Which web server software do you recommend?

Caddy! It has HTTPS built in and provides simple but powerful configuration with sane defaults.

Example Caddyfile for a static file server:

 undefined

    
example.com {
    root * /var/www
    file_server
}

  

I used nginx in the past, but didn't like it's verbose config files.

Nginx! Simplex essential and easy.

Unless you need to rely a lot on CGIs then apache maybe is better.

I use nginx for simple websites: https://raspberrytips.com/nginx-on-raspberry-pi/#::text=The%20main%20package%20for%20Nginx,made%20in%20%2Fetc%2Fnginx.

Apache, the OG HTTP server. Fast, well documented, battle-tested, FOSS and community-led (unlike nginx which is corporate-led). People will tell you that nginx is "faster" but never point to actual benchmarks. Both are ok.

nginx

Not sure why others are suggesting a Raspberry Pi and nginx would cause problems? I run three public facing websites on a single Raspberry Pi 4 with 2GB RAM. Has been working flawlessly for 2 years. Typical uptime is measured in multiple months.

Running Wordpress, fail2ban and certbot. Booting and running of a USB drive - have considered SSD but no need as I cache to RAM for performance.

I use NGINX because it's what I'm familiar with. If I was starting again, I would probably use Caddy.

Nginx

Caddy was my first and it's very easy to use. I use nginx nowadays because I heard it scales better. It's harder to use but manageable enough.

Depending on the type of website you're hosting, you can probably just use Cloudflare pages or Netlify instead of hosting it at home with a Pi.

I would honestly go with Apache here. I use NGINX in my environment mainly as a reverse proxy. I do use NGINX to serve my static blog.

I have recently started using Caddy and I love it! FOSS, automatic HTTPS, super easy to setup and works well as a reverse proxy. As your website will not be complex, the Caddyfile would be just a few lines.

Apache httpd if php is involved. Otherwise, nginx.

Both are highly reliable and efficient.

I only use nginx now, the out of box footprint is tiny.

add this deb https://packages.sury.org/nginx/ bookworm main to your /etc/apt/sources.list to install the latest stable

lighttpd, just to be different

Is your site static or dynamic? If your site is made of good old HTML and CSS or your site is a SPA, any web server will serve it well.

I prefer Nginx as it is performant and versatile enough for most use cases.

Traefik.

I'm a big fan of HAProxy

I always love Flask for this, it's a super simple python web server that is basically fully batteries included, just write a couple lines of python and throw your html in either /static or /templates, depending on whether it's dynamic or not, and you're live. It's not gonna move mountains but it's not meant to.

Hosting personal websites on your own hardware is such a pain, and I would imaging doing it on a rpi would be even more of a pain than on x86 architecture. If at all an option I'd recommend hosting on something like github pages or better still on a VPS.