Medusa is a 'server platform' -- it provides a framework for implementing asynchronous socket-based servers (TCP/IP and on Unix, Unix domain, sockets). An asynchronous socket server is a server that can communicate with many other clients simultaneously by multiplexing I/O within a single process/thread. In the context of an HTTP server, this means a single process can serve hundreds or even thousands of clients, depending only on the operating system's configuration and limitations. Medusa includes HTTP, FTP, and 'monitor' (remote python interpreter) servers. Medusa can simultaneously support several instances of either the same or different server types - for example you could start up two HTTP servers, an FTP server, and a monitor server. Then you could connect to the monitor server to control and manipulate medusa while it is running.