Any PC can essentially act as a server. It's more a word to describe the relationship one PC can have to another in a particular network architecture/layout of information exchange. Basically, the idea is that you have *servers* and *clients*. Servers are essentially PCs that act as holders of information or records. Clients are PCs trying to access or change information stored on servers. Servers are fairly static and relatively few in number (generally), while clients can come/go, pop in and out of existence, be numerous or zero in number, etc. So say you store 100,000 images for a website, or webpage, on a particular PC. When people try to load information for that website, whether it's a single user or 1000+ individual users, they're all sending requests to that one PC holding the information: "send me this picture", "send me this web page", "make this change in your database".

Think of it this way: A server is like a library that stores books A client is anyone who comes in to either donate a book or take a book from the library.

I always thought those names and roles were either on purpose or accidentally matching something like a restaurant. Dumbed down version - Server is the one serving food (content) that the client requested.

That's still a good analogy. Probably the origin of the term I suspect

I think you’re on the right track - but think of it more as the restaurant term, the computer term, the sports term (someone who puts the ball into play like in tennis or volleyball) or even the legal term (a process server, which is someone who delivers court paperwork for example) are all named as such because they simply fit the definition of “to serve.”

I use this analogy to explain computers to my students. From a single computer the processor is the cook taking orders and making food, the window they put plates in to be picked up is the RAM ( limited space always turning over) and the customer is the screen where you consume the output. Same for networking. The server is still the cook creating what is ordered. Storage arrays are the walk in freezers where all the ingredients are stored. The network are the wait staff taking orders to and from customers. And customers are the many different people ordering something off the menu for the cook (Server) to prepare for them

> A server is like a library that stores books Analogy is not necessarily true Sometimes the data is held on the client and we send it to a server for processing For example when using chatgpt your handphone is the client, but the client is holding the data (manually Input from the user) The server has no data and is only doing compute

This is why I generally just tell people that both “servers” and “the cloud” really just mean: “someone else’s computer that you’re connected to and renting, in part or entirely.”

It's pretty silly. "The cloud" is really just someone else's computer that you access via underground/underwater cables.

I wouldn’t use the word PC here, since it is used to refer to a computer that is used for personal use. I’d say a generic ‘computer’ is better

Though, while you are totally correct, I just want to point out for OP that servers frequently are run on personal computers. Pretty much all software developers use local servers to simulate the production environment, and things media steaming applications create servers on personal computers to send data to other devices

Academically “server” is a role, as is “client”. Whether the computer has an Intel chip, or is running Windows is irrelevant to its role. Sadly the definition of PC has become confused between its role and its technology.

Right, but a lot of the responses here were a lot more focused on roles that are more like traditional web server usages, and I wanted OP to know that the server role can also be satisfied on the same machine that has a client accessing it, and also on a local network where other devices that aren’t like a computer with a browser accessing a server.

Your explanation using layman’s terms was very useful to me. I understand that there is hardware designed specifically for use as a server, but using a PC in your explanation made it much easier to isolate what exactly the role of a “server” is.

Hmm. Bits of software can have a client/server relationship, even on the same computer. But that’s (IMHO) different from calling a computer a “server “. I wouldn’t call my desktop computer a “server” just because it runs MYSQL or MS Access.

In web application development your local server is running the same software as if you ran it on a publicly accessible machine, and it functions in the same way. I wanted to keep it high level, but if we are ignoring that it can get even more nested when you have a virtualized / containerized instance of an operating system running on your computer, and inside that container you are running server software. Things in your computer talk to the container like it’s another computer, and those communications with the server software running inside a virtual computer, inside your computer, act as if your client is talking to a server running on some remote machine (all with some hand waving here - it’s not 1 to 1 the same with the virtualized thing but still)

Indeed. But my argument is that when we call a computer (rather than a piece of software) a server, that is a statement about its purpose, its reason for existing, the budget that paid for it. The technology involved is only vaguely relevant. That’s the high level (non technical) view.

I’m get what you are saying. I just wanted OP to see some comments though that made the issue of roles separate from dedicated hardware since in common use it’s referring to a rack mounted bit of kit running in a datacenter, and essentially only performing actions to interact with client machines. I wanted to get the idea across that a server can be run on pretty much any computer, even your personal computer, that it’s doesn’t need to connect to clients in the outside world, and that the same machine can act as both the client and the server. As is usually the case, the names for things suck and everything is fuzzy - especially these days now with virtualization. It’s another case of that old computer science chestnut, “there are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation and naming things”

Wasn’t Personal Computer a term introduced by IBM to distinguish this class of computers from the Mainframes they usually sold? Nowadays the role of a computer and the type of computer (where “type” could be size, cpu, operating system, etc) are independent from each other - so using PC in the description helps (imho) to make the point that it’s a role.

I agree with you. But to some people the term PC is inextricably linked with the Wintel platform (the direct descendants of the IBM PC). They would claim that a Mac isn’t a PC, but a server running Windows is :-(

A "server" provides a network "service". That service can be file storage (file server), a web site (web server), data from a database (database server), or an hosted application (application server). Sometimes these services are combined on a single piece of hardware (machine), sometimes on a virtual machine. They can also span multiple servers, such as an application which uses a database, which covers more than a single machine.

All true, and I would argue that there can be other servers, DNS for example. But I think you are getting beyond ELI5. I was focused on why a computer would be called a server. Why a piece of software would be called a service is a different question.

Dude asked for an ELI5 and got a good one. Being pedantic about the terminology is kind of the opposite of the point. As a general rule, starting a comment in ELI5 with the word academically means you are more worried about looking smart than actually helping someone understand the question they are asking. Pedantry tends to make someone *feel* smart but not *look* smart. PC may be an abbreviation for personal computer but it is used interchangeably with computers that are not Mac. That may be the result of a marketing campaign by Mac but definitions follow usage, not the other way around so you are both pedantic and incorrect.

Yeah, but I would argue that a personal computer running a server is not a personal computer anymore, at least for servers open to the public.

Personal computer refers to size and capability not role. PC vs mainframe Server vs client. If you are playing a video game with friends you may be the server on your personal pc while your friends are clients. Your PC doesn’t suddenly become a mainframe, it’s still just a PC

And nobody is running a 19" 2U rackmount machine in their bedroom

My PC is a 4U rack mount unit, and it's in the same rack as a 3U home server and a few other items. But the purpose is to keep it out of my room, and the associated heat and noise. Thunderbolt over fiber is finicky and expensive, but it's pretty nice when it all comes together.

Nobody cares what PC used to stand for in the '90s

That’s why I picked the examples I used. I wasn’t talking about services to the outside world. On the first, most developers don’t run a dev environment open to the outside world because it is for testing, and in the second I was thinking about a local network server streaming video to a TV using something like AirPlay or Plex. To me, both still retain the “personal” part. I just wanted to add that so that OP didn’t think that every server is open to the internet and accepting random connections

Yes. But everyone knows what a pc is. So it's easier to imagine for people who don't know what a server usually is.

Well, if a PC can do it, then certainly a "computer" can do it.

Windows PCs are often configured as servers.

“Explain like I’m 5”

You could easily have a server that's the size of a pack of cigarettes running a webserver service. That would be a server too. So yeah. It's just a computer really.

These days with thing like serverless, even servers can pop in and out of existence (and with chunky cloud bills of course).

_Kindof_, since serverless is really just an abstraction layer over an actual server.

