Slashdot Mirror
2003: Year of Apache
John Chamberlain writes "Netcraft's numbers for the new year are in. The trend graphs tell a story: 2003 was the Year of Apache. If Time magazine had a server-of-the-year award the cover would be featuring a feather. Since October 2002 market share has grown from 53% to 64%, a 20% gain while Microsoft IIS, its nearest competitor has shrunk from 36% to 24%, a 33% decline. The change in server totals was even more dramatic. Apache HTTP Server increased from about 20 million to 32 million (+60%) while all other competitors remained flat."
The big advantage of measuring the fall in IIS vs Apache is that web servers are public, and easily counted.
I'm sure that the same thing is happening thoughout the open source movement, but its just alot harder to measure the number of (for example) Linux installs when there is no central body that really collects data on this (not that there is any need for this).
So its representing a victory for much more than Apache.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
I wonder how much OS X has to do with this?
SCO.com uses Linux
But it also happens to be about 20% more than 53... I think that's what they mean.
Happy New Year, it's 1984!
MS's recent campagin of Total Cost Of Ownership does not factor well into this. They cite recent studies which heavily stress human maintenance and development costs into the TCO. Yet what they don't cite is the fact that as software popularity grows, such as Apache here, TCO is driven down because the technology is more accesible.
Basic technology such as web servers are on their way of being removed from the realm of competition. 2004 is promising.
The Custom Mary
Well, 33% of "36" is 12.. 36-12=24.
I wonder though, when Netcraft (and subsequently Slashdot) reported about a rise in ISS-usage, many commented about "But they're just being used as domain parking servers". When the same thing happened but with Apache, most people just say "Yay Apache!"
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Our department is moving from IIS 4.0 to Apache 1.3.29 within the next few months. The server is up & running and I'm working on porting our site over. The reasoning for the switch?
:)
While MS requires patching & monitoring, so does Apache/Linux (although it's not as time-consuming IMO). I also haven't had up-time issues with IIS although I inherently believe Apache would beat IIS in that category.
The true reason is that Apache processes SSI from the outside, while IIS processes them from the inside. I can make more modular code using apache (i.e. a single template for the whole site that the index files link to, and that template links to "content" and "data" files in a given directory). It also seems to perform better, but that's because I was using Access on the IIS machine, and MySQL on the Apache machine. Also Apache/MySQL are cheaper (putting SCO aside).
The only other good reason was to learn something new/different to make myself more marketable.
A 33% decline is a decline by a third. A decline from 36% to 24% is also a decline by a third. Ok, there was rounding involved. What's your problem?
People don't generally switch web servers just for the heck of it. Obviously, there must be something seriously wrong with IIS to make people switch - I wonder what that could be...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
no, gained 20% on previous market share, not gained 20% OF the market.
I love apache, but the one thing that bothers me is the two versions (1.3.x and 2.x). I originally started using the 2.x and found that a lot of people weren't using it. Then later to my dismay I found that wanting to adapt PHP would be troublesome so I had to switch to 1.3.x. It's okay either way because it was painless. And no trouble. So take that people who pay for bloated products that work just as well or less than the ever loved free Apache. All hail Apache.
Is anyone surprised? It's a superior piece of software from the competition. And the users (meaning IT folks and people who run web sites) are not your average Joe Blow, so having open source software makes absoulute sense. It's not like a desktop app (like a word processor) where the person using it would have a need or want or ability to go mess with the code for some reason.
Additionally, any serious security bugs have been fixed with blazing speed. Compare that with the amount of time MS takes to patch a IIS hole when an exploit is found.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Netcraft confirms. . . ;)
Web server market share is a funny thing. Do you count the total number of webservers, or just domains? What if you use a very ineffecient implimentation, and it takes twice the number of machines to do it? Should the server get a better market share because of it? The numbers are open to a lot of intepritation.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
We need to a series -- a long series -- of Slashdot interviews with key Apache people. I mean, look at all the stuff they're into. And the list doesn't seem to have any vaporware or bogged-down projects -- which is damned remarkable in the Open Source community, where people tend to be big on ideas and short on followthrough. Let's get these people under the microscope and find out what they're doing right!
If you assumed Apache was *nix only you haven't checked out Apache 2.x on Windows. Perhaps this is the cause of the gain -- Windows users switching to Apache?
It would be nice to see how this would look for percentage of http traffic rather than percentage of domains. I'm not sure who would be favored, but it seems like a better metric.
(36-24)/36=0.33 or 33%. No errors there. Its not (36-24)=12%. We are calculating the decline as of where MS was standing in 2002.
See it another way. You have 100 computers, 36 are MS. A year later, its down to 18 computers, half of what it was. Thus its a 50% drop, not 18%.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
33% vs. 12%-points (or how u guys call it in English).
1 - 24%/36% = 33,3%, that's the decline in %.
...so many even tiny sites - home PCs, private tiny hosts and such, run Apache.
It's big. It's slow. (okay, it can stand a big load without much slowdown, but overall latency is high) It's a system hog. These computers are often older Pentiums, sometimes 486s, sometimes used as clients/terminals, sometimes serving several other tasks.
Why people so rarely use tiny HTTP servers like Boa, Mathopd, thttpd... especially, that those tiny thingies are extremely fast under light load, light on system resources, have most of features every "amateur webmaster" wants, and because of small code base, usually completely bug-free.
Field for "Evangelism"?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
(punting SCO ass-side).
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Did anyone notice that in July 2002, Apache took a hit in numbers, and Microsoft gained for a brief period of time? (Check the graph, you will notice a spike in Microsoft's numbers, a dip in Apache in July 2002.) Does anyone know what this corresponds to?
most ISPs run some form of Unix/Linux and the why would you spend a zillion dollars paying for an inferior piece of software when you can get a proven quality piece of software for free?
http://www.geocities.com/baddsectorr
Are you referring to the processor flaw? That was in the original Pentium (I had a Pentium 60MHz that crashed when playing X-Wing and gave faulty values for some of my engineering homework, that MUST be why I gave up on engineering... heh).
Actually, I think they're saying it's a 33% decline of Microsoft's actual numbers... like if you had 9 and went down to 6, that's a 33% decline. Although in the realm of things it might mean your market share dropped less (i.e. if there were a total of 15 and you dropped from 9 to 6, that's a 20% drop). I wondered briefly about their numbers too but you just have to examine what they're trying to say.
Note that the numbers are "per domain" So 2003 is better proclaimed the Year of NameVirtualHost. Hopefully, this means that there really are more httpd's out there, but the correlation was not made in that necraft study. Hopefully someone will do (perhaps already has done?) a study to establish IP# to domain name ratios. My guess is that there is a lot more virtual hosting being done now then there was in, say 1999, when having a corporate web site was more directly related to purchasing dedicated web server equipment. I'll bet that the Microsoft push into public key infrastructure will be used to leverage growth for IIS but at these rates, it may well be hard to catch up with Apache.
:)
But perhaps the real story for 2003, as far as growth technologies go, is likely PHP. The ratio of deployments and actual usage to press coverage of the technology is pretty impressive too.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
Shouldn't these issues remain fairly constant? Maybe it's tricky to count market share in absolute terms, but the trend-line should be pretty accurate.
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
Why were you using Access instead of MSDE (the free version of SQL server). People who use Access deserve what they get. I am sure that Microsoft will be happy to tell people like you, "good riddance".
This analysis includes all sites, but the more realistic and "telling", if you will, analysis would be to look at ACTIVE sites ONLY.
That analysis has been done, and the results were that during 2003, considering new sites, Apache was chosen four times more often than IIS.
You can see the actual figures at http://www.cabalamat.org/weblog/art_182.html.
Apache has 77.54% marketshare, and IIS only has 19.06%.
