Well - I would recommend using a better linux distribution than Ubuntu.
I run just lighttpd these days; used to run httpd before they decided the configuration must become even more complicated. I don't have any issues
with lighttpd (admittedly only few people use it; most seem to now use nginx).
Ubuntu seems to have a trend of taking something that works under Debian and somehow messing that up. Upgrades are one thing but for a while we had separate instruction on how to make Yubikey tokens work under each version of Ubuntu (we used them as smartcards for SSH key auth), while Debian instructions stayed the same...
Update was also hit and miss on user's desktop machines, for a while ubuntu had a nasty habit of installing new kernel upgrades... without removing old ones, which eventually made boot run out of space and poor user usually had to give it to helpdesk to fix.
Tho tbh most of the problems in any distro with packages is "an user installed 3rd party repo that don't have well structured packages and it got messy".
I have used lighttpd in the past but have been using nginx largely because I got used to it because other people chose it.
Now in more of a position to pick for myself, and I wondered how you feel about the pros and cons of lighttpd? I remember quite liking its config at the time.
I run just lighttpd these days; used to run httpd before they decided the configuration must become even more complicated. I don't have any issues with lighttpd (admittedly only few people use it; most seem to now use nginx).