This is a simple http server for mostly static content. You can use it to serve the content of a ftp server via http for example. It is also nice to export some files the quick way by starting a http server in a few seconds, without editing some config file first.
http-server is a simple, zero-configuration command-line http server. It is powerful enough for production usage, but it’s simple and hackable enough to be used for testing, local development, and learning.
Subsonic is a free, web-based media streamer, providing ubiquitous access to your music.
The streamer is cross-platform, free and open source, and will stream everything from MP3s to Shorten files. (Though you need to pay for the third party iPhone client apps, and donate to the project to unlock certain features.)
Mongoose is easy to use web server. It also can be used as embedded web server library to provide a web interface to applications. Mongoose executable does not depend on any external library or configuration. If it is copied to any directory and executed, it starts to serve that directory on port 8080.
Vortexbox is an intriguing Linux distro that turns a PC into a music server, CD ripper and NAS device—pop a CD into the drive and it’s automatically ripped to MP3 and FLAC, and the system comes bundled with a wide array of open source music players/servers.
If you’ve got an old laptop lying around this could be just the thing to breathe new life into it.