OPEN YOUR FUCKING EARS, MICROSOFT - Apache was over three times more popular than all other web servers put together.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Netcraft gives very specific rules by which it measures webserver counts here: http://www.netcraft.com/Survey/mechanics.html
:)
Always helps to actually visit the site. Their methods will favor Apache somewhat, as IIS does not generally play very well in hosting environments with virtual domains for various reasons. Of course that in itself is an indicator of server quality
A question has come to my head:
Is it really people switching over from IIS to Apache or is it tons of new web servers starting up in 2003? Of course there are lots of new servers every year. Also, many webmasters and server administrators like Open Source better than closed source. Some will like IIS better, because they can get direct support from Microsoft.
Is this Apache on UNIX and/or Windows boxes?
--- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
Alright - let's have it! Where are they hiding all the exploits? They obviously have waaaayyyyy more since viruses and exploits are dependant on popularity, not how well the software is engineered. Since Apache is kicking IIS's scraggly ass all over the 'net, it must have more exploits, right? No? Oh? So all those people that keep saying Windows suffers so much are admitting they're wrong?
Oh, that's right. IIS is also an FTP server, mail server, dinner server, and a cheauffer that takes your wife out on dates then screws her in your bed while you're out of town on business.....
... whoops.. sorry, go a little carried away there. Seriously - face it, that's a flaw. If the software wants to do everything, and, by doing everything, fails, it still failed, AND it failed BECAUSE it does everything. That means the Apache software is a better engineered web server and IIS is, well, a load of crap.
Sorry... a little bitter. If you've ever had to administer that horrendous piece of garbage IIS you'd understand. I think, perhaps, the reason Apache is whooping up on IIS is that IIS is so ludicrously twitchy and convoluted. Normally, I'd say point and clicky interfaces are easier to manage, but god... setting something up in IIS that's not set up by default can result in tremendously time-wasting efforts searching through numerous, poorly labeled, badly designed interfaces. Apache? Whip out a reference book, type in a few lines, and you're done. Even if you have to restart the system, it's not much hassle. I've NEVER managed to shut down IIS and bring it back up on Win2k where it didn't stop responding and, eventually, chew up all the resources on the box forcing a hard reboot of the whole system. That pisses off SQL Server which then fucks up the TrendMicro stuff... Ick.
Long story short? IIS sucks and few (smart) people debate that whether they're pro-Microsoft, pro-*nix, pro-Mac, or, smarter than any of them pro-whatever-works.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
These are crooked figures. Don't take them seriously! The real marketshare of IIS is above 80 percent. The catch is, IIS boxes are declaring themselves as Apache servers to avoid attacks. Note: This not an MS sponsored report (yet). Hopefully they will contact me and it will become one. :)
These statistics make us happy, but they're not the whole story.
When we bragg about these numbers, Microsoft respond with:
"Our webserver is used by more Forbes/Fortune 500 companies and is used by more secure websites. Apaches numbers are only high because a lot of amateurs use it".
What is our argument to that? (we don't have one. We just ignore it and continue patting ourselves on the back.)
If we are to progress, it's better to look at what going *wrong*, and try to improve that.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
It's even funnier, since Netcraft only counts public webservers. They do not include the zillion corporate intranet servers that used to be publicly available shielde by only NTLM authentication.
Thanks to the blaster outbreaks and the growing number of vpns these servers are now shielded off the regular internet. And thus the number of IIS in Netcraft's reports declines..
Even then, how do you count them? How many machines are running any given web site? My sites currently have 8 servers behind a pair of load balancers. But it appears to the outside world as if it's a single machine. Also, do you consider all servers equal? Should my personal site be given equal weight with my company's banking sites? I'd be interested to see a weighted graph so that sites with more traffic have a greater impact. But the problem with that is, how do you measure it?
As an aside, I'm getting mildly concerned about Apache's market share. Not because I don't like it -- I do, and run both personal and corporate sites with it. But I distrust software monocultures, and I fear Apache's heading that way. So I hope that Apache gets some viable competition. I also hope, however, that it comes from somewhere that isn't intent on displacing it with proprietary, incompatible servers. So that'd be something other than IIS, then...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
"The numbers are open to a lot of intepritation."
That may be true, but the correct spelling of interpr*E*tation remains NOT a matter of "interpritation".
We run an online testing and certification engine, written in perl. It WAS hosted on a Win2K/IIS box, but about once a week the server would lock up with IIS hitting 100% CPU utilisation and the only way to 'fix' it was to reboot. The same code's been running on a Redhat 9/Apache server for about 2 months now with no downtime.
Our MD was so impressed with the port (which was very trivial), that she's asked me to consider migrating our main in-house server to Linux too - it's mainly a 'file and print' box so this should be a piece of cake.
We WERE looking at a contact management system (possibly Maximizer or Goldmine), but now we're seriously considering an open source alteratives-should save us about 7000UKP in apps and licences.
AT&ROFLMAO
'Netcraft confirms it' jokes are tired.
OK, I see it's a troll, but... I'll bite anyway. The whole history of Western Civilization in a nutshell looks like that. Once there were the pre-hellenic mediterranean cultures, like the Phoenicians. The Greeks conquered and destroyed them all. Then came the Romans, who conquered and destroyed the Greeks (not to mention the Celts). Then came the German and Slavonic barbarians, and they conquered and destroyed the Romans (and then repeatedly conquered and destroyed each other, like the Goth who perished for the Vandals etc). So if you live, say, in London, there are ashes of dozens of destroyed cultures under your feet, under the pavement of the very Oxford Street. The Celts, the Celtic-Romans, the Roman-Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Anglo-Danes, the Normans etc.
Now, for a long time Americans were fed with the not-exactly-true fairy tale about the Mayflower settlers, who arrived to a no-man's-land. It was not a no-man's-land at all. It had its native inhabitants and they were, indeed, conquered. But the British Islands were not a no-man's-land neither, when the William the Conqueor arrived, and he is still regarded as hero.
There's nothing racist in Apache, just as there's nothing racist when modern Britons use greek, latin, saxon or celtic words. Or when modern Italians use the name La Fenice (="country of Phoenicians") for an opera.
Sorry for feeding trolls.
How many people have plans of leaving apache 1.3x to newer apache 2x ?
Enough said
Sunny Dubey
No, that's an indicator of server quality for that purpose. If the majority of server operators didn't want virtual hosting, for example, IIS not playing well in that environment won't make a shred of a difference.
These surveys also do not count the millions of intranet-only sites that these servers serve, and given the nature of the beast, I'm going to guess IIS is rather prevalent in that market.
I have recommended IIS-based solutions before, and given the same requirements, I'll do it again.
No, I understood where his numbers were coming from. I was just making a joke (and judging by the -1 flamebait score, a badly recieved one at that)
Amateurs?
So I suppose the people who run the Transport for London web site are amateurs?
What about the folks running BlogSpot?
How about the admins of Rutgers Univesity?
Finally, how about Kyle Bennett, the creator of [H]ard|OCP?
Sure, Microsoft can say that Apache is used by amateurs. But I'm certain that for every half-assed amateur using Apache there are 100 admins who run Apache for mission-critical stuff and don't bat an eyelid.
SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
Why should they be forced to?
SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
I'm glad you 'bit', because that was a very interesting response.
Anyway, it wasn't really a 'bite' as such, because not only did you acknowledge that you were replying to a post that was designed to incite an emotion-driven response, you also did not provide such a response -- instead, you gave us some very interesting facts.
Thanks.
Actually, the name comes from "A Patchy Server" because it was built as thousands of patches instead of one reliably growing code tree.
Currently, the T&S setups has the following purposes/effects/unintended consquences:
Apache HTTPD has gone on to new strengths with new features and support for all types of scripting languages and add-ons and settings ease in config files. I remeber during college grad projects most people used Apache by default on linux only few used other personal web servers But its streangth in Enterprise and industry is amazing as its open source and gives a befitting slap on the faces of those who repeatedly point out that open source software is unusable unstable buggy(Apache httpd code review found it to be the best in error per klocs in all industry...) Some Documentation : Apache 1.3 Apache 2.0 - Shamit ITS A TRIBUTE TO OPEN SOURCE TO SAY THE LEAST
You didn't try to use the web interface did you? If IIS only had that thing to use, I would agree, but using the management console is easy.
