Comparison

Cowserve vs Simple HTTP Server

SimpleHTTPServer is a Python module, while Cowserve is a proxy to the module, but acts slightly different.

Instead of "Error response" popups which reduce the ability of production use (due to debugging info, which Cowserve only displays in the server log), the following text appears when the server returns an error:

Error XXX: <message>. Contact the webmaster for more info.

XXX is replaced with the HTTP error code. If it is 404, an alternative page is used with a hidden maze made using symbols found in ASCII art.

Cowserve is invoked as simply cowserve (not a subcommand of other commands) instead of having to declare that it's a Python module (e.g. python3 -m http.server).

Cowserve vs Apache(2)

See: Cowserve vs Apache

Cowserve vs NginX

Cowserve does not require additional configuration at all, while NginX does.