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Apache Webserver Surpasses 50 Million Website Mark

chris81 writes "For the first time ever, the Apache Web Server is powering more than 50 million websites, according to Netcraft's Web Server Survey for October. Although relative share fell by 0.67 percent, the total number of sites powered by Apache grew to over 52 million. Microsoft's IIS finished second with more than 15 million sites served."

34 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. ...and by Neo-Rio-101 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Netcraft confirms it

    --
    READY.
    PRINT ""+-0
    1. Re:...and by KiloByte · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I wonder how they count it when you have different names for a single site:

      <VirtualHost *>
                      ServerName urukpr0n.angband.pl
                      ServerAlias urukporn.angband.pl urukp0rn.angband.pl urukpron.angband.pl
      [...]
      (No, this site isn't what you think.)

      This is especially important if you count the fact that in a lot of cases www.$SITE is a CNAME for $SITE.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    2. Re:...and by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not 23 million actual servers, just 23 million different sites. Probably hosted on just a few hundred thousand physical servers. Netcraft "active sites" calculation is based on an estimate from contacting each server IP address a few times using a selection of the registered names and then comparing them. e.g. if you host 4000 domains which all say "We own this domain $domain, why not offer us money for it?" Netcraft will notice that 4000 names lead to that IP address, connect say 14 times, get a very similar response each time and conclude that there is only one active site.

      23 million servers would represent almost 1% of all unicast IPv4 addresses (and AFAIK Netcraft don't look for IPv6-only servers)

  2. Err.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    >>Microsoft's IIS finished second with more than 15 million sites served.
    Now did they try to find how many actually work ;)

    1. Re:Err.... by Skiron · · Score: 3, Interesting

      12,000,000 of them are within microsoft.com domain (spoofed Apache httpd)...

  3. I'm impressed by Killjoy_NL · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not just that so many people and companies host websites on Apache, I'm more impressed that there are so many websites?

    Such an enormous collection of data, it boggles my mind.

    --
    This is the sig that says NI (again)
    1. Re:I'm impressed by AvantLegion · · Score: 5, Funny
      True. But once you remove the porn, there's only about 500 or so.

    2. Re:I'm impressed by aussie_a · · Score: 5, Funny

      Such an enormous collection of data, it boggles my mind.

      Here's a list of what the sites are (from most populous): 1: Porn sites
      2: Spam sites
      3: Spyware sites
      4: Scamming sites
      5: Warez sites
      6: Blogs
      7: Message boards
      8: Wikipedia duplicates (where they copy and paste Wikipedia entries)
      9: Software related sites
      10: Other business related sites
      11: Education-related websites.

      As you can see, most of it is just rubbish.

    3. Re:I'm impressed by drstock · · Score: 5, Funny

      "I'm fairly sure that if they took all the porn off the Internet, there'd only be 1 website left, and it would be called Bring Back The Porn."
      - Dr Cox from Scrubs.

      --
      My other comment is funny
  4. Micosoft salesrep by kryten_nl · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft salesrep: "You know, Apache's relative share fell by *cough*0.*cough* 67 percent!!!"

    --
    For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
    1. Re:Micosoft salesrep by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well there are the MS Fans out there who believe Microsoft's propaganda, and/or believe that Microsoft is the only serious player out there.

      Secondly there are a lot of companies that are strictly a Microsoft shop, and the cost of moving is to high and the staff is use to windows so they stick with windows solutions they already bought.

      Third they have a group of .NET developers and it is easy to for them to make a Web App on IIS vs. Getting Mono on Apache working, and working threw any of the glitches.

      IIS is arguably easier to use then apache because you don't need to go threw and end a text file and add commands that may not be part of the default configuration.

      Fear from ignorance, they are afraid if they don't use IIS then they will not be able to support the IE users, heck whenever they look at a pro-linux site who uses advanced CSS it rarely renders properly for them.

      They already have Windows [NT, 2000, 2003] servers and they have IIS on them so they will use it, because they already paid for it.

      It has been a long time since I heard of a major security flaws in IIS being affected and much longer for Apache. But you are expecting all the consumers to be logical, that is just crazy.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Micosoft salesrep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
      IIS is also arguably faster, as it's running on a single architecture, on an OS designed by the same developer.
      IIS is not arguably faster than Apache httpd, it is faster. What is arguable is the wisdom of running a server at ring0 (kernel address space). Apache was not designed for raw speed, it was designed to be full-featured, stable and correct. If you want to see IIS trounced by a kernel based httpd, take a look at TUX and this (typically flawed) benchmark. The only good thing I have to say about IIS is that version 6 appears to have undergone a security audit and is no longer being rooted by simple HTTP GET requests (a genuine Microsoft innovation) like previous versions.
  5. Actually... by DavidHOzAu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's because of php's increasing popularity, as this page shows.