It's just those Fortune 500 companies are able to afford Microsoft's exorbitant prices and tech support (which actually can be really good if you pay the right price). Most people and smaller companies don't have that kind of money to throw around, and will be more likely to go with apache. Microsoft has been around for ages, so companies with a lot of money on the line will trust a company which has been the industry standard the longest. I think after a decade or so apache will make inroads on those fortune 500 companies.
someone mod this up as interesting....taking a look at this, it seems like a very nice, hella complete walkthrough on setting that up...
;oD
thanks for the linkage
And we all know the hard drive terminology is racist and sexist too...
master/slave
male/female
If Time magazine had a server-of-the-year award the cover would be featuring a feather.
If Time magazine had a server-of-the-year award nobody would read it. Except you people.
I just don't see this as that significant because of that.
My 2 cents.
Too much stuff does not work well under Apache 2.0.x. Specifically mod_perl has some interesting gotcha's, HTML::Mason has some issues, there are some Apache::DBI issues, .... long list.
Basically when the server went to 2.0.x, the rest of the supporting community wasn't ready. Most of it is still in testing mode. The 1.3.x branch is "good enough", and it doesn't break stuff. 2.0 is good, but it breaks stuff.
Another way to look at it is that my company ships product based upon 1.3.x. Moving to 2.0.x would require several things which don't yet exist. As we are happily operating under 1.3.x, we have no reason to move. If the Apache folks decide to completely abandon 1.3.x, thats OK as we have source and can fix it as needed.
I suspect that most folks will stay with 1.3.x for the forseeable future. The 2.0.x migration will cause more headache than it is worth, and it will cost money/time.
The question is not what is our argument to that, but why should we bother arguing. By Microsoft's reasoning, most people are small web server administrators, so most people should use Apache. That's a big win for many, many people - they have quality software that even Microsoft agree they should use. That, for me, is pretty much the end of the argument - my problems are solved, most people's problems are solved.
The only people who's problems are not solved are the big non-technical corporations - and they don't matter much.
Game over.
With your Cheese Comparator, I would say that your homepage should be weighted at least on a par with your employer's site.
The number of IIS servers stayed flat, so no one defected?
That's a nice piece of self-reinforcement.
Try, some defected from IIS, and some new installs by admins that insist that IIS is not worthless (just look at some of the ms fanboy "admins" posting here)...which kept the number of server installs flat...
Unless, you are suggesting that no one installed new IIS servers in 2003, and no migrations from IIS to Apache happened?
If you want to see what cars are popular, then why measure how much they carry each day?
If you calculate traffic, you slant the figures towards sites that do upload/download.
I think one of the *BSD's has the record for amount FTP'd in a 24-hour period. But if you're measuring HTTP traffic, that wouldn't be checked.
Nor all the rsync sites.
If you're looking for better stats, you should measure the number of unique connections and divide by the number of servers in that farm. That would give you a users-per-server number. But you'll never find out how many servers are in some of those farms.
Everyone knows that ISP's use Apache/Linux because it's easy to configure it to take up only the resources it needs, thus enabling them to pack more domains onto a server.
Everyone also knows that ISP's use Apache/Linux because it's free and allows them to offer domain hosting for $1/month.
I'm not trying to argue that IIS is better that Apache (except it was easier to configure than the non-gui Apache last time I tried it...about 2 years ago :) I'm just saying that numbers can be mis-interpreted.
I think you've just illustrated the mans point.
You've listed 4 Apache installations. Big deal.
> But I'm certain that for every half-assed amateur using
> Apache there are 100 admins who run Apache for
> mission-critical stuff and don't bat an eyelid
Would you like to say that sentence to a CEO or an IT manager in your government?
Fanboy comments like this are not enough to get Free Software into government offices.
Let us not forget that Apache is open source. As such, if you want to fork it all up, you are welcome to do so. Should Apache head too far down the wrong path, I am confident that it will be forked. Apache's license is essentially BSD, with the additional clause that if you fork it, you may not call your work "Apache" or claim that the Apache Foundation is behind your work, without written permission. Quite reasonable, that. As many many geeks have experience with the Apache sources, starting up a fork is only a matter of logistics and not finding someone capable.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well, no doubt TCO of Apache is higher.
Scenario: Apache server broken. They call a friendly nerd. The fixes the box. They pay him $100. He leaves. TCO: $100.
Scenario: IIS server broken. They call friendly nerd. He says he won't put his fingers in that shit. They call support. A guy says he doesn't know how to fix it. They leave things alone, broken. TCO: $0.
A decline in usage of X from 36% to 24% means the incidence of X in the population has declined 12%.
"Since October 2002 market share has grown from 53% to 64%, a 20% gain". Well no. The incidence in the population has increased 11 percentage points (11%), even though the numbers are ~20% different the market share certainly hasn't changed 20%.
Here is an example of basic comprehension of percentage: Assume we have a static population of 100. 53 use Apache and 47 use 'other'. One year later, if 64 use Apache (the population is still 100), the amount of Apache users has increased ~20%, but the amount of the population has increased using Apache is only 11 more, 11% more of the population use Apache. It is therefore correct to say "there are ~20% more Apache users" and it is incorrect to say "market share has grown ~20%" as it has grown 11%.
Yours was a nice lighthearted comment, pity it needs such a detailed explanation for all of the down mods and incorrect replies you've got.
--
FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
I assume the greatest reduction in deployed IIS are the attempts at securing Windows 2000/XP workstations by turning off unnecessary services or the deploying of personal firewalls which block port 80. However, I also have to wonder if in the corporate space a large number of the deployed IIS installations are now showing up in the "Other" category given due to attempts by administrators to prevent attacks against their servers by hiding their true identity. Could IIS systems be lying and instead report themselves as Apache?
Well, this is really an excellent news, and I'm glad the Apache team managed to achieve this result.
However, I'm saddened by the declaration of Rasmus Lerdorf published on the UserLinux discuss list, where he claims that Apache 2/PHP integration is a "bad idea" on UNIX systems.
This sounds like an excellent news for all the PHP developpers in the world!
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent - Salvor Hardin
I find it rather humorous that the poster of the article on Slashdot didn't dare mention the other software that was proven a winner by the Netcraft report. For those of you who haven't RTFA, 4th paragraph begins:
;)
"Seven of the top nine sites run on FreeBSD." That's right, folks. NOT Linux. Don't get me wrong: I don't believe Linux sucks. But there's something to be said here by this data, and I don't feel Linux should get all the current press simply because Linux got all the past press. FreeBSD does amazing things, is used all over the place, has many technical merits not seen elsewhere, but Linux overshadows it because of inertia and the fact that Linux users yell louder. This is sad. Last I knew, Windows won out due to inertia as well, not technical reasons, and we condemn it for that. Must we be hypocritical a second time around?
I know this is Slashdot, but c'mon... would it kill you to put a positive article about FreeBSD on the front-page?
Netcraft confirms it: FreeBSD is quite alive and kicking.
What's all this "us" and "we"? Please don't include me in your group of losers who give a shit about this geek nonsense.
I hope that Apache gets some viable competition.
It's not like there isn't options.
There's several other capable open source (Free Software) http servers available.
I would list a few of the better ones but I can't be bothered sifting through Freshmeat's unmoderated topic entries for http servers. But, by all means, have a look - there are some good ones there.
One that I've seen quite a few updates for on Freshmeat is Thy.
Although the way you relate Apache's monopoly to that of Windows is unfair. Apache is forcing a monoculture because it is that much better than the best of the rest, although the lesser known projects are fighting to be heard because everybody just looks to Apache or IIS for their http server needs.
Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary
Apache is trying to be a mail server among other things too.
