Securing Apache 2: Step-by-Step When choosing a web server, Apache very often wins against its competitors because of stability, performance, that fact that it s open source, and many other advantages. But when deciding on which version of Apache to use, the choice is not always so simple. On the one hand there is a very popular, stable version used by millions of users, version 1.3, and on the other hand, there is an enhanced and re-designed version 2.0.