Just to explain this confusion, the term “web server” typically refers specifically to software that is listening for HTTP requests, such as apache or nginx. I would use the term “application server” to refer to the process that is processing requests that the web server sends to it. I read “web server” in their comment as “application server” and it makes sense.

Yes. That's the same distinction I would expect. Although I'm not sure that the database stuff is the role I'd usually look for in the application server itself.

Maybe it's a language community thing.

Ah, yeah, I did mean “application”. You’re right about the “application server” being a weird place for db connections.