Application Server Vs. Web Server

Application Server:

An application server is a service that handles specifically requests for business operations, and performs business logic. It is not limited to the HTTP protocol, but can operate using that protocol if it fits the business requirements. Application servers tend to operate in TCP/IP communications. Including sockets, and other Internet low-level communications. It's possible for an application to use a web server as it's hosting environment. Examples of tools that would require an application server could be, a gaming server, a chat server, a video conferencing server, a cloud-based accounting application, etc.

Web Server:

A web server is a service that handles specifically requests in the HTTP protocol format. The server responses to requests made using the HTTP format, and in turn respond using a valid HTTP response. All responses from a web server follow the W3 standards for HTTP protocols. Including, and not limited to, server 500 errors, redirects and various content types.A web server may respond with a content type that supports non-HTML formats. Such as PDF files, binary files, and even JSON/XML responses. The key factor in understanding that these requests came from a web server understands that response is a HTTP response. The content in the response is just an application specific content type.A web server may run multiple CGI languages to provide the HTTP responses. These can include Python, PHP, Java and ASP (among others). These languages operate under the web server, but in turn provide valid HTTP responses. There for, it's still a web server.

Difference between Application Server and Web Server

	Application Server	Web Server
What is it?	A server that exposes business logic to client applications through various protocols including HTTP.	A server that handles HTTP protocol.
Job	Application server is used to serve web based applications and enterprise based applications(Like-Servlet, JSPs and EJB...). Application servers may contain a web server internally.	Web server is used to serve web based applications.( Like-Servlet, JSPs)
Functions	To deliver various applications to another device, it allows everyone in the network to run software off of the same machine.	Keeping HTML, PHP, ASP etc files available for the web browsers to view when a user accesses the site on the web, handles HTTP requests from clients.
Supports	distributed transaction and EJB's, Chat server, Gaming Server	PHP, .Net, Servlets , JSP etc.
Resource utilization	High	Low