As someone with much experience of the Apache source code, I must say I am quite offended at your implication that I am a "geek". I am not a geek, I am an IT professional. And damn good at what I do, too.
How's the Drake?
I think it's the other way around -- people choose Apache so they don't have to run Windows. It's probably not a coincidence that 2003 was also the year of the Windows Security Patch.
I another /. story a month or so ago showed in corporate America IIS is still their choice. Those are the minds that need to be opened up.
I would say corporate America sticks with IIS and other MS products because of MS development products are easy enough for Fred the Beancounter to drag-n-drop an app together. A desk jockey can get something done for his department quick and easy. Good code no, but it gets the job done and it was cheap and that is what the PHB care about.
LAMP tools need to become that easy to use for corporate America to take a look.
For the overly slashdot-addled, the same headline (and similar story) is being run as we speak on K5.
Kind of reminiscent of the time when Time and Newsweek ran identical cover stories on Bruce Springsteen.
His explanations for the rise of Apache:
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
If I'm on the network or on the vpn, but not at the server, my local management console can be used to do it.
Can anyone tell me what they think is hard about setting up a virtual domain in IIS? Here are the steps: Right-click on the server in MMC, click "New Site", type name of site, under "Host Headers" type the name of the domain that this site is for and choose an IP that is used by other virtual servers. Choose a home directory...done.
Y'all are forgetting that a good layer 7 proxying firewall is also going to skew things.
With the combination of URLScan header removal and a Unix-based firewall (few folks are insane enough to put up IIS webservers and Windows Firewalls on the same network...) my IIS5/6 hosts don't look anything like a Windows box as far as Netcraft is concerned.
Throw in a hardware load balancer doing SSL offloading, and the client connections are never going to see my hosts directly for Netcraft to count.
These surveys also do not count the millions of intranet-only sites that these servers serve
Are you sure you don't mean 'sites where administrator is too incompetent to turn off the default install of IIS'?
You know, all those sites that have plagued the internet with various worms and other security holes over the last few years?
and given the nature of the beast, I'm going to guess IIS is rather prevalent in that market
I don't disagree. I rather think IIS dominates at these sites.
I agree that we have to find out what we're doing wrong, but I can't see Fortune 500 company adoption as a huge indicator of doing things right. They're dinosaurs run by dinosaurs and I rather strongly suspect that many of the current Fortune 500 companies will die off in the next decade.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Governments don't matter much?
No government should pay a monopoly for black box proprietary software.
What about those two backdoor logins that were found in IIS a few years ago. They both had NSA in the usernames, which led people to speculate that they were added by order of the US govt. If I were in the US, I wouldn't be happy, but even moreso for non-US governments. Government should require complete source code and the four freedoms.
You seem to be getting a little defensive, have you had your coffee today?
The only comment that could be taken as a slight disagreement is that you think Apache is easier to configure that I do, but I even said I haven't tried it in 2 years.
We say "Google runs {A highly customised version of} Apache. So there!". html
http://www.googleblog.ca/archives/000018
Well, let's see:
mod_perl, mod_php, mod_jk (for your Tomcat servlet container needs), mod_speling, easy integration with Squid, easy integration with khttpd, boat loads of documentation everywhere + experience people who can help you, the fact that the tiny little SOHO cable connections are easily saturated by Apache on a 486, the fact that most people's extra machines are around the 500-700Mhz range now, etc.
Essentially, Apache is too well featured, too easy to setup, too easy to get help for, and does its job well enough for most people. If that wasn't true, people would take the time to switch (witness how unpopular NCSA HTTPD is now!).
As for completely bug free, you can't say that. Don't even try.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
That's the fun with statistics. You can slice them anyway you want to get the results you want.
So, there is a segment of the market that uses IIS more than Apache. Should we argue with that? Why?
Now, despite all those "amateurs" that are putting Apache on the Internet, Apache still has fewer worms, exploits, etc than IIS.
Which tells you that all those "amateurs" are:
#1. Better qualified than those non-amateurs running IIS.
#2. Running a better product.
or
#3. Just plain lucky, over and over and over again.
Linux is D E A D.
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
Sun, Microsoft, SCO.
Future victims:
Adobe, Macromedia, Symantec, every other proprietary non-GPL software company, proprietary developers, and you.
Move on. Your career in proprietary software development is about to come to an abrupt halt.
B.) I'm not arguing, I was making a non-partisan point that had nothing to do with IIS/Apache war.
C.) Have YOU had your coffee today?
Thanks to the grounding of the shuttle fleet, those poor astronauts have been stuck up there. This is pretty worrying, too, since they had that odd noise that led to a pressure drop.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
> reported about a rise in ISS-usage
...
[insert ISS joke here]
Just to note: ISS is the space station, IIS the webserver.
They both leak anyway
I'm thinking you're also a troll. I self-identify as a geek. I am from Santa Cruz, where such a thing is commonplace and a mark of pride. We define geek (in the technical context) as someone who is social using computers. For further expansion, see geek.org.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Shut the hell up you troll.
Microsoft's TCO campaign is a last ditch effort to maintain market share. It's mostly a lie, but it's damaging to them even if true.
Assume they are telling the truth. I know that it's hard to keep a straight face reading that, but think of what it means. WHERE TECHNICAL MERIT IS THE DECIDING FACTOR, FREE SOFTWARE IS OVERWHELMINGLY PREFERED DESPITE HIGHER COST. Most companies ask themselves what a failed web site will cost them. The answer generally dwarfs the cost of the sofware and it's upkeep.
Of course, we all know that it costs nothing to aquire free web servers and less to keep them up than their non free counterparts. That's just the way good software works.
The same thing is true on the desktop. Most small businesses with a brain have a reseller to help them out with technical issues. Free software, when adopted there, will prove both cheaper and more reliable. Small businesses that dabble with HPs and their own M$ based IT are wasting time that would better be spent on their real business. The reseller may appear more expensive up front than trundeling down to CompUSA, but he's not. Resellers that move to free software are going to enjoy cost, feature and performance advantages that the 2003 server fanboys can only dream of. The same can be said of larger IT shops that can afford to do IT themselves, like ummm IBM
Microsoft's FUD campaign is running out of steam. They have tried all of this before and people are no longer listening.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Our webserver is used by more Forbes/Fortune 500 companies and is used by more secure websites. Apaches numbers are only high because a lot of amateurs use it.
.NET).
I imagine that's true, and I'm even interviewing with a Fortune 500 company this week that's a Microsoft shop. There are two possibilities...
1.) They are currently MS but are switching soon. My resume was about 50/50 with half MS and half Linux experience. It's possible that they are interested in my Linux experience because the job position mentioned "new systems" and the company doesn't have any ASP.NET stuff on their site (if course, they could be moving to
2.) Another argument is that the same thing could be said about old mainframe systems, COBAL, DB2, punchcards, and any other "used to be the shiznat but better alternatives replaced them" technology.
In the end, why are "we" trying to find arguments anyway? Does it really matter if more people like Mac over PC, Linux over Microsoft, Apache over IIS, Honda over Ford, Apples over Oranges? As long as the alternatives continue existing, I'm a happy camper. I was sad to see the demise of alternative browsers (Netscape), but I would have also been saddened to see MSIE die completely. Why can't we champion the improvement of every option, rather than the promotion of a specific option? Would the world be better off if we actually lost a given option (if Microsoft/Ford/Apples/Macs actually disappeared)?
The figures you've quoted from my site are accurate, but the situation for Microsoft is actually worse than that. When considering that Microsoft got 19% of new websites in 2003, it's worthwhile to consider that up to the end of 2002, Microsoft had a total of 24.74% of active sites.