    1. Re:Actually... by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Funny

      I wonder how it compares to this graph.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
  6. Odd lines in chart by inkswamp · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The chart marked "Market Share for Top Servers Across All Domains August 1995 - October 2005" is interesting. I'm not entirely sure I understand what it means, but July 2001 and June 2004 show an almost mirror image in terms of the blue and red lines (Apache and MS.) When one goes up, the other goes down and vice-versa. Strange. I wonder what exactly was happening during that time period to cause that.

    --
    --Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
    1. Re:Odd lines in chart by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not entirely sure I understand what it means, but July 2001 and June 2004 show an almost mirror image in terms of the blue and red lines (Apache and MS.) When one goes up, the other goes down and vice-versa. Strange. I wonder what exactly was happening during that time period to cause that.

      Several big hosting providers were trying to switch their hosting between Apache and IIS. Providers that are big enough to actually make those kinds of dents in the graph. As you can see from the final result, most of them figured out Apache was the better solution. I wouldn't use IIS to serve HTML either, only if the content required .NET and you didn't really have a choice.

      Kjella

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:Odd lines in chart by larien · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The big movers are the domain registrars; they'll host several hundred parked domains on a single server. While they're all using the same content (probably the same files, even), they'll show up as hundreds of sites. If they move from Apache to IIS (or vice versa), several hundred (or thousand?) websites appear to switch.

    3. Re:Odd lines in chart by guruevi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well. That is because of the contracts running with Microsoft. We have a contract (as hostingprovider) that x-% of the servers has to be Windows based so we recompiled Apache to show up as IIS and the next month Netcraft confirmed it, we moved 15000 sites (URL-forwarding) to IIS.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    4. Re:Odd lines in chart by RoLi · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I'm not sure how IIS survives in the market place

      They survive because of customer lock-in (aka "Integration" in salesspeak), "standardization" (with desktop systems) and the delusion (which is interestingly put forward by both pro- and anti Microsoft people) that "sooner or later" Microsoft will dominate every market and so it's better to bet on the winner.

      However, with years of IIS being pretty stagnant or slowly losing marketshare, this delusion cannot be sustained forever, more and more people realize that OSS is not just a fad and is here to stay.

      Also with each round of forced upgrades on the IIS-side, some jump ship.

      It will probably will take a decade or two, but then IIS-fans will find themselves in the very situation they wanted to avoid: Being a tiny minority, fighting with bad 3rd party support and being frowned upon.

      In some countries it already happened: In Germany, IIS runs only 5.56% of domains (down from over 20% 5 years ago) - cheap German webhosters don't offer Windows anymore at all, some webhosters charge extra for Windows and only few charge the same (however those are usually the most expensive webhosters anyway)

  7. Now can we have the results for Gopher servers! by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just curious. Also would be nice to see the current amount of WAIS
    and Archie servers left! :o)

  8. Re:Apache License? by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Informative


          1. You must give any other recipients of the Work or Derivative Works a copy of this License; and

          2. You must cause any modified files to carry prominent notices stating that You changed the files; and

          3. You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices from the Source form of the Work, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works; and

          4. If the Work includes a "NOTICE" text file as part of its distribution, then any Derivative Works that You distribute must include a readable copy of the attribution notices contained within such NOTICE file, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works, in at least one of the following places: within a NOTICE text file distributed as part of the Derivative Works; within the Source form or documentation, if provided along with the Derivative Works; or, within a display generated by the Derivative Works, if and wherever such third-party notices normally appear. The contents of the NOTICE file are for informational purposes only and do not modify the License. You may add Your own attribution notices within Derivative Works that You distribute, alongside or as an addendum to the NOTICE text from the Work, provided that such additional attribution notices cannot be construed as modifying the License.


    The last clause there is what makes it incompatible with the GPL and what made the OpenBSD folks fork it (they folked before the license change to include this clause). In answer to your question, yes, indeed anyone is free to extend and distribute binary forms of the software without having to hand over source code for their extensions (or even for the code they didn't write).

    But here's a question for you. If you're required to give "any other recipients of the Work or Derivative Works a copy of this License", does that mean that the extended work has to be under this license? Or does it just mean you have to give the license to them, even though it isn't applicable. What stupid wording. Presumably it means you can't change the license on the software.. but you can apply any license you want on your extensions.. which means you can prohibit the software from being distributed, even though "this license" says you are free to distribute it.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  9. What will LAMP's success mean to M$? by linumax · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, actually they have their own plans.
    and part of the plan is giving some for free! See SQL Server 2005 Express Edition's Pricing Policy and the same for Visual Studio Express Edition which will be free.
    I don't do much open-source programming but I'd like to thank all those guys who do, cuz if it was not for their efforts, M$ would have never given something for free (at least as in beer!!)
    Anyway, the point is that some small businesses might be attracted to M$'s side by giving these development tools for free and this might have an effect on Apache and as a whole LAMP's market share.