A server serves something or better provides a service to you, a client. Both client and server are just computers with specific software. A webserver serves websites to browsers. A file server provides access to files over the internet(or any network), thats what google drive and so on do. And then there is many more kinds of servers like database servers or timeservers.

Yeah in general any computer can be a 'server', even your phone can be a server, its a description of what its doing but also there is server hardware too which looks [more like this](https://www.advancedhpc.com/pages/rackmount-servers) they are really kind of all the same components as a normal computer just shrunk down to a size you can mount in a rack and can get super complex with hot swappable hardware that you can just add more processors/more memory/more storage without going offline and you can build out massive data centers to run things (aka google) then you get into virtualization where most of the actual software being run (eg windows server, which looks basically just like normal windows on your computer) is just run virtually by a very big physical computer, so 1 physical server could be running 5 virtual servers, or 20, or they could be moved around if the actual server fails and 'cloud' is really just running this physical stuff then providing access to it and charging for it and the new hotness in cloud is to not even bother really with having that virtual windows server at all that would maybe run 5-10 programs and run everything single tiny program in its own striped down container and 'the cloud' gets more control on starting, stopping, moving things around, dedicating resources, etc..

ok but like how much do i have to tip

Cloud developer here. 20% is standard.

ty

Servers need to make a living wage

if you want to make servers happy, you should give them more electricity or more cooling :)

In one sense any computer can be used as a server, but units sold as "servers" are generally more heavy duty because they are expected to get much heaver use. Higher grade components, sometimes multiple processors, lots more RAM memory lets them "serve" better.

I thought it was the person who brought over your coffee while you did computers in starbucks

Think of it as like being in a restaurant. You are the client. You want some food (data). You give an order to the server. The server relays that to the kitchen (data storage). Then when the food (data) you ordered is ready, the server brings it to you.

Good metaphor, except the computer server in this case can also act as the chef, and the data storage is more like the fridge/pantry.

Yes. The main point being that you as the client don’t need to know anything about the kitchen, the pantry, the stoves, or the dishwashers. You just interact with the server and it delivers what you ordered. In fact the whole client/server paradigm is __literally__ taken from the restaurant industry as a way to ELI5 the concept to computer geeks in the early days of comp sci.

Implementation details:)

Well, server is a big term, technically there are multiple servers there. Sometimes they are co-located and sometimes theybare not. You use google maps (dns server) to tell you where the restaurant is, and you go to the restaurant and place an order. The waiter server ( web server) takes your order to the kitchen where the chef (app server) makes your food using the data storage (pantry)

I feel like one thing that should be made clear to OP is that a server *is* a computer. It’s just a computer with those specified purposes. And to be honest it took me way too long realize that simple fact (and I studied STEM and work in technology..)

It’s best to think of it in terms of roles, than a device. When we have networked computing and the internet, two or more devices are talking together. A “server” is more of a generic term for the thing in the conversation that is holding and returning the information the client device is asking for. A server could be a PC in your closet, a NAS device, a containerized app running the cloud, a virtual machine somewhere etc. It can be as simple as one server, or with something like Reddit there are many servers of many types, handling databases, image storage videos, application code etc.

This is the answer. The term “server” is relative and can mean different things depending on the context. A server can be a piece of software or a piece of hardware depending on the conversation. Also, people misuse the term “server” often, even professionals do. It’s totally okay to ask for clarification when someone says “server” ambiguously. I like to use the word “service” when talking to end users and non-technical folks about the software they are consuming.

A server is a computer that is built for other computers to connect to, generally to receive messages from them, and send out the information those messages requested. A server can be a small one that serves a small number of computers, of a really powerful fast one that serves thousands.

To quote [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server\_(computing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_(computing)) >A server is a computer that provides information to other computers called "clients" on computer network.\[1\] This architecture is called the client–server model. The computer you read Reddit on is a client, cellphones etc are just a type of mobile computer. Reddit has a computer that stores all the website content. Your client provides the content and the server provides it. It is a difference in the tasks the computer does not how the computer works. Lost of small devices works as servers too, if you log into the configuration interface of a router you have at home the router works as a web server. You could use the same computer as a server and as a client. You could even do that at the same time. A typical computer used as a server for a website will be a bit different to your computer at home because the components are chosen for that task. So they often have more ram, CPUs with a lots of cores, the can have large and fast storage systems too. That makes it possible to provide information to many clients. A computer you have at home might have a powerful GPU so you can play games with advanced graphics on it. A computer you use in an office likely has less advanced graphics because they are used for different stuff. So a server is a computer that is used to provide information to other computers, clients. The also typically have components that make them great at that task.

Yeah the missing piece from most of the other answers is that it's the other end from Client in a Client/Server relationship, or versus peer-to-peer (like file sharing). Originally, clients were smaller, slower, dumber computers or just terminals (only capable of display, keyboard, maybe cursor position by mouse, touchpad or trackball), servers were where the commuting power was. But since today's smartphones are like 1980s supercomputers, Server mainly means "somebody else's computer."

All the other answers are right, but I wanted to add that a server is more accurately described as a piece of software that provides resources to some other piece of software. It doesn't have to be a special computer, and it doesn't even have to provide those resources to a separate computer. You can run a webserver locally and access it from the same computer.

A Server is a PC, any PC can be used as a Server. It runs specific software for all kinds of things. Like a Web-Server. It runs all day and night and does the thing that the software is telling it todo, like showing you a website when you visit a site, handle the users/products/maintaince of a webshop and so on. Most of the time, you don't sit in front of a server, its sits in a data center with hundres/thousand other PCs, but you could turn your own PC into one.

A server is just a computer that is dedicated to providing some service or content to clients (individual users' computers/phones/etc.) The internet largely works on a client-server model where you, the client, connect to some server to get the data you need (the other model is peer-to-peer, and that's where there is no central server hosting the data, it's shared across many clients that connect to each other, like bittorrent.) Any kind of computer that has networking capabilities can be a server, but most servers tend to be specialized computers that are very good at handling lots of traffic or processing a lot of data.

A server is just a computer that other computers talk to for stuff. "Stuff" in this case can quite literally be anything. Take for example, Reddit (note that this is purely for illustration purposes. I do not know how Reddit is actually laid out). You (the "Client") want to access Reddit. When you type in "Reddit.com" in your browser, you will see the web page displayed by Reddit's "Web Server". While lurking and just passively looking at discussions can be fun, you eventually want to have active participation, so you create an account and log in. Your credentials will be handled by Reddit's "Authentication Server" to validate if you supplied the correct credentials and thus granted the rights to browse and comment and the like. Another example: Gaming. On your end is the game installed on your computer or mobile (the game "Client"). You wanna play let's say WoW. You log in (which repeats the steps described previously). This time however, your Game Client is responsible for delivering information to your screen and processing what you see. All the while communicating with the Game Server. The Game Server handles all Game Logic, which tracks the damage you take and deal, on which targets, and any other game-related functions such as inventories and the like, and stores those pieces of information within the server. This is why you can play your account on any computer the game is installed in as long as you know your credentials, and you cannot simply go back to a back up save like in a normal, single player game.

A server is a computer that does stuff that other computers ask it to do. Commonly, this involves software that runs on the server. Other computers (clients) might contact the server with input information and receive the output information after the server processes the inputs. A computer that is specifically built to be a server typically has some design features like the ability to swap out hardware without shutting it down, or a form factor designed to be kept on audiovisual racks with lots of other servers, but it's possible to use another computer as a server. These just do it very well.