This means that not only is Microsoft's share only 19%, Microsoft's market share is going down and Apache's is going up. Although Apache can run on MS Windows, it is nearly always run on Unix systems. The most popular Unix is Linux, which is busily replacing the proprietary Unices. So if Apache's share is going up (which it is) Linux's share is going up even faster:
I don't have figures as to whether this is also the case for other types of server, but I strongly suspect it is.Historical: Even though most people use Windows, those that actually know about computing using UNIX (for us, this used to be HP-UX, now it mostly is Linux). It are the latter ones who more than likely started the intranet effort long before management knew what a network was (over here, I myself was involved in our first intranet look-alike long before the word reached the trade-press).
Technical/Economical: If you use Apache for your external site (as we do), than it bloody well makes sense to use it internally as well, instead of wasting time and money maintaining two knowledge skills.
Linux user since early January 1992.
I have recommended IIS-based solutions before, and given the same requirements, I'll do it again. :)
Dear lord, you must be stopped.
There is nothing hard about it at all. Remember, sir, that you are communicating with idiots.
When you measure active sites only, Microsoft's market share is 19% and falling.
Maybe it's tricky to count market share
It's tricky, alright. It's obvious to anyone that Microsoft's IIS is the clear leader.
Look, if those figures were real, then Apache would be constantly attacked by hoards of script kiddies. [ducks under desk]
When you buy proprietary software, you never own it or control it, thus you are vulnerable to your vendor's plans not falling in with your own, and related problems such as orphaned products, gratuitous incompatibilities, upgrade treadmills, and the like.
Thus, to do a fair comparison, you should include the Total Costs of Non-Ownership whenever you buy MS.
I work for the company that is responsible for the Transport for London web site and have a pretty good idea of the infrastructure that is used.
I'm not in the same part of the company (we have over 18000 employees), but I have a very good working relationship with one of the lead techies responsible for the backend stuff at TFL.
Open Source is used extensively within our organisation and you can be that there are many GNU tools, Apache, Samba etc working away behind the scenes. Running on very big Sun boxes.
What is our argument to that? (we don't have one. We just ignore it and continue patting ourselves on the back.)
Actually, we have: If you do not count the number of websites, but the number of pages served, Apache comes out even more in front of IIS as by simply counting the number of servers. For example, where I work we are serving more than a billion web pages - per month. We are using Apache on Suse Linux.
I had a sneaking suspicion...
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
I'm the president of the company that is responsible for the Transport for London web site, and I don't remember you, liar.
There has been 50% increase of Java ServerSide site this year than last year. Among most popular servlet engine was
Tomcat which is developed by Apache
Apache's J2EE Jeranamo Server is coming out end of this year.
And Websphere is common in most fortune 500 companies... It is actually the driving force behind eBay that dumped IIS because it wouldn't scale (they were .Net's first big win and first huge loss).
If we weren't bound by the profit motive, we might all see this and adopt Apache in an attempt to "finalize" the web server. After all, something else is going to come along soon, to make it easy to share all these RSS files and MySQL DBs without silly and time-consuming manual controls.
Apache is great and a great piece of software.
If you want a small fast web server you may want to look at thttpd I have had great luck with it.
Granted it can't do all thr things Apache can, but for the simple it's great.
Thanks to the writers of both programs.
That may be true in Santa Cruz .. but almost everywhere else the word is considered an insult.
They do not include the zillion corporate intranet servers...
Of all the intranets we install and service for small to large businesses, 100% of them run Apache. That's about 3-4 servers per month, and growing. We know 4 of the 5 competitors in our market, very well. For the vendors we know, all install Apache, exclusively.
Yes. Thanks to the "blaster outbreaks and the growing number of vpns", Apache is also rapidly growing inside the LAN market space.
Well, the audacity of Anonymous Coward's to continue refering to (native) Americans as Indians never ceases to amaze and disgust me. India is a country of it's own, so quit taking away their identity and giving it to other cultures.
Naming the project 'Apache' is in no way disciminating against race as you so naively think.
You haven't understood a thing about your new surroundings, have you, Dodo...
I've used this NetMask utility to mask my IIS server before now(I tried the trial, and its run out), and in the past Netcraft has properly identified the server as running Apache on Redhat 9. This ain't true, as it's running Win2K with IIS5. So I'm wondering, how many of the new servers are what they say they are? And just HOW skewed are the Netcraft results?
As Apache grows in use, so do the amount of security breaches. For instance, GNOME, Debian, Gentoo, and the two breaches of GNU/FSF. Remember that article Slashdot reported that linked to a study showing Linux as the most breached OS on the net? Linux security breaches are strangely underreported, in order to make space for the next user-run executable attachment Outlook worm.
"Sufferin' succotash."
You might also note that one has to be a Fortune 500 size company to get enough support from Microsoft to keep IIS running reliably. You can bet that when the web admin for Disney calls Microsoft he isn't immediately asked for his credit card number. Hell, he probably walks over to the next office where their on-site Microsoft tech is parked.
Bah!
Slashdot is corporate-owned and full of purposed bias, though it seems a lot of readers don't (or refuse to) see it.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Dude, this is Slashdot. "Geek" is a badge of honor, reserved for the few and the proud.
It's nice to see that Apache is gaining ground. Now it if could only send out WMV and RAR files with the correct MIME type, that would be great!
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
It's not just that they make good stuff. What impresses me (and makes me want to know more about them) is that they make so much good stuff. And so little bad stuff.
That sounds to me like black people having "nigger" as a badge of honour. Ridiculous.
In 2000 I installed Apache on Windows NT for a small business website here that couldn't use an ISP Virtual Server because the site needed to be close to their stock database. I didn't hear from them for a few months (and I had plenty of opportunity to, I played D&D with the owner every week).
About 6 months later they asked me to build them a linux webserver because their NT server was crashing too much because of some other software on it. I built it on old hardware they had lying around and slapped it on a cheap UPS/Power conditioner. No problems since.
No, that's an indicator of server quality for that purpose. If the majority of server operators didn't want virtual hosting, for example, IIS not playing well in that environment won't make a shred of a difference.
That's the thing, though. The majority of server operators DO want virtual hosting, so they're all moving to Apache; that's the whole thing these stats are showing.
On my (fully patched) IIS server, I get the following attacks _all the time_:
/default.ida (lots of X's)%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u78 01%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u9090%u8190%u00c3 %u0003%u8b00%u531b%u53ff%u0078%u0000%u00=a 200 -
GET
That is Code Red, which accounts for 99.99% of the exploit attempts. It's gone down a lot though; used to be 10 a day, now it's less than 1 a day on average.
Now, despite all those "amateurs" that are putting Apache on the Internet, Apache still has fewer worms, exploits, etc than IIS.
Which tells you that all those "amateurs" are:
#1. Better qualified than those non-amateurs running IIS.
#2. Running a better product.
or
#3. Just plain lucky, over and over and over again.
You're making an excluded-middle argument. If I were Microsoft, this is what I would argue:
"The reason why IIS is targeted more than Apache is becuase the evil terrorist hackers out there hate Microsoft and specifically target Microsoft over the communist Apache."
When the hacker community responds, "That's not true. We target your crap because it's easy." then I (Microsoft) would dismiss it as, "You can't trust what they say. They're evil terrorist hackers."
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
I've never had the pleasure of administering an IIS system, but various friends have and I'm amazed that any IIS systems can actually stay up long enough to serve a web page. More than anything else, I think that the success of Apache is simply due to the fact that IIS is a really bad program.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Now your host access and error logs for (example.ods.org) have all the real accesses, and the default logs have all the CodeRed, Nimda, Spam Proxy attempts, ISP TOS Checker, and 5cr1p7 k1dd13z.
Monoculture is still bad, no matter who is in the lead.
Don't worry, IIS gets stopped either by memory leaks, MS Patches, or worms at least once a month. What I found amazing was that so many decided to let MS IIS touch the public Internet. I've learned my lesson, nothing made by MS touches the public Internet and must be protected by a circle of Linux boxes.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
-Thomas Jefferson 1816
The jakarta project (including ant which is now a top level apache project) has spawned a number of projects that are almost de facto in their area like struts, tomcat, cactus and many more.
