[baby]

I always found it uber cumbersome to deal with apache to setup different webservers with different domains and different stacks (php, golang, node, etc.) on a linux server.

I’ve been doing it for more than 10 years and I still hate it and I’m still quite lost in the commands I need to run, the folders and files and cfgs I need to maintain.

Am I just a linux noob and this is completely normal user experience?

[orev]

The biggest problem with Apache httpd is how many awful copy/paste blogs there are out there telling you how to do things on Ubuntu, which has no resemblance at all to actually managing httpd. Everything explains how to use some silly wrapper script like a2enmod to do something when all you really need is to make a symlink or something like that. IMO, the Ubuntu method of managing httpd could easily be responsible for why so many people think nginx is easier.

Use a RHEL based system and manually edit the files yourself. It’s very easy.

[BeefWellington]

Apache itself is eminently manageable on its own; IMO the real issue is how insanely over-complicated and opinionated every distribution makes their configuration.

I tend to discard any given distribution's default configuration for a more simplistic one where httpd.conf is the source of truth. This is very simple for 90% of my use cases, and for the other 10% I can adopt of a "modules-enabled, sites-enabled, conf-enabled, kitchen-sink-enabled" type approach.