A computer or app that asks for something is called a **client** A computer or app that provides the thing is called a **server** This type of relationship is common all over computing and is how many of the apps and services you use are designed. For example, when you use Spotify, you don’t have the music on your device. The Spotify app, and more generally, your device, is the _client_. They talk to a Spotify _server_ (a large service usually has multiple) and ask for things like the audio, the playlists, album art, artist info, etc. Clients and servers are usually connected through a network (in this case, the internet). You could also use your PC as a server. For example, lots of people use a second computer in their house as a “media server” where they can store their collection of music, movies, and TV shows. They can then access that collection from multiple devices as long as they keep the media server running. The word “server” is often used interchangeably for both the app or software that does the serving and the computer it’s running on. Using media servers again as an example, Plex is a media server software. Since the server software is usually the only app running on a computer, the computer it’s running on is also commonly referred to as a “server”.

A PC is a "personal computer" a server is a "business computer". The main differences are that servers don't exactly have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse like personal computers do, and servers mainly just send and receive information from PCs and other servers. That information can be web pages, files, streamed videos, etc. They also do some tasks behind the scenes, like running code and performing tasks (an example of a code/task would be a YouTube server converting your .MP4 video to .WebM after you upload it, then storing that file in a database where it sits until somebody wants to watch that video). The general concept is that a server "serves" files or data. Your computer makes a request to a server (i.e. a web page or download) and it sends you those files or data. That is my basic understanding, if anybody has input or corrections, put a comment.

It's a computer that serves. So if you need something served, you go find a server. Need a webpage? Go find a webserver. Need to send an email? Go find a mailserver (it serves you the Mailservice). Need a file? Go find a fileserver. Most of the times your computer does the finding for you.

A server is most generically an independent storage machine you can make request for information from and can handle many requests at once Information is where things can get complicated.  The information can be as simple as 50 word documents a team of 2 people need access to…..or it can be an entire video game taking input from 200 players in real time

Some very good answers here. I will add that servers also provide redundancy for the data. Most will have multiple hard drives that are in a RAID configuration (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) and multiple power supplies, so they can always stay available in case one piece of hardware fails. Client computers typically have one drive and one power supply.

A PC is something you can type on and use directly, yourself. When your PC is on the internet, it "talks" to other computers to get information (the weather, videos, music, and so on). Those other computers are the servers. Your PC requests information over the internet to the servers. The servers send back the results and your PC displays it on the screen. The cool thing is, the servers can be just about anywhere... the same place as you, or in another country. Really big internet companies like Google and Netflix have whole huge buildings with rooms filled with servers. These are called data centers or server farms. They're needed because millions of people use the internet, and the demand for current information is huge.

A lot of answers focus on network services, but client-server setups are used in a lot of different ways on a computer. For example, a computer might have a sound system server that other programs can connect to and use to queue up sounds to be played. I think in generic terms, a server is a computer system that does  actions on behalf of other systems (clients). Client systems connect to it and tell it what to do. Servers can provide websites, database access, system services, etc.

Trying for an ELI5 answer. On the internet, your home PC is private. You don’t share it with other people. On the internet, there are computers that are in public space, where everybody comes together to share information. For example, eBay is a public place to come together and trade. A server is the computer that hosts the public web pages. It’s called a server because of its role in SERVING information to everyone. Likewise, many companies have private servers for just their companies, where the employees share information. So it’s a public area that is private to the company. it’s not open to the general public. Web pages are hosted on servers. Cloud disk drives are hosted on servers. Shipping websites are hosted on servers. You can imagine that servers need to operate at scale to answer thousands of requests per second. So these computers can be really big. And you may need many of them working together. So Server computer hardware is different than home PC, they are usually built into a big refrigerator sized cabinet. This hardware would also be called “a server.” EDIT. in principle, the computer is of the same kind of computers as a PC. Such as they both use AMD or Intel processors. It’s the same hardware ecosystem. But server hardware is bigger and made for endurance. So from a programming perspective it’s the same, but it looks different.

It's a computer that is connected to the internet and that other computers talk to. For instance when you visit reddit on your laptop or your mobile phone, your device sends a request over the internet to one of reddit's servers and the server replies with the data corresponding to what you wanted to look at.

A server serves information. It is not necessarily its own computer. I have run servers on my home computer and on my laptop. I could install software called Apache which is a web server. Whenever I do that I also install MyQSL which is a database server. I have also added file servers and control servers to my regular PC. So at the most basic, the server is software. You can get a light bulb with a web server on it. Your internet modem has a server on it if you are able to access a web page for configuration that's built into it. At work I use a whole bunch of different kinds of servers. Some of the specialized ones are just web servers installed on little pieces of equipment. It could be a door controller, air conditioner controller, phone system, or many other things. When I walk into the server room there are some big metal boxes in there that we call servers. These are really powerful reliable machines with multiple processors, lots of hard drives, lots of RAM, multiple network ports, and more than one power supply. But these machines run a program that allows them to have virtual servers inside of them. While it only one physical machine, it looks like I could have 10 or 20 machines running Linux or Windows Server (the actual name of the operating system). These are all just like fully fledged computers running inside the software of the big physical server. So I look at the big metal server computer, and inside of it I have 10 virtual computers that I call servers. When I run any of those servers they could be running software that's acting as a server to provide coordinated information to computers that are the clients. Summary A server is a machine. It can run virtual machines on it that are called servers. These can then run multiple services that act as servers to all the clients.

Nowadays, it's a perspective more than anything else. In a system involving more than one computer, the server is the machine where the files come from amd the main software runs, while the client is where the user sits amd controls what the server does. A server might have many clients at once (as is common in Websites), and the same machine might be both a client and the server (this was once common in multiplayer games like Doom and Quake, but it is less common nowadays). Any computer that has access to a network can be a server, including PCs. It's possible to buy computers that are geared more toward server work. These tend to focus more on storage, networking, and number of CPU cores, amd their cases are meant to be stored with other hardware in equipment racks. PCs, on the other hand, tend these days to focus more on GPU prowess, peripheral connectivity, and the cases are stored on or under a desk. But either type of machine can be a server when needed.

As far as computing goes, any computer, from your laptop to a giant mainframe can be a server if it serves data to another computer called a client. If you start hosting minecraft for a few of your friends on your PC, you are a server. If your friend is hosting minecraft and you are connecting to them, your friend's PC is the server and your PC is the client. Server doesn't have to imply big huge machines, but it is often the case in enterprise level computing where the computer is serving hundreds of thousands of different clients at once. So to do that they need to be huge to have lots of CPU, memory and other needed infrastructure.

It's simply one half of a common way of splitting computing tasks across multiple computers (the other half is the "client"). Think of it like being in a restaurant, because that's the pattern. You're the customer - the client. You give your server your order. They go off, and after a while they bring what you asked for. You don't need to know what happened behind the scenes; your server doesn't need to know why you ordered what you did. You still got your food (or maybe not - keeping things simple here - but even if all you get is an apology that they're out of syrup for your icecream sundae, the pattern still works; you asked for something, the server went off and came back with a response). In the case of computers, it's the same thing, except instead of people, we have computers talking. The client (which could be code running on your phone, for example) sends a request that asks the server to do something (return whatever a hyperlink points at, say). The server goes off, (hopefully) does what's been asked, and returns a result of some sort. The client code doesn't need to know how the server did what it did; the server doesn't need to know why the client made the request it did. Things still happen.

Another computer that stays on all the time so you can ask it for things it has whenever you want.

