All web servers are servers. Not all servers are web servers.
Web servers specifically serve HTTP and/or HTTPS, but there's a myriad of other things. FTP, Minecraft, databases, mail, just to name a few
this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
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Need to look up this entire list.
There's not a finite list...? The word "web" or "Minecraft" is describing the purpose of the server. It's an adjective.
If you tried to make a list, you'd have to include all video games with online matchmaking. "Call of Duty servers", "Fortnite servers", etc. Its an impossible task.
I think you'd be better off learning more about computer hardware. Once you realize how different kinds of machines work you quickly realize they're all basically the same thing, tailored for specific uses. Software-wise, it's just a matter of what's running on the hardware.
You mean a laptop, which can be turned into a server, is the same as a smart phone ??
It can be, if software is written to be compatible with both. A ‘server’ is just a computer of some sort running a piece of software at the end of the day.
There is no unified list and there are hundreds of specific types and it is constantly changing
Yes and...no?
A server often refers a piece of (virtual) hardware, that has some software running that serves content or services to you, usually over the network/internet. It also often means that it's running and accessible 24/7.
It can also refer to a piece of software that serves those services/content that you can install anywhere. A game server e.g. might be provided by the game publisher for online play, but you could also be able to connect to a private server that's ran by you or your friend (e.g. Minecraft allows that) or that only runs on your PC for local network play. Webserver fall into this meaning - they are just a piece of software that speak the protocols use on the internet and serve you webpages. In theory you can run them anywhere.
I feel like Jan from The IT Crowd. I'm reading this paragraph again and it still is like TV snow to me :(
I thought servers were the physical machines where the cloud is stored. Like everything has to live somewhere and the servers are the hardware where stuff lives.
"Server" is a colloquialism. As used in casual speech, it's a system that serves something. If you can access anything the system offers remotely, it's serving to you and therefore is a server.
Long before I really got into IT, my mom's laptop had an internet connection it shared. That was a server.
After that but before I setup my first Linux system, my brother and I were sharing files from our desktops. We were both servers (and clients).
A server is just something that serves something.
To add to Toynbee's answer, any computer can become a server if you run some kind of program on it that provides that function. That program runs in the background continuously and waits for other computers, named "clients", to send requests to the "server" computer.
Yes, that includes your own PC, even while you're in the middle of using it. If you were running a website on your PC, i.e. a persistent background application that serves a website, you could type http://localhost/ into your browser and connect to that website. That makes your PC perform the duties of both client and server at the same time. Fun stuff.
It's called "localhost" because, while a "server" is mostly referring to the software on the machine, the "host" refers to the software and hardware together. It's "local" as opposed to "remote" because all computers that aren't the one you're on right now are remote, distant, away.
That's a very enlightening reply. :))
I’d argue that web server generally refers to HTTP(S) servers more broadly regardless of whether they’re accessible on the web, a local network or even just the local interface.
What's local interface in this particular context ?
Server is a general term. Webservers are a subset. We have video camera surveillance servers, telephone servers, internal document servers, web servers. They're all servers. And webservers are one variant of it.
Even what we watch on the TV are servers.
A server is a fantastic concept per se.
Yeah, I skipped the more ambiguous ones. Netflix, Amazon, Youtube etc will distribute their content via the web. So they're kinda webservers. Though the infrastructure which feeds in cable TV aren't. It's complicated.
Do you realise that the market has also become one huge server ?
What do you mean by that? Centralization of the internet? And an uptake in capitalism, to a degree that it's now a handful of companies and providers who do the lion's share of everything? Sure, that's been happening since 2010 or so, plus minus a few years.
Centralisation of the internet is another topic altogether, and a very interesting one.
Here's what l mean : https://cafe.coffee-break.cc/c/nostupidquestions/p/41334/the-market-is-turning-into-a-giant-server
Your (Windows) PC is also a server, as Microsoft included SMB (Server Message Block) and Share Services in the Windows workstation product.
Mapping/connecting to a share on another computer is using that machine as a server.
Linux machines can do this too, it's just not a default thing like with Windows.
That automatically connects us to something, of which we don't want to become a part ?
In some ways it's like saying that an automobile and a car are different things.
I don't realise the difference between these two either.
All cars are automobiles, but not all automobiles are cars.
Another analog to the original is to say "a bank account and a checking account are different things". While a checking account is a kind of bank account, not all bank accounts are checking accounts.
Trucks aren't cars, but they are automobiles
Does this fit within the broad category if we stretch the idea ?
Yup, no stretching required, that is also an automobile but not a car.