddy

mangomap.com idealist.org lingoda.com dolar-colombia.com

Tengine

#10 in Web Servers · 374 websites

Tengine is a web server originated by Alibaba, based on Nginx.

374

Websites

0.1%

Share of Web Server

Median DR

3,668

Median traffic

Top sites using Tengine

coinmarketcap.com aliexpress.com accio.com mercadolibre.com.mx

Gunicorn Alternatives & Competitors

The top Gunicorn alternatives in depth

Nginx

Apache

LiteSpeed

IIS

OpenResty

Google Web Server

Kestrel

Phusion Passenger

Caddy

Tengine

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