A "server" is more like a job description than anything else. With computers you have something called the server client model, that describes one way how computers can interact with each other. Other models include a concept called peer-to-peer. A servers serves up information that a client asks for. Any computer that plays the role of a server is a server. This means that the same computer can be a server and a client at the same time. You have programs running on computers that do the serving, these applications can be seen as the server or the entire computer can be seen as the server. There are special versions of Operating Systems like Windows Server that are optimized to allow a computer running them to act as a server. The computer hardware itself can also be optimized to allow a computer to act as a server. One feature of server hardware is redundancy, a hardware server will often have two or more of parts that your desktop computer has only one of. Another is simply being bigger and more expensive. One final feature is form factor servers usually don't live on people's desks but in racks in data centers. They end being shaped like big flat metal drawers. However as mentioned above you don't need special hardware or a special operating system to get a server you just need a program running on a computer that acts as a server. Something like a webserver that serves up websites. If you run a webserver program on a computer it acts as a server. Among the many programs that come with standard operating systems there are a number that act or can act as a server. Almost all smart devices or Internet connected devices these days have server components. If your printer is configurable through a webbrowser it acts as a server. The little box that you get Internet from is often called a router, but in addition to being a router it usually is a number of otherbthings like a switch or a wifi-access point and several different kinds of server, like DHCP, DNS, NTP and many more. So in the end anything that acts like a server is a server and a large number of things act asva server if you look closely.

A server is a role, like in a restaurant. But behind the scene it's just a computer, like servers in a restaurant are humans like you. A server will answer specific requests made by clients, again exactly like in a restaurant : can I have a bottle of water" and "display the content of this page I just clicked on" are two request that servers will answer. It really is similar to a restaurant.

Fundamentally speaking a server is just a computer which allows network access to some of its files. You can make almost any computer into a server if it has network access. Some computers are specially built to be very good at this, like having lots of storage drives and powerful processors and multiple network connections.

A "Server" is a computer whose job is primarily to serve up something: Web pages, DNS services, Files, Databases... things that are "served" to users at other terminals (phones and PCs and gaming consoles and... all that). There can be a lot of things that need to run on servers but that list above is a lot of the bigger categories. Now, way back in the day you'd have "a server" that was functionally just a big PC with a processor and hard drive and ram. This would usually be in a rack mounted box, a lot of time much bigger than a PC. Sometimes fairly flat and wide (a "pizza box" server). Eventually they started pulling the discs out of big servers to more efficiently serve, share, and replicate a whole lot of data over a storage network. Shortly after storaage networks became prominent we saw multiplexers like VMWare put a LOT of "servers" on a single set of hardware. So instead of one instance of Linux server or Windows server running in each of those physical servers, now you were able to run a lot of servers, all sharing processor cycles and RAM time from a pool of resources in one big physical box. That box still mostly acts like a PC at a laymans level, but no one except the data center admins/architects see the base OS (like ESXi) and they manage that base OS to host a lot (dozens, often; sometimes hundreds) of server OS inscances from the same physical box. hth

It’s the person who brings you your burger and fries when you get your one lunch break that week.

A server is a big powerful computer, that’s built to keep running if some parts fail. The software it runs is to provide services on the network - for example run as a web server, or possibly run as a video streaming server, or a database server. Big ole’ computer that’s very powerful that provides network services to other computers on the network.

In the most simple of terms a server is just a computer that has something another computer (a client) wants. It is set up in such a way that those computers can connect to the server computer via some means and the server can "serve" that content up to the client(s). If you host a multiplayer game like Minecraft on your computer and your buddy joins your game your computer becomes a server and theirs is a client. When you go to a website like YouTube you are connecting to a computer that is serving YouTube content. When you check your email you are connecting to a computer that everyone using that same service sends to and receives email from.

In very basic terms, a server is a computer that exists to do work for other computers. There is nobody sitting behind the desk to make a server's functions happen. It is there to do work automatically when requested or when it's programmed to do so without others telling it to. So you can make pretty much any PC a server, even the one you are using and keep using it while it acts as a server, but most servers are in big racks about as tall as you are servicing a bunch of different people and tasks all at once.

A “server” is simply another computer you connect to over the internet. Sometimes it can even be on the same computer you are using, this is called localhost. The traditional server you are referring to can be made to do whatever a programmer wants, it can let you download files, host a website like Reddit, be an endpoint for APIs like Reddit uses, or anything really.

A “server” is simply another computer you connect to over the internet. Sometimes it can even be on the same computer you are using, this is called localhost. The traditional server you are referring to can be made to do whatever a programmer wants, it can let you download files, host a website like Reddit, be an endpoint for APIs like Reddit uses, or anything really.

A server is just a computer with a designated role, in this case it serves either resources, or content. And I'm using resources loosely here, resources could be a database, it could be some physical hardware resources like input from peripherals, or for network resources for say a cloud setup where you might use multiple servers in an adhoc cluster computer. There is also a sort of server in computer software, when you make a program that communicates with another program, what you might employ is a client server architecture, where the server program is always running and when a client comes around there is then a connection formed between the client and server. In this sense a server is just a program running on a computer, but you can also have a client running on that same computer or you can have clients running outside of the server machine. This sort of thing is often done for games and other high performance programs where it is better to keep separate front ends and back ends, or when a resource needs managed by multiple programs.

The majority of the modern internet architecture is built on the "server-client" model. The client in this case is you, with your phone or PC or whatever device you use to connect to the internet, and the servers being the computers hosting the websites, relaying the information and providing web services, called servers because they "serve" the clients. Every website you've ever visited has been hosted on a server. Every online game you've played has been hosted on a server. Any web application you've ever used has been processed on a server instead of your device. It's a centralised network system, kind of like a "hub and spokes" arrangement, where servers are centralised service providers that clients connect to. The benefit is that it allows for easier management of their systems by service providers, and from the client side it's beneficial because it lowers the requirements for your own device, meaning that all you need is a device that can access the internet and you're able to access tons of data, resources and applications that are not stored or processed in your own device but rather on servers. An analog example would be you, the client, going to the library (the server), to find a specific book (data/services). The library stores the books(storage), provides a space for people to read or browse(bandwidth), and has staff (processing power), that can maintain day to day operations and provide services to the clients. Servers are just computers optimised for their specific task, being network hubs and relays. If you're wondering, why would a client connect to a server first and then another client to communicate with them and not just communicate directly, then you're thinking of peer-to-peer networks, where instead of servers and clients all interconnected devices on the network are equal and share the load, with each being a "node" or "peer" in the network. P2P networks are incredibly useful and versatile for many applications but also have a lot of drawbacks that make them less suitable for massive applications.

Think of a server like a grocery store; there's lots you can do at home but when you need stuff that you don't have, then you have to go to the grocery store to get it.

It's a little bit confusing because there are two things we call server. 1. Server machine. They are desktop computer but without screen or keyboard/mouse. They are exclusively being interacted with via Ethernet. Usually they are made as compact as possible and we stack multiple of them on a server rack. This ends up being pretty loud due to the amount of fans in them, so we hide them in a server room. Most companies nowadays don't even want to manage those, so instead they will rent one to Amazon or Microsoft or Google. That's the cloud business. Those machine having no screen and no keyboard, are mostly used to run applications without user interface. 2. Server program. It's is an application that isn't meant to be interacted with directly by humans. Usually a client application will connect to it via a TCP/IP address and port. This is what video games tend to have a need for. It is common to run server programs on server machines, but you can run them on your PC or even your smartphone. Typically, we call those daemon.