Struts is an MVC framework that even includes tools to generate javascript validation code. This is a very common method to create a model 2 architecture J2EE site. Tomcat is the standard in open source servlet containers and often refered to as the reference implementation on a JSP and Servlet spec. Cactus is for unit testing J2EE components and is starting to become more popular.
If you intend to program java, then you should visit the Jakarta site.
As for who these people are, there are usually some pages on a project to mention that sort of thing. I'm most familiar with struts and their page for that sort of information is the volunteers page. Ant is already the defacto java build tool. Originally designed as a replacement for make, it's abilities can be extended using java classes.
Jakarta and Apache projects will continue to be a source of innovation, especially within the java world.
Paul Sundling
Although OS X does ship with Apache, by default it's turned off and must be enabled by the user. The percentage of people who do that and have thier computers accessible from the internet at large is probably fairly small...
Though perhaps if XServ sales have been really good it might add a bit.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do you want to see what Apache2, MySQL, PHP, Perl, Analog, OpenSSL, mod_perl, and other OSS/GPL server components can do under Windows?
http://www.devside.net
Every one of the above can be run under win32 just as well as under linux.
We're developing a new system to replace our existing one. Apache 2 has LDAP Authentication. Courier IMAP has LDAP Authentication... So our new system can have a single user database.
How representitive are these numbers to actually results of people using Apache compared to those that have it installed on their machine and don't use it. I wish they would weed out all of the people that have it installed on dyndns domains or other domains that probably aren't really reflective of the common user (i.e. corporate or actual website hosters that get more than 10,000 hits per-month). Imagine all those Linux users that have apache installed on a broadband connection with out any kind of firewall or all those dorm users that want to install a HTTP server on their windows box but don't have a full access to a Windows Server. Both of these are very real examples because I not only did it myself but as a tech support at the college I saw a lot of this happening.
I just wish there were better numbers. I don't doubt that Apache is winning the HTTP Server War but I question their numbers by which they are winning.
They've still failed to fix logging in the 2.x line. The "fix" is a third-party module and even that doesn't work properly. There was absolutly no reason for it ever to not work properly in a default install considering the 1.3.x line works fine. And it certainly shouldn't be up to 2.0.48 without being properly fixed.
Little things like that make Apache's programmers look incompetent and unconcerned about what their users need.
I have very little respect for Apache. I use 1.3.x because it works with everything I need and it's stable but I'm certainly not going to be advocating it for any reasons besides that it's free, secure and the alternative is IIS but I activly tell people not to use 2.x.
As another poster pointed out, 2.x has lots of things wrong with it. Just like MS, they're throwing out crap and losing marketshare to their own prior products. I only use XP because I got it free from the Uni. My OS of choice is 2K.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
I would disagree. The number of easy-to-publish tools (webfolders, frontPage, etc) for IIS makes it far more lucrative for Windows folks. And if you have Windows Servers already, your're not looking at any more licensing costs there. I have worked at 3 places that have Unix/Apache on their internet/public site and used IIS internally.
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
I am from Santa Cruz
;)
You might not want to go flauting that these days
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I do consider ESR and RMS to be grossly overrated. They have accomplished things, but they're both too much in love with their own ideas, and too short on followthrough.
On the other hand, there's Linus Thorvald. His fame is largely accidental, but he seems to be smart and humble enough to see that. Individualism works much better for him, because he knows his limitations, and understands that intelligent people can disagree with him.
Heros can be useful, but their efforts don't scale. Hence the absence of heros is the huge Apache project -- which is really a collection of projects.
If raw counts of usages indicate quality, then MSIE would be the highest quality web browser by a factor of around 20 (something 95% market share right?). Outlook would be the best mail/PIM software. /. readers would disagree with such a statement. So why do we accept conclusions based the same type of logic based on stats from netcraft?
What "we" need is something like some the stock market indicators. [the good ones] are not just a raw sum of all the stocks out there, or all the stocks traded on a given market. There a collection of hand picked stocks. I suspect the specific criteria for being included are secret, but long term stability is almost definitly an important peice of the pie. There not using penny stocks, just IPOd companies, companies in trouble, or companies experiencing isolated/unique growth.
What I propose for someone to do, is to develop such a system for HTTP server usage. Build a list of say, 5000, sites. The sites should be distributed accross all topics, all markets. It should include sites run by non-IT centric companies, IT companies that are primarly "brick and mortar" and web-only companies as well. It should include scanning web hosting companies, colo housed sites, sites run off 56k modems. What they have in common is that they all have some level of longevity (if not stability).
That's one of the nice things about Apache. Running Apache doesn't mean running the same Apache that someone else does. mod_perl, Jakarta, mod_php, mod_whatever are all competing with each other. Apache is essentially a platform, not just a server.
I forget what 8 was for.
TCO does NOT include migration costs (initial training and porting apps). (These are important factors and need to be addressed in the Return On Investment (ROI) calculations.)
TCO is NOT applicable between companies UNLESS they are practically identical (same number of techs with the same training managing the same number of servers with the same OS's running the same apps (not similar apps, the same apps) for the same number of users, connected in the same fashion (wireless, wired, VPN'd in, etc) using the same desktop OS, etc).
Usually, TCO will come down to human maintenance (and floor space, cooling, etc) and licensing costs.
Neither Migration Costs nor TCO take into account money lost when the server is DOWN!
Microsoft usually does the following:
#1. Incorrectly includes training for other products as TCO instead of Migration.
#2. With #1., they do NOT include training on Microsoft products (assumes people already know it).
#3. Ends the "period" prior to the NEXT round of license expenses.
The Migration Costs (plus) the annual TCO (minus) downtime savings = $$$ You have to get from ROI.
TCO is MEANINGLESS when used by itself.
-and-
TCO is usually calculated incorrectly anyway.
The REAL issue with Open Source is the MIGRATION COST because so many people have apps that they depend upon that must be ported.
Which is why Microsoft does tries to confuse the issue with bogus TCO claims.
If you focus on the MIGRATION COSTS, you can handle them in smaller chunks over a longer period of time. Bit by bit, move your systems over to Open Source based servers and services.
If Microsoft are trying to sell it on the basis of "big professional companies use IIS", it doesn't really work for me. I'm interested in what sites like Amazon, Google, the BBC, Tesco, Natwest, BT, British Airways and the IMDB run on. Stuff that either gets a lot of traffic, has to be secure or both.
I don't have a list of the Forbes 500, but I've had a look at the FTSE 100 in the UK, and a great deal of those companies don't have what I'd call major websites - their businesses don't depend on high traffic. There are companies involved in Biotech, Construction, Mining and Food production.
It makes perfect sense. SCO and Sun systems are both BSD based. If you're going to migrate from these platforms to a proven free operating system, which would you choose, a BSD-type Unix (i.e. FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD) or a Sys5-type Unix (i.e. Linux)?
Sending as text/plain is the default, but you can change that by changing one line in the httpd.conf file.
It puts a bit of a dampener on the "celebration" of Apache's otherwise successful year w.r.t. market share.
"Our webserver is used by more Forbes/Fortune 500 companies and is used by more secure websites. Apaches numbers are only high because a lot of amateurs use it"
Yes, IIS is used by many Fortune 500 companies, but so is Apache. My largest client "uses" IIS for a small vendor supplied internal application (so MS$ counts it as an IIS site). But 99% of internal and external web pages are served from Apache.
Speaking as a member of the Apache HTTP Server project, I am curious - why aren't you moving to Apache 2.0?
If you're a household name, Microsoft will offer you a big discount (maybe even free-as-in-beer software and support) in order to go public and praise them. The people profiled in all those case studies you read about IIS and Windows Server haven't just spontaneously come forward.
If you're a big company or a govt. department and you threaten to switch to Linux, they'll offer you even more in order to avoid the bad publcity. But if you don't have bargaining power or a brand name, its ever-rising costs and BSA audits.
Yes, thanks for the correction, better language would have been a +20% change.
