Replace IIS with a Free Multifunctional and Lightweight Web Server

The Windows operating system allows you to install and use various types of server side scripts such as ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, using the built-in IIS (Internet Information Services) web server. If you are looking for a simple solution to select a web server that will run on all Windows versions, substituting the IIS or Personal Web Server functions, Abyss Web Server could be what you are looking for.

Abyss Web Server is also available for MacOS, Linux and FreeBSD operating systems. It is a lightweight web server (after installation it takes only 3 MB of your disk space), but full of many useful features both for beginner and advanced web developers. Because it's lightweight, Abyss Web Server will not use many of your computer resources. Its minimal requirements are an Intel80486 processor at 33MHz and 4Mb free of your RAM. It is very easy to configure via a web browser based interface and uses an anti-crash protection extension, which determine the web server to automatically restart in case of a critical error.

Abyss Web Server provides you with a high level of security and allows you to run various server side scripts types: ASP, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python and more. This server has also native support for ASP.NET applications. You can test your favorite scripts or complex applications without the need of IIS by setting up the default index files types and scripting parameters in a simple manner, only with a few mouse clicks.

The server side applications speed is enhanced by the integration of FastCGI (when this is supported by the interpreter). Other configurable parameters are: directory listing, aliases, SSI parameters, custom error pages, asp.net parameters, IP address control and more. When IIS is not available or you just want to use another web server for ASP and ASP.NET scripts, Abyss Web Server seems to be a good alternative regarding size, stability, customization options and types of script supported.