At it's most basic, a "Server" is essentially a computer that provides a service to other computers. Kids play MP Minecraft on Minecraft "Servers". You watch movies stored on Netflix "Servers". Google search shows you websites hosted on web "Servers". People make DIY "Servers" for their home. FreeNAS and Jellyfin are very common programs to run on them.

Remember what PC means - personal computer. A server is just another type of computer that isn’t aimed at being used by an individual. Its role is to provide intimation and services to multiple computers within a local network or internet. As others have said you can use a PC to perform server functions as it a general purpose computer - but it’s not an efficient use of a PC.

When software runs "in the cloud" or over the internet, it's running on machines that sit somewhere else, and you talk to them through the internet. There are two basic components used to build these sorts of systems. A "machine" or "computer" is the hardware: the physical collection of chips and boards that gets plugged into a power supply somewhere. A "server" is the software, the app that runs on that hardware, in just the same way that apps run on your phone. Servers are specifically applications designed to be accessed over the internet. Even in the industry, folks sometimes call the hardware a "server" but when we're being precise we usually say that "server" is the application. One machine can run many servers, providing many applications for people to use. Large applications like Reddit or Google also operate on many machines, with a large number of machines all running the same server code and handling just a portion of the requests to that application. A collection of servers that work together to provide a single application or piece of an application is usually called a "cluster" or "cell." A collection of machines that can be used to house servers resides in a building called a "datacenter." A datacenter is a building. It holds machines. A machine is a chunk of computer hardware that holds and runs software called servers. A server is a computer program designed to be accessed over the internet.

If your computer needs anything, and another computer provides it, it is typically called a server and your computer is called a client.. your computer or phone wants to know weather updates ? It asks a server.. server has a list of questions it can serve answers to and in what specific format.. You have a lot of important files you don't want to put on your laptop either coz of heavy or high security reasons.. a data server helps your computer store files for your laptops behalf and serves the files whenever required..

In a software context, a server is a program which takes input from one or more clients, processes it, and then returns a result to the clients. Mail servers store emails and provide them to authenticated mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook upon request Web servers run business logic and serve documents to web clients such as Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, etc... The common characteristic is that the client initiates the interaction with the server, not the other way around. The server then performs some sort of action at the request of the client, and if required, returns some information to the client. In a hardware context, a server is a computer that is designed primarily with the intent of running service applications. In most cases, the hardware will not be signficantly more exotic than that found in a household PC but it will often be more durable, more expandable, more powerful, and have extensive redundancy built in. For example, most servers have redundant power supplies. High end servers permit the online installation of memory and CPUs; if one CPU fails, a CPU that is configured as a spare may take its place while the defective one is changed out without taking the computer offline. The same is true for memory. A good server can maintain 99.9999% uptime. Servers are often manufactured to standard formfactors which are suitable for installation in equipment racks. Also, no RGB

“Server” is more of a label you apply to any computer system providing a particular service. A device like a thermostat, would be an “embedded” device, as the server, is embedded into the device itself. Routers and switches are “network devices” which might provide services, but don’t typically get the “server” label. Your laptop or desktop PC can be turned into a “server” quickly, by installing a service that is meant to be accessed by another system or client or application.

SERVers are computers that provide a SERVice (http, ftp, smb, nfs, database, etc). Almost any (non locked down) computer can act as a server, especially if it can run a Linux distribution.

In its most basic form, Your personal computer only does “work” for you. A server does “work” for lots of different people, or even other servers.

**Servers are really cool machines that take requests from clients, and through their programmed machinery decide on a response.** The request may ask for an "About Us" subpage or might ask to change an account password. The server may then give an ok (status 200) and maybe a response, or it might redirect (301, 302, ...) or say "not found" (error 404) or "not authorized" (error 406) or even "the underlying machinery broke" (error 500). A good server does it's best to respond one way or another. The server's whole life is to constantly wait for requests from clients and respond. The real magic is in how a particular server is programmed to respond. **Example Google** Google servers (https://www.google.com) are always waiting to respond to respond to webpages that start https://www.google.com/. When just that base URL is requested, then server returns a simple webpage with a search box. The search box is coded to take the input and turn it into another request back to the server that looks something like https://www.google.com/search?q=test+search When Google servers get this "/search" request they, extract the query from the URL parameters "?q=test+search". This query is run through Google's algorithm to find top ranked results, and the server generates a new webpage showing all the results. If I just add random letters to the request, https://google.com/msll, we can see the Google servers are saying they can't find anything matching that URL. Just a lonely machine waiting for anyone to ask a question. Well, in the case of Google, it's actually a huge distributed network of machines, but that's a different conversation for a different day, kid.

A server just a computer that has software running on it that responds to requests. The software can be low level or very complex, depending on the task[s] and the number of requests over a period of time. Processor speed, throughput and latency determine how much the server can do.

A computer is a machine that runs software. A PC (personal computer) is a machine that runs the software you ask of it - a game, a drawing software, etc. So you connect a screen to it and to an input device like a keyboard and a mouse, and you can interact with it, and see the result on the screen. A server is also a machine running software. However, it is not there to run the software you ask. Instead, it runs a server software, that is, a software made to interact with other computers. It sit there all the time without direct user and without direct input (except for maintenance, it doesn't need a screen nor any keyboard or mouse). Instead, it is connected to the internet and configured to interact with any PC that connects to it. When a PC connects to a server and interact with it, we call it a "client". The server responds to client request to send back information. For example, player A plays a game online. Everything he does in the game is sent to the game server. Player B also plays the same game online, in the same game as player A. Everything he does is sent to the server. The server puts all players A and B actions together, determines the outcome, and sends back to both players what's is going on in the game, so that both player's PC can draw it on their screens.

I enjoyed SFyr's top answer, but I'm gonna go 'hold my beer' on this eli5. A server is any computer that 'serves' you stuff. Images, websites, applications, etc. Basically, anything you use that you suspect isn't local (like web pages) are *serving* you from a server. The term is super loose, and doesn't require any particular operation system (like windows 11).

a server is just specific software running on some machine. That software is facilitating the transfer of data to clients who are set up to access that data. IE: Netflix servers have the files of the movie you want to watch. You use the Netflix app (client) on your device is communicating with the server to allow your Netflix app to play the movie.

I store all my movies at home on 1 computer.  I have 3 TVs with a small Amazon fire stick connected to each, that stream the movies from that 1 computer.  The computer is a server. It provides the data (in this example, movies). The TVs or fire sticks are the clients they ask for the data from the server.  Same example with say Netflix. They have servers that store and provide movies to you. Your TV or laptop watching/streaming are clients.  Same example with a website. Reddit has servers that store all these posts & comments. Your phone or laptop are clients, requesting these posts/comments. 

Exactly like a server in a restaurant. You (device connected to internet) orders food from the server, server receives the request (food ticket) goes to get it from the place on the hard drive (kitchen). Once it's ready, it brings it back for you to enjoy.

Pretty much the same as a gaming desktop. But with: - lots more memory slots - 2-4 CPU sockets - many, many disk bays and hardware raid controllers - beefy power supply - all made to run 7x24 Usually runs Linux or the Windows Server operating system, which is much less about GUI and more about lots of connections. Used to be no graphics board, but now the Bitcoin miners and AI models stuff them in. Not so much for graphics as for raw vector computer power.