On the other hand (having had a hand in building a number of large-scale intranets), proprietary servers like Weblogic often make a better fit for the needs corporations have for their intranets rather than their public sites. I'd expect the market share of Domino, Weblogic and the like to jump rather dramatically if intranet servers could be surveyed.
Unfrtunately, Apache still defaults to text/plain for content whose type it does not know... IIS is much more sane and defaults to application/octet-stream. Apache's behavior (given IE ignoring MIME types) is the single biggest reason non-IE browsers are starting to ignore MIME types as well.
I'd be interested to see a weighted graph so that sites with more traffic have a greater impact. But the problem with that is, how do you measure it?
Number of hits is nice, but there's an even more useful metric out there: the Google ranking. A little cooperation between Netcraft and Google, and they could produce some interesting graphs that would roughly show the significance of web server usage for the web.
That's part of the reason Apache is growing so much faster. The point and click is ok for a few domains but as soon as you start getting 50+ domains it becomes too costly.
The bulk of sites hosted on any server now days are virtual hosting. Under apache it's simple. You add a couple of lines to a text file and do a graceful restart of apache.
Adding the lines can be scripted. So now you have a completely automated source of income. People go to your site. They click on the package they want and within minutes their credit card is debited and the account is created on your servers.
How long does the same thing take for a windows admin to setup. Now lets scale it up, you're now paying someone to simply add domains to your server. And not just IIS, you've also got to manually add the user accounts and manually add the dns. ALL of this is scripted with open source tools.
Small businesses love it because the can lease / colocate a server and only need a tech on contract instead of maying his sallary
apache's good, really damn good, and oncey ou get some optimizations in, it's sheer ownage.
it's complicated, but in a good way, and to configure it, you may have to sit there for an hour scrolling along, playing around with the options, but once you get it going, it works, and is stable.
not to mention a lot of the 3rd gui configurators are easier to understand than IIS, and give more options that give you total control of your webserver. the percentage that doesnt use apache are either afraid of it, think it's too hard, dont care, unwilling windows users that have it enabled by default, or companies that have CEO's that are tied by the balls to bill gates' finger.
Netcraft confirms, IIS is dying. ...
Ah, forget it.
You don't have to manually do any of this with IIS. You're just showing your incompetence with Windows systems by saying this.
Look at MSDN on the Microsoft web site some time. You'll find all the details on how to do these tasks programmatically there.
Yes, it's nice that Apache is open source, and it would be a disaster if the situation were reversed wrt. IIS.
But what I'd really like to see is a lot more diversity in web servers. Apache is a reliable, robust, efficient server, but it is only one, very specific way of serving web data and it has tons of quirks as well (starting with its configuration files).
Having Apache open makes it easier to innovate based on it. But I think it would be even better if more people did something altogether different rather than just plugging into Apache.
Well you have the domains that have 10 load balanced servers and then you have the server that has 10 domains on it.
It will all equal out in the end.
> What if you use a very ineffecient implimentation, and it takes twice the number of machines to do it? Should the server get a better market share because of it? The numbers are open to a lot of intepritation.
Well, would it be reasonable to assume that efficiency (or lack of it) is equally distributed across the different web-servers? For example, is there something about IIS that would make its users more or less likely to have an efficient architecture than Apache users?
As I understand it, a well-designed random sample should eliminate the kind of bias you're worried about.
As for counting webservers versus domains -- it just doesn't seem useful to me to count a company that's running 1 Apache server the same as a company that's running 500 Apache servers. I would prefer to see it based on the total number servers, because I think that gives a better indication of the economic strength of Apache vs. IIS (et. al.).
then 2004 will be the Year of the LAMP.
Or the LAMP for dummies (preconfigured executable)
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Whilst not disagreeing with you, doesn't Server 2003 (IIS 6?) now allow configuration by text file?
I think a big difference with the Unix vs. MS way of doing things is that Unix typically re-uses existing tools, i.e. text files, text editors, whereas MS tend to re-invent the wheel each time with a bunch of overly complex interfaces.
I don't doubt that IIS can be opperated well, but the skills to do so are actually quite hard to come by which kind of kills any TCO arguements! On the other hand, MS do provide simple point and click interfaces that make the initial learning curve easy.... its just unfortunate that the majority of MS "admins" don't make it beyond this initial curve.
As I say, I'm not disagreeing though -- fair play if you can run IIS well as there is money there, but it always make sense to keep an eye on where the market is going.
Best regards,
Z.
"These statistics make us happy, but they're not the whole story.
:-) It's not something you really want to brag about.
When we bragg about these numbers, Microsoft respond with:
'Our webserver is used by more Forbes/Fortune 500 companies and is used by more secure websites. Apaches numbers are only high because a lot of amateurs use it'. "
On the face of it the numbers do look bad. But there's a flip-side here: those same "amateur" sites are the up-and-coming leaders of the future. The students, small businesses, developers, and researchers that aren't stratified into believing Microsoft is the only solution. Saying IIS is preferred by the top 500 companies is somewhat like saying IIS is preferred by terrorists around the world for its ease of use and devastating crashes
What the hell? That hardly made any sense at all. How can you compare using IIS to terrorism? Are you stupid?
To be fair, it is much easier to use an existing API to add/remove items from a list then write routines to manipulate a text file containing that list -- this is essentially the difference between automating site management with IIS and Apache.
If you had invested the same amount of time learning Windows in-depth as you have learning Linux in-depth you would probably know how to do such things with IIS. Windows is a complex system as well, and learning the intricacies of it is just as necessary should you wish to use it well.
Oxford Street is a too far away from the City (the square mile) to have the archeological significance you attribute to it.
I guess you haven't listened to much rap lately.
We ask what server is seen by the world. It may be that ISS is running all the stuff in the back, but why is it that companies do not feel comfortable exposing ISS to the world?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
9.7M to 9.6M is -1%, not -0.1%
If Apache can get the job done with one server, but it takes 5 IIS servers to do it, then should IIS be rewarded with an inflated market share?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
If I was to set up a web server, I'd use a Linux+Apache config too. But that's because I ain't got no money, not because I particularly trust Apache.
Web server market share is a funny thing. Do you count the total number of webservers, or just domains?
Defining "market share" of a free program is a funny thing anyway. Market share would probably normally be measured as a fraction of total $$$. So maybe it should be "user share" instead.
-a
do to Microsoft IIS what IE did to Netscape - wipe it off the market.
Take that, Microsoft worshippers!
Soon to be followed by Linux wiping out Windows!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Yes, their programming efforts are probably overrated, particularly ESR, but that's not what they should be rated upon. In both cases, they are better at writing and philosophizing than they are at coding. There's no shame in that. Plenty of great coachers were lousy players.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
In Soviet Russia, all your stupid, redundant trolls, good or whack, are belong to us!
As the leader of the Apache project, Brian Behlendorf is quite high profile.
If you haven't seen Revolution OS purchase it, watch it, lend it to your friends.
Behlendorf is interviewed extensively in it, comes across well, is extremely eloquent and has a lot of worthwile things to say. His most interesting comment from my perspective was that the primary focus of Apache was to support open standards as opposed to free software.
Well, don't have the article handy, but the Fortune 500 companies may be large, but a lot of them did (some still do) not have major websites, just an advertising front. :)
I was thinking the orignal angle was that since they all came with Apache it might help skew the numbers (or at least making sure others knew it was not on by default so any numbers from OS X would be peopl eactually making use of the serrver).
Even so, I still imagine the number of OS X servers from that survey would be low - but perhaps OS X has more server penetration than I thought.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm quite positive. I have instances where I personally have installed IIS intranet servers. I mean what I said; don't put words in my mouth. If these IIS servers aren't providing solutions, they aren't worth counting.
There are authentication tools that IIS brings to the table that makes them really attractive in the intranet server market (like being able to obtain domain login information).
Actually, as other posts have shown, majority of new deployments have been Apache, but the absolute number of IIS installations have been rather static.
