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Netcraft Claims Apache Now Runs 2/3rds Of The Web
Mr Bill writes "According to NetCraft the Apache web server now owns over 2/3rds of the web. The jump of 2.8% since last month is mostly due to a number of large domain parking sites switching back to Apache from IIS. 'During 2001 and the first half of 2002 several companies hosting very large numbers of hostnames including Webjump, Namezero, Homestead, register.com and Network Solutions migrated to Microsoft-IIS. Subsequently these businesses have either failed, significantly changed their business model, or reverted to their previous platform, and Microsoft-IIS share is now in line with its long term pre-summer 2001 level of around 20%.' See the full report here."
The yarn goes that MS products are not so badly written, that IS II is no worse that apache, that outlook is no worse than XXXX, its just that windows runs on 95% of the worlds computers so its a target and when its infected it gets noticed.
this apache story sort of gives a lie to this. if it runs 80% of the web servers it is the largest target by definition. Of course it does get attacked but you dont hear about this being a viral thing, spreading throught the mono crop.
I guess one can counter this argument by saying that bussinesses that run web servers maintain their patches better thsn the devil spawned endusers. But this doesn't really wash. If bussinesses had to patch as often as Windows users did they would be screaming bloody murder since while it only costs the end user free time, it cost the bussinesses actual operating expesnes.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Lots of the _really_ big sites don't use Apache or IIS but use things like IBM_HTTP_Server (which, to be fair, IS Apache) with a Websphere backend. Also those really big site are all load balanced, portalled etc, so its hard to determin what is truely doing the serving.
When I hosted some of my earlier sites, web hosting resellers were advocating Windows hosting. They charged more for it, and also most of the technical help they had was for Windows and IIS ...
... Finally one of the ladies confided ... "My techies are going nuts just keeping up with the patches after patches .. so please, go for Linux .... please .."
... .but I think very widespread ..
After the worm season of Microsoft, I actually had the same resellers begging me not to buy Windows hosting but go for Linux, even though it was cheaper (and hence their margins lower). Most of them were putting forward the reasoning that it was cheaper (but that was never a selling point earlier) and they said that there are so many free goodies available with it
It's anecdotal
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
I would bet that a year ago someone at Microsoft came up with an idea to increase IIS standings at Netcraft: pay a couple of domain parking companies to switch. They probably paid them for a year only, and since the year has finished, the companies in question have decided to switch back, presumably because IIS had more expensive TCO than Apache. Microsoft's original idea would have been to gain momentum for IIS and indicate it was gaining rapidly over Apache, helping it's .Net initiative look like it was going somewhere.
Ummm I think you'll find thats wrong, ok the propotunate loss for IIS is worse, but they've had a notaciable numeric loss too.
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
How can this be true when many people run Apache on Windows?
Funny thing about this: On many occasions, I've found myself looking at a group trying to install IIS (or the Netscape server or some other commercial server), and getting more and more frustrated over the problems getting it to work.
So, while they're fighting with it, I sit down at an idle machine, point the browser at apache.org, download the latest apache for that platform, and ask them questions while I twiddle the configuration. Within 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how much configging is needed, I fire up the server, and it runs the first try. I invite them to check it out from the other test machines, and they find that it's working. We copy a few web pages to that machine, and they work
The result in almost all cases is that they decide to go with apache "for a while". It's just an interim measure, you understand, until they can get the real web server running. But meanwhile, they have a web server that they can put online. The web developers aren't sitting around idle; they're building the web site.
In the ensuing months or years, I occasionally prod them with "You know, we really should try to get the officially-mandated web server running." The response is usually to put it off until they can get through the huge pile of stuff that they need to put online.
In a few cases, management has gotten upset, and created a team to get the officially-mandated server running. This often succeeds after a few weeks. Then they put that server online, and it's a real disaster. It crashes repeatedly, produces a flood of complaints from baffled customers along the lines of "How the @#&$^%*& do I order things from you now? Your online ordering pages are broken."
After management notices the loss of income from IIS or whatever, they grudgingly agree to go back to apache "until the problems can be worked out."
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.