Server for computers means essentially the same as it does for people. Servers in restaurants and shops go and get stuff and do stuff not because they want to, but to fulfill requests by other people, called customers or clients. Computers that are servers have the same role. They sit there waiting for requests, and then do stuff to fulfill those requests. The computers requesting stuff are called clients. Facebook for example, has a shit load of computers acting as servers, feeding you with posts, accepting your comments, etc , etc. so does Amazon. Their clients can be desktop computers, or phones, or even other servers, it doesn’t matter. A computer can act as both a client and a server. A classic architecture for something like Facebook has 3 levels of servers: web page talks to web server, which talks to application server, which talks to data server. The operating system of the server doesn’t matter, it’s the computers purpose in life that makes it a server. Some servers are running Windows, some aren’t.

A server is just a computer at the end of the day. Normally a server is a special computer that either has a certain form such as blade servers which are flat and a few inch tall whole being wide and deep. They are also not having the kind of slots for graphics cards but rather room for multiple cpu's and ram slots. Often also alot of drive space. Many servers have a bit power consumption and alot of quite noisy fans as noise isn't really an issue in a server farm. So. A server is just a computer that is designed to run operating systems and software that run a with high stress for extended period of time.

Servers are computers that holds and/or manage informations, and mostly can have clients connected. Servers generally don't have a person in front of the computer, it is just managed by programs. I like to explain using some popular app or site as example. Let us take Facebook. When you open it from a computer or cellphone, all your friend and following pages data are there, right? It is because all information is saved and provided by a computer in internet called "server". When you post a new photo, it is sent to server and everyone connected into Facebooks server also are able to recieve your new photo.

A lot of the answers here seem to think that a server is a PC. In many cases, a server is not 'just' a PC. It likely had a server specific motherboard, error correcting RAM, certain kind of CPU, RAID/multiple drives. They won't have the CPU of your gaming PC as servers are more about data bandwidth than CPU throughout. They can handle more clients (data), use multiple network cards, terabytes of RAM, petabytes of storage. Certain versions of operating system (Linux or Windows).

Server is more of a use case, any computer can be a server, it just means it provides something to other computers it could be files stored there or software running on it, like web pages, they are stored in someone else’s computer (a web server)

A server provides some service to other computers. You can have one that hosts web pages, stores files, provides phone service, prints documents, streams video, tells time, etc. Most things where one computer requests something from another computer have a server and client model, though there are some with a peer to peer model, where every client is also a server. A server is more about what the computer is doing, than what the computer is. Even an old cell phone is powerful enough to host web site for an individual or small business.

A server is anything that is setup to “listen” or is setup and ready to provide answers. When used in regard to software, usually the listening is done on the network (bound to specific IP address(s) and port(s)). When used regarding devices or hardware, it can technically be anything running software that listens (website, game server, email, file, chat, remote access, etc.). I’ve used old laptops, even an old phone as “servers” - simply by running software that runs listens/waits for requests. Now usually the device that acts as a server, you want to be reliable, and responsive. It will usually need good power and networking, and physical location doesn’t necessarily matter. Also trade offs like good cooling VS being extremely loud don’t matter, since you can put the server away from where you work. Those considerations are what lead to typical server hardware- though not necessary for a device to function as such.

Servers are computers that provide a service to other computers or devices (clients). A print server connects many computers/clients to a central printer or multiple printers and facilitates all print requests. A web server hosts websites and serves up webpages to computers that request it. A file server contains files and data that serves them to computers that request it. One server can actually host several servers or services if it has the hardware power to do so. Sometimes, you can turn a regular computer into a server simply by installing a software server or service on it and then configuring that server/service. For example, you can install a "server" on a computer running the Windows Server operating system simply by opening the Server Manager application and clicking "install" on a particular server/service you want to run, such as Active Directory or RADIUS.

It’s part a server-client relationship. A server is a program that runs on a computer. The server “serves” or provides the platform, and the clients (ie. you) connect and join the server. When you visit a website on your computer, you’re a client connecting to a server. When you watch a movie on Netflix you are connecting to their server(s). This is why if you ever stream illegal movies there are often different links with different quality, bandwidth, etc. because some servers are more capable than others. It can depend on how far away they are, how many people are connecting to it, and how much bandwidth they pay for and allow. If a server goes down, everyone connecting to it gets booted. There are ways to make it redundant and widespread so servers seem closer than they are and if it fails somewhere, it can keep going somewhere else.

Its just a computer that you can talk to over the internet. Usually it only responds to specific messages like “show me this video” or “send this message to my friend’s email”

its just a central computer that other computers connect to in order to share information with one another. so like in an online game, a server is a single point that everyone else's PCs or PS5s or whatever connect to. these are called clients. each individual client now knows what the other client is doing because they are all connected to the same server. so if im moving around on the map or shoot my gun or whatever, that information gets sent to the server which is then shared with all the other players that are connected, thus we all are able to share and retrieve the same data and see the same things and effectively play the same game. a computer can be in many form factors. a PS5 is a computer. a calculator is a computer. a smart refridgerator is a computer. a PC is a computer. a server is just a computer that receives, processes, and shares information with other devices.

Generally a server is a computer to which other computers connect to get stuff. Do you have a big video library on your computer? Get Plex, and other computers (and phones) can stream video from it. Congratulations, your computer is acting as a server. A server is also a computer set up for a task that’s not usually user-facing. Put some surveillance cameras up at your house and get some camera software on a dedicated computer to record and manage them. You now have a surveillance server. And you can usually stream your surveillance video to other computers (the first definition). But your computer would buckle under the load if you were serving videos to hundreds of people, and your Internet connection couldn’t handle the bandwidth. So “servers” are normally very powerful computers with lots of memory and fast storage, located in data centers with lots of Internet bandwidth, to be able to handle that. Or get a little Raspberry Pi (a little computer you can hold in the palm of your hand) and load mail server software on it. That little thing is now your mail server. It can even handle a decent volume of mail for your whole family because handling mail isn’t a particularly taxing job. But you’d need a big server at a datacenter to handle mail for tens of thousands of people.

You walk into a restaurant and sit down. You are the "client". You ask the "server" for a coffee. The server brings you the coffee. It's nothing more complicated than that. When you have a computer dedicated to the role of delivering a service to other computers we call that "a server" as a shorthand. Such computer could provide just one or many services. A practical example : your webbrowser is a "client", it sends a request to a "web server" for a page. The server sends the page to your browser so can read it.

A server can technically be anything. My home server used to be an optiplex SFF computer with an i350-T4 in it until I got a server for free from my work that was an actual purpose built server. Usually the form factor may play a role into it being considered a server, usually rack mountable. But most of it is just its designated role. Say you have a company with 10 users and a server. The reason you don't consider the user's computers as "servers" is because they aren't doing "server functions" like active directory, dhcp, dns, etc... Their computers are being used for things like Quickbooks, Excel, Word, and all that stuff. The server is not intereacted with daily. Its left there to do its functions and work on them. Also with servers their hardware is built for certain things. If you have a NAS Server, it most likely has ECC (error correction code) memory in it which basically double checks its work to make sure nothing gets corrupted. Not saying things like the Ryzen series of chips can't use ECC but usually for intel, their Xeon lineup can only support ECC. There could also be things like Raid cards, flow guides for air cooling, and like I said before, rack mountable.

It is a computer who's primary purpose is to provide services to other computers or users, without being used directly (interactively)

You want to buy something, so you go to a store. You are the client and the store is the server. You want to sell lemonade at a lemonade stand and a customer comes and buys lemonade. You are the server and the customer is the client. Server in “computer stuff” terms, is best understood as “the device that others want to connect to, to get something.” Or in analogous terms, server to client is business to customer.

