fastest web server for static, dynamic content?

I'm looking for the fastest http server available for:

1. serving static content -- huge set of large images. Minimal features need, just as fast as possible.

2. dispatching dynamic content plugins -- think a web server that does on-the-fly watermarking or image transcoding. I'm looking for the fastest, lowest-overhead way of dispatching this.

Environment: linux or OS/X. any language acceptable.

serving static content -- huge set of large images. Minimal features need, just as fast as possible.

nginx is the current favored choice. LigHTTPd still works fine, but is less actively developed nowadays. LiteSpeed is also a good choice, and may be the best if you want commercial support or a nicer GUI. All of these are very fast, raw speed will not be a meaningful competitive differentiator within this group of webservers.

dispatching dynamic content plugins -- think a web server that does on-the-fly watermarking or image transcoding. I'm looking for the fastest, lowest-overhead way of dispatching this.

Hmnn, a custom extension module to nginx is the lowest overhead option. But writing modules in C / C++ is seriously time-consuming. OP says "any language acceptable", well, if that is so then nginx with a C extension, or maybe Apache with a C extension to benefit from Apache's richer set of modules and documentation.

But realistically, who writes C code today for non-mass-market products? I would consider Python code with Tornado, or a similar event-driven webserver in a high-level language to be a better match.

NGINX http://nginx.net for requirement 1) static file serving at least.

SEE Why is Nginx so fast?

Choose between lighttpd and nginx for static content. Choose Apache with modules that do in-house fastcgi process management efficiently (mod_fcgid, mod_wsgi, mod_passenger) for generating the dynamic content.

One solution would be nginx + php-fpm + apc. It'll handle static content and it'll handle dynamic content pretty f'ing quickly, too.

It's also worth noting that nginx has plugins, as well, and you could always write a plugin that did the watermarking. Doing it that way is probably the fastest possible way, although not the simplest to build.

Here's an example module that uses libgd: http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxHttpImageFilterModule

There's no reason you couldn't modify it to spit out watermarked images instead...

My faster Web Server podium is :

1) Nginx

2) Lighttpd

3) Cherokee

Here some benchmark : http://www.cherokee-project.com/benchmarks.html

http://www.rkblog.rk.edu.pl/w/p/lighttpd-and-cherokee-benchmark/

http://www.rkblog.rk.edu.pl/w/p/pylons-benchmark-various-servers/

Cherokee is fast and simple to configure, for this maybe is the better choice.