The C10k problem is the numeronym given to a limitation that most web servers currently have which limits the web server's capabilities to only handle about ten thousand simultaneous connections. This limitation is partly due to operating system constraints and software limitations.
While there are some specialized web servers that can handle more than ten thousand client connections, most web servers currently handle at most ten thousand clients simultaneously.
A few web servers have been developed to counter the C10K problem:
* nginx
* Lighttpd
* Cherokee HTTP Server
* Tornado (web server)