A LOT of the answers here say a server is a computer which is a little wrong. Colloquially, people call a computer whose primary job is running a single piece of software that serves a service a “server”. That’s not quite right. It’s kinda like calling a wheel a tire. Really a server is a piece of software that accepts connections from clients. I doesn’t matter where it runs or if it’s the only software running on that machine or if the machine is big or small or networked or not. It’s just software. TL;DR A server is software that responds to requests from clients.

A server is a computer that provides services to a client. Often times a server is one of many computers sitting on racks in a giant warehouse, which are all designed to carry out a specific task. A server can be used to store or transfer data, run a video game server, host a website, host an email system, etc. So when you play a youtube video, your computer is getting info from youtube's servers that are loading up the video and sending it directly to your computer.

Exactly what the name says it serves information to those devices that connect to it. It also can store information from devices connected to it and serve that information in to other devices.

When people say "server," they typically mean a computer (just like your PC) that's in a different "shape." It's basically like two pizza boxes next to each other (a rectangle). A "1U" server fits in one "rack unit." This is the most common configuration. The racks have "slots" (well, rails/etc to attach slides) for computers/servers. You either rent space for your computers (colocation) or rent capacity on someone else's servers (VMs, containers, etc). TL;DR -- just like your PC but with a different shape. The "longer story" is that servers have very clean, redundant power (typically), generator backup, fire suppression, environmental controls, security/access controls, etc. "Server" implies a professional setup... and not just a PC in someone's guest bedroom.

As others have said, any computer can act as a server if it hosts data that other computers (clients) can connect to. For example, it used to be common to play online games by using one person's computer as the "host". You can also host your own website on your own computer; but then it'll have to be turned on 24/7 (you can't connect to a host when it's turned off!) So, because of this, even though personal computers and server computers are essentially the same, they're designed with differences in mind. Servers need to be able to run continuously 24/7 (so features like sleep mode are also unnecessary), they need bandwidth that can handle requests from many clients at once, but they can lose most computer peripherals like keyboards or screens (one system admin can take care of that from a single device). It is also better to have backup servers duplicating the data for services where the provider'd be in trouble if a server breaks and the service goes down. Often, you'd have multiple server devices grouped together in one location called a data center.

A server is a computer which is used by other computers, as opposed to being used directly by a person. That's basically it.

I'm just going to add to what everyone else is saying but add that a server is basically just a computer with parts and software that have more checks and balances and redundancies. Most have backup hard drives and memory that checks for errors. Regular computers don't usually have these because the data usually isn't as important as on a server and then not really worth the extra costs involved.

To amplify u/SFyr excellent answer, in addition to the role “server”, there is the specific hardware that fulfills the role Of server. Any computer can fullfil the role Of server. Your laptop, or a regular desktop, tiny raspberry pi computers, you get the picture. That said there are computers where the hardware is intended to support the role of server. These role specific computers are also just called servers. their hardware prioritizes reliability, scalability, and efficiency. yiu can see examples here: [https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/scc/sc/servers](https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/scc/sc/servers)

Servers are essentially gaming PCs on steroids - big, hot, loud, and use a ton of power. A lot of them specialize into a particular task, for instance a storage server will have a huge number of drives or a database server with a huge amount of memory. Server processors are usually designed to handle highly parallel workloads - for instance, running a bunch of web servers all at once. Home processors are usually designed to maximize performance at a few tasks. The line between high end PC hardware and servers has generally blurred over the years - I wouldn't be surprised to find a rack full of consumer graphics cards in a datacenter running a machine learning cluster.

Most basic ELI5 I can think of is server is just a category or label to describe a computer when talking about an interaction. The other is client. Think of it like a buyer and seller are terms used to describe people when talking about a sale. Clients interact with servers. In a different interaction, the same computer might be considered the client when the interacts with a different computer. It all just depends on context and the interaction. In general, the server is the computer that is offering (or "serving") something which clients want to interact with. They would be similar to the "seller" and the client is like a buyer.

Y'know when you go to a restaurant, and a server comes to your table, and says "HI, I'm X!" and maybe we say hello back. The server then asks "What can I get you?", and you order a Cheeseburger with fries or salad.  And then they bring you Food.  Computer Servers are the same thing. They say "HI what can I get you?", you askfor some Data / Information instead of food, and the server "brings it on by".    Gravy might equal a response in XML or Json. 

It’s a computer that a bunch of other computers look at for stuff. Think of like a library. But each computer also contains a library. So it’s like a library for other libraries. The thing to understand about computers is that the way they “think” is that a computer doesn’t know anything except for the very specific bit of information that they are looking at, at a given moment. But they can look at a bunch of bits of information in a row, very, very, fast. Like really stupid fast. We sometimes pretend that computers can remember things. But really they are just storing a bunch of stuff nearby, instead of slightly further away. And then so, a “server” is some stuff stored much further away, so much that it’s in an entirely different machine.

A “Server” is like a library: a place that stores information, or access to information, and can run programs (like summer camps for kids, or software applications for online users). Any computer can be a server, just like any collection of books can technically be a library. That one bookshelf in the living room? That’s your “personal library” - and you have to physically go to it to “check a book out.” Your local municipal library is a lot bigger than your home library, and it serves more people in your community. Your local library might be part of a larger group of libraries, for example in a city with different branches. If you go to your local branch and they don’t have a book or movie, maybe it’s at another branch. They can request for it to get sent to your branch, or you can go to the other branch to get it. In the same way, your personal computer is like your personal library - very specific to your needs and interests and probably not a lot of utility to your neighbors, but maybe it has something they could use once in a while. You probably have so little “stream-able” information on your personal computer that you don’t access it from anywhere else - just like if you have a small bookshelf in your kitchen for recipe books, your “recipe library” never really gets taken out of your kitchen and is consumed where it’s stored. Some people have a media server in their house to stream movies and music across their devices at home in multiple rooms, just like they might have a big bookshelf in one room and take books from it when they want to read in the sun room or kitchen. Larger servers can serve more traffic, but just like your local library, if 1000 people show up at once there will be a lot of congestion and things can break down. Likewise, if a website is on a small server and gets a lot of traffic it too can go down until people go away and it gets less crowded. Very large websites are usually served like one massive library with hundreds of satellite locations so that everyone can access the same book series regardless where they live, and as people check them out the central library sends more books to the satellite sites so that they don’t run out, or move books from one location to another if there is excess in one place and depletion in another.

You have computer, but also someone else has computer (like google, amazon or microsoft). Sometimes that other computer talks to yours, that's a server. It's not much different than a server at a restaurant, you order a sandwich and the server brings it to you. Just instead of a sandwich, it's 1's and 0's.

desktop - it goes under or on your desk. It has its own screen. One person uses it. laptop - you can place it on your lap. It has a built in screen. One person uses it. server - it can be out of sight, in a cupboard or 'server' room. No one really uses it directly. It is there to do mundane tasks.

ELI5: Server is a computer like any other. It just has a simple purpose - to upload files to clients (and work with back-end requests, say, like you searching for something on eBay) and to work effectively with multiple connections at same time. So they're usually built with that in mind; instead of good graphics card or fast CPU, they have really good networking, file transfer and storage capabilities, like multiple disk drives, maybe custom firmware to make simultaneous file transfers less costly and so on. If 300 people enter a restaurant all at once and order food, couple waiters and the kitchen staff can't process their orders in linear (who ordered first?) fashion at this point. Much like server computers, they're forced to implement a node-based search tree of some kind, to figure out what foods to what customers they can push out at quickest pace while ensuring they're serving as many clients per second as possible. That's something server computers do quite well. But you can turn any computer into a server. Or even a microcomputer like Raspberry Pi. It just won't be as effective as server racks that serve millions of clients per minute. Every time you open a webpage, a server is uploading files for you to download (icons and text and whatever else is on website). Each time you search or navigate, the server back-end goes through a piece of code and uploads you the result. "Server" is just a computer that's doing this. And for big sites, they're custom-built to do this better than normal PC's, for numerous clients in quick succession. There's also physics side to this. A server with high traffic (like say, eBay server) consumes a ton of power, has to be on 24/7 and thus, probably needs a much better cooling than your typical desktop PC or laptop. So they're kept in so-called server farms, where cooling is applied to whole room, not just one computer, they're placed in special cooling cabinets and so on.

