Disabling Apache on Mac OS X

Disabling Web Sharing in System Preferences should disable Apache.

However, make sure that when you load "localhost" in your browser, that you force a refresh rather than your browser loading the cached response from when Apache was running. You can force a refresh by Command-Shift-R in many browsers (as opposed to Command-R for a normal refresh).

Additionally, you can verify that Apache is no longer loaded by running this command in Terminal:

ps aux | grep httpd

If Apache is loaded, you will see a ps entry for

/usr/sbin/httpd

It seems that Apache on 10.8 had decided to become active (perhaps after a minor update). Found that you can run the following command to permanently disable Apple's Apache:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.httpd.plist