Well, I could have sworn I remember seeing a benchmark comparing stock vs basically tuned (config files) nginx, hiawatha, and a few others, where stock hiawatha won but tuned nginx beat it out, but I just spent ten minutes or so looking for it and couldn't find it, so I'm going to have to retract my earlier statement I suppose.

Either way, I think Hiawatha is a great webserver that should get more attention. Especially since I am GPL proponent and Hiawatha is one of the only currently maintained GPL webservers.

As a bonus here is a benchmark of nginx and hiawatha under attack. (notice the service drop on nginx)

https://www.hiawatha-webserver.org/weblog/64