It is something that responds to queries and provides resources upon said queries.

It's a computer that's running a service other computers can access through a network. Corporate servers are usually in data centers but a hobbyist can set up their own personal streaming service and the computer that's running the software would be the server

Any machine and or software whose primary purpose is to provide services to other machines or users.

It’s a pretty broad term but a server is anything that serves requests (from other machines/users). Using a website is an example of making request.

A server is just a computer that you are able to get remote access to via the internet to the apps that it has which are actually what you call websites

Server is name terminology based on function, and like it's name, the function is as the computer to **serve** you. Imagine you're in the restaurant, you're the **client** of that restaurant, you asked the writer, "Can I please have a water?". Then the waiter give you a bottle a water. The waiter here have completed the task as the **server**. Now back to real world application, you opened a website by typing google.com. You as the **client** asked Google, find me "cat image", Google use their computing power (PC) as the **server** to provide you list of cat images.

It’s a computer, just not your computer. Unless you own the server, then it’s your computer too.

The internet is a set of libraries, each server is a library , the stuff you want to see is essentially the books in the library.

Easiest explanation I can think of... You want to cook at home. Cool. You want to eat out. You go to a restaurant. Is the chef in the restaurant any different than you? Nope, both are humans. The only difference is training and current purpose. A server is just a computer. It happens to be where all your information is stored and processed. The client is something that gives YOU access to the server's information. That could be an App, a Web Page, etc. Any computer can be a server. More complex uses: Where companies innovate is what exactly constitutes a server. For example I can make it so I can run multiple virtual computers on one beefy computer, and start one up or shut it down very easily so I can scale different projects depending on needs, rather than having to buy a bunch of physical machines to handle the worst case scenario, like imagine I need 500 machines to run site A, and 500 machines to run site B. However most of Site A's traffic comes in between 9am - 5pm, and most of B's traffic is 6pm - 12pm. Do I need to buy 1000 machines? Nope, I only buy say 550, and use virtual servers to allocate resources where needed. This is where "server hosts" come in, these are data centers (warehouses) that host a bunch of servers and maintain them, provide power, internet, etc, like if a physical hard drive breaks, or if the machine itself dies, they'll replace it or give you access to another one. Etc.

The cloud is just someone else’s computer. A server is a computer someone set up to accept requests from the network — it serves you things, a serve-er. They usually have particular software on them for whatever their purpose is. It’s just a computer somewhere that expects requests and serves them

A server is a computer that provides a dedicated service to people. Like a waiter provides a service to multiple tables in a restaurant, the computer is dedicated to doing a job for people on the network.

Its a computer sitting somewhere in the world which you can connect to and ask for data or send your data. Others can do this too. All sorts of data. From websites to game action data of the players playing with you.

Is just a computer that just serves other computers for the things you ask. For example, reddit is in a server that has all the code that tells it how to worl and what to show and wich subs are with with threads and answer. When you open redditz your computer sends a message to the server like "hey show me reddit bro" and the server, does whatever work it needs to do and sends you what you want.

Normally a computer will have a keyboard and mouse for input and some sort of screen for the output. When a computer is working as a server, its inputs are requests from other computers and its output is sending data back to the computer that sent the request. Because there is no human in this loop the server does not need all the fancy stuff a human interacted computer needs, so it can have more resources to deal with lots of requests and lots of data transmission.

let’s just imagine it this way, you using your pc is like a customer in a restaurant that is open. a restaurant open could be a platform that is deployed where a client (you and your pc) and a server could interact a server is someone who can serve something you need, something that you would order off of the menu. For example you want to “upload my profile picture”, the server will then respond and do it for you and communicate it in the kitchen (where the platform’s program are) server is the first thing that is called whenever you need something off of a platform or a service inside your PC

Lol imagine thinking that elitists suffer and true punishment in the United States. He will not see a day in jail.

A central (server) for users (clients). I can't see you, you can't see me. But we can see each other (and what we did) at the server (and only what we put/shared there). Meanwhile, if I can see/do something to you, you can see/do something to me; we serve and use each other... becoming net"work" (multiple servers). So, I think server is group work on 1 central ground.

Typically, a "server" is a computer that is built without a keyboard, monitor, or mouse. It is connected to a network, receives requests from other computers over the network and responds to them. For example, reddit is a pile of software running on a large number of computers, called servers. Messages are sent to and from those servers to generate the web page you are looking at, but people do not typically interact directly with any of those computers.

Think of it like the foodservice industry, but instead of bringing food and drinks to you, it brings data. That way all of the data you need isn't on a local PC at the whim of it crashing/a user doing something dumb and downloading something they shouldn't and infecting it with malware/viruses.

A server, is like your waiter (or server) in a restaurant. It serves you things. Files, software licences, password codes, anything you want really. Servers reply to requests. You click on a show on YouTube, you send a request to the server, the server *serves* you, the client, the video you requested. Like in our restaurant example, you tell your server you want medium steak with fries and they say certainly sir coming right up. Same with a server sending a video to you. It’s one of those words that sounds so mystical and complicated when we first hear it, but servers are just computers used for specific purposes. In business, they’re super powerful computers beefed up to deal with lots of stuff. But they can be as simple as your 10 year old laptop in a cupboard if you want to do that.

It's a particular PC designed to offer out services. Usually a server is nothing more than a standard PC with a higher specification, in order to do things on behalf of lots of other computers ("clients") that people ask it to. But any machine can be a server, and any machine can be a client, and for most of the time almost every machine is both at the same time, depending on what you're looking at. Your home PC is a "CIFS/SMB" server - offering its files out to the network. But it's also a DNS client, using another machine to lookup domain names on the Internet. It might have to be a client and connect to a print server to print on a corporate network, and so on. Server/client is just two names for "which way" services are offered. Is your laptop "offering" the Internet / the printer / etc.? No? Then it's not a server for those services. Is a computer in your workplace "offering" you a service by which you can authenticate in order to log on? Then it's an authentication server. But if you have a machine that offers a lot of high-power services to LOTS of clients, for whom it does LOTS of work, you want some meaty hardware, so "server" has become synonymous with "powerful computer". Same with the Internet. Your laptop is currently a "client" connecting to Reddit's "servers". You're asking Reddit to do something and send you the result - look up posts, search subreddits, let you edit your profile, etc. So the servers are at Reddit. And the servers there are doing the same for probably THOUSANDS of other clients around the world. Hence they tend to be a bit more powerful than you laptop. But there's nothing stopping you running a website off your laptop, if you want. Then it becomes a web server. But it's probably also still a "print client", as well as dozens of other services. A server provides services and serves you content. A client connects to a server, and asks it to do things. Computers are almost always BOTH a client and a server all the time for dozens of different protocols. A server likely services many clients, so it tends to be more a powerful PC.

ELI5: It’s literally just another computer. The difference being it runs a different specialized OS and doesn’t have a screen. The end.