This is a page that hosts Leaflet.js maps.
Leaflet.js is a Javascript library for annotating maps. It is capable of parsing GeoJSON information and visualizing it on top of different map tile sets.
While the Leaflet maps are nice and pretty, they are not doing any heavy lifting. Ultimately, unless our data sets are sufficiently small, all of the data being displayed in the maps has to be served up by a server somewhere.
Enter Geoserver.
Geoserver provides an all-purpose GIS server tool. Geoserver is a Java webapp running on Apache Tomcat. You can, among other things, load data into Geoserver in the form of shapefiles, then turn that data into JSON data streams, which can be fed to Leaflet maps.
I have covered the entire process of setting up a Geoserver, importing data, and pushing that data onto a map on the charlesreid1 wiki.
Part 1 - Setting up a Digital Ocean droplet with Geoserver