Does that mean that there are now more administrators (likely), or that the only ones adding servers use Apache (unlikely)? If IIS isn't gaining installations, then maybe we can conclude that at least some IIS administrators are moving to Apache for their new servers and going with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach for their IIS servers.
If that's the case, IIS is in trouble in a few years when all of those IIS servers are retired.
Why? Well posts like the parent are a good indicication. When I was first being introduced to unix it were the linux people who helped (was working on AIX btw) the BSD people just weren't as helpfull. I should replace AIX with BSD, yeah right like that is an option. I should not use FTP or similar despite that is what I been told to use by my boss. (tell people how to secure ftp not suggest meaningless alternatives like scp (can you install extra software on a few hundred office machines just because some BSD clown hates clear text passwords on a closed network?)
Of course since then I met other BSD users and met some asshole linux users as well but for me Linux == Helpfull community with some tosspots, BSD == assholes whining how they were first and how linux dweeds just don't get it with the occasional helpfull person.
If you want BSD to get a bigger following learn from linux. GNU/linux may not be as secure or robuust but it has done something right. What it is I can't tell but I think if you look at the forums for linux and bsd you will at least find a partial answer.
Oh and before you mark me a troll note that the original poster calls his FreeBSD superior but fails to give any evidence. This may be true but he is missing the point. Opensource is as much about the users as it is about the people (without paid support lines the forums and mailing lists are your lifeline). And linux people seem to do it better. Microsoft never took notice of BSD. They are trying to copy the way Linux is being developed. Make of that what you will.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In the future, when I pass my "web master" hat onto someone else, I'm sure we'll be employing droves of Apache*/nix servers.
The real reasons are that
Wow I feel retarded now, I always thought it was a hot tamale, not a feather.
When we bragg about these numbers, Microsoft respond with:
"Our webserver is used by more Forbes/Fortune 500 companies and is used by more secure websites. Apaches numbers are only high because a lot of amateurs use it".
These are words without substance. Where's the beef?
I work for a TLA Fortune 500 telecom. We use Apache for revenue-generating sites. We use other HTTP servers as well, some proprietary, like NES/iPlanet/SunONE. IIS is virtually non-present except on some small internal boxes.
MS gets used for Exchange and fileservers. There is interest in promoting Linux, and virtually none in promoting MS for any serious systems.
What exactly are you insinuating is going wrong? What are your suggestions for improvement?
I would disagree. The number of easy-to-publish tools (webfolders, frontPage, etc) for IIS makes it far more lucrative for Windows folks.
Web folders are nothing but WebDAV -- nothing there that Apache won't do. At my workplace, we use a Plone-based system for content management on our intranet, running on top of Apache, and the Windows users (which is most of the tech writing and graphics teams) seem quite happy with it.
"Our webserver is used by more Forbes/Fortune 500 companies and is used by more secure websites. Apaches numbers are only high because a lot of amateurs use it".
They say: "More", "more", and "lot of", as against actual statistical numbers by a well respected site. Question is, what *can* you possibly reply to them?
don't put words in my mouth.
That isn't what I was doing. I was employing a rhetorical device to draw your attention to the fact that a great many such servers also exist, and they provide a more of a problem than they do a solution.
There are authentication tools that IIS brings to the table that makes them really attractive in the intranet server market (like being able to obtain domain login information.
You mean domain in the peculiar Microsoft sense of the term, right? I can see how IIS might offer some embrace and extend-style additions to try and tie people in to their OS as well, yeah.
Err, an overclocking site doesn't compare to a Fortune 500 site...
Well Amazon runs Apache, and since their business is entirely dependant on their web-presence, that's a pretty strong example. Whereas most FT-500 just have a site that says "Welcome! We do this and that, we sell this and that, contact us at bla bla, bye!"
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Wow, Apache lets you add functionality through plug-ins that use a standard API? That's amazing! Just about every other web server has that too, but they don't make you run a bunch of command line config crap and recompile like Apache does, so it's not as k3wl. Recompiling is fun and definitely better than using some stupid installer that gets the configuration right the first time.
What other features can we gush about? Oh my god, it serves HTTP too? That's awesome! Can it talk to the filesystem and actually keep a log of the HTTP accesses, though? That would be really amazing.
Embrace and extend? Possibly, but it doesn't change the fact that it's easier-to-use for the users if your ActiveDirectory login creds are used for everything, including your corporate intranet. It's a case-by-case issue, but I'm trying to show one instance where it makes more sense to deploy IIS over Apache on the intranet.
Do you mean something like NTLM authentication against a domain?
Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
Does anyone else think that the rise in Apache #'s might have a little bit to do with the rise of osX usage?
I mean since osX uses Apache straight out of the box, and more old/New mac users are converting their servers and individual machines to osX don't those machines show up in the survey as Apache Servers if they are online?
Content + Container; Content = Container; Content â Container... which is the question?
Troll, or clueless, I'm not sure which. Never heard of a DSO? Oh, wait, you sound like one of those types that can only deal with pointy-clicky things, so I doubt you have. Who cares if a product is crap, it comes with a wizard!
As far as "command line config crap", I suppose if turning
# LoadModule php4_module /usr/lib/apache/1.3/libphp4.so
into
LoadModule php4_module /usr/lib/apache/1.3/libphp4.so
is too much for you, then perhaps it is best that you stick with the pointy-clicky stuff. Beats me what you'd actually do with a web server in that case, though.
What other features can we gush about? Oh my god, it serves HTTP too? That's awesome! Can it talk to the filesystem and actually keep a log of the HTTP accesses, though? That would be really amazing.
Christ, what a little snot. If you have anything to say that doesn't include preadolescent sarcasm that doesn't even apply to the conversation at hand, come on back. Until then, why not just go run along and play, hmm?
I forget what 8 was for.
For that matter, it would be nice if Apache1.x got some viable competition from Apache2.x. I can't find a breakdown by version on Netcraft's site, but the general concensus for the past couple of years has been that Apache 2 "isn't ready yet" -- even if, for most purposes, it can work just fine, and is far more flexible & efficient than Apache 1.3.x versions have been.
Does anyone have any stats on Apache 1 / Apache 2 usage levels? If Netcraft is keeping track of this, 20 minutes of poking around their reports site hasn't yet turned it up for me. The closest report I can come up with is this overview of secure sites, which puts Apache 2.x at roughly 3.25%, and Apache 1.x at around 61%. [They break down by exact x.x.x version number, so I'm just putting a thumbnail estimate based on eyeballing the table of percentages.]
Obviously, Apache 1 & 2 are in the same family, but they have a lot of differences as well; the new version is a complete rewrite of the codebase, from what I understand. Increased adoption of Apache2 would be a nice diversification of the web server "ecosystem", but it looks like real acceptance of Apache 2 may still be years off.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
I've seen that too. webDAV is the schznitt, agreed. A great way to switch to apache without howling from those used to IIS.
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Exactly, but I can't obtain support for that module, now, can I? :)
At the university where I teach, we do a second year module about web site admin and maintenance. This year, we're still teaching our students how to do config and install off the 1.3.x tree.
Why? Well, gut feeling tells me that the installed base is still overwhelmingly 1.3.x and the install process is a little easier for beginners to manage (apart from mod_ssl but we don't cover that till later anyway). Although many of the new 2.x features are pretty neat, they're a little more fiddly to sort out - like the filter model. Thankfully the DSO system is much better now and doesn't seem to have all the ordering problems that were common with 1.3.x.
Having said that, we use Apache 2.0.48/PHP4.3.4 to serve a number of domains on our production servers. We're generally not excessively loaded (but it can get high sometimes) so I don't know how it would perform under v high stress. Generally, Apache 2.0.48 is running great for us on our Linux box
It's not you: I'm just this horrifically socially awkward with everybody.
No need to depend on gut feeling to know which version is most used. Read it here. Apache 1.3.27 is the most installed version of any server.