  10. Well happy birthday or something by Xiph · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I really can't see this as anything that'll come as a surprise to anyone, nor the fact that apache came first. I also have a feeling that the apache guys see this the same way, as it is nowhere to be found at http://apache.org/foundation/news.html/. but i guess any round number is worth celebrating, after all free as in drunk, is as important as any other freedom ;)

    --
    Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
  11. What would be really interesting... by sosume · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What would be really interesting would be a figure of total pages served (over the entire internet), grouped by server type. Or the average return opn investement, per server type. Number of hostnames really says nothing, I can add a few thousand myself with no trouble at all.

  12. Three considerations by VincenzoRomano · · Score: 5, Interesting

    #1. Sites vs servers.
    Netcraft states they count the sites while they don't mention whether they count 2nd level domains (foo.com), 3rd level domains (www.foo.com, support.foo.com) or what else. They just say they "received responses from 74,409,971 sites" while not defining what a site actually is.

    #2. Growth.
    There has been a growth of about 3.73% in the number of (so called) web sites. There must be some hidden winner(s). That is, there must be some group of web servers that is getting the great part of the growth all at once! Netcraft is failing to mention who they are!

    #3. Webserver (or website) identification.
    It's all but trivial to identify web servers. Are they using some special tool like amap and nmap or just looking at the server response content? How accurate this identification can be?

    --
    Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
    For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
    1. Re:Three considerations by rjw57 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Follow the links in TFA. They you'll get to http://survey.netcraft.com/index-200007.html which says
      "The Netcraft Web Server Survey is a survey of Web Server software usage on Internet connected computers. We collect and collate as many hostnames providing an http service as we can find, and systematically poll each one with an HTTP request for the server name."

      --
      Rich
  13. what operating systems are popular with Apache? by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I would be interested to see what OSes those sites are running on
    Netcraft used to show a summary with that information. I'm not sure why they stopped showing it, since they do still collect it and show it for individual site queries. I suppose if enough people ask them to reinstate it, they might actually reply to one of the messages and explain the rationale. More likely than not it probably made it evident that one of their major advertisers **cough**MS**cough was losing market share to both other http servers and other platforms.

    Along the same lines, I saw a recent IDC report that showed (if one looked at the data oneself) that MS was continuing to lose market share in the server room, at least percentage wise. My guess is that they took most of Novell's share around 2000 when they ran the smear campaign against Netware and then have been slowly hemorrhaging marketshare since then.

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
  14. Quality issue by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Yes, it's interesting to see that competition forced a reduction in price from MS' side, but you still have the problem of quality.

    Qualitywise, MS SQL Server is the IIS of the database world. Only if you somehow got locked into .NET or some other proprietary hook into MS would you need MS SQL over an industry standard like Postgresql or MySQL which are in approximately the same niche. Those two are even starting to nibble at the heels of Oracle in some contexts, unlike MS SQL.

    MS has tried give aways before with IIS. People learn their lesson and move on, unless they get locked in. The same goes with SQL databases.

    So a purchase price of zero is an advantage, but the main reason people use Apache and the other parts of LAMP is the quality. The price is just gravy.

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
    1. Re:Quality issue by pedestrian+crossing · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've got to disagree with you on this one. MS-SQL is about the -only- MS product that is worth a damn.

      MySQL? I think you need to lay off the Kool-Aid. Postgresql? Maybe, but it doesn't come with the suite of tools that you get with MS-SQL.

      Really, I dislike MS as much as the next slashbot, but MS SQL server is the exception to the rule.

      --
      A house divided against itself cannot stand.
  15. Just need to check by peterpi · · Score: 5, Funny
    I'm just updating my fanboyism and I need to check some figures.
    • IIS' 20% market share is rubbish.
    • Firefox's 10% share is the greatest thing evar.
  16. Re:Why use IIS? by ooh456 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here are the top 10 reasons people choose IIS over Apache:

    10. Because they don't know what they are doing.
    9. Because their customers don't know what they're doing.
    8. Because they are partnered with MS.
    7. Because they are racist against Native Americans.
    6. Because they get some orgasmic thrill from spending money on slower, inferior products and services.
    5. Because the same reason they use Hotmail over Gmail.
    6. Because they are really using Apache... but configure it to report itself as IIS to confuse attackers.
    5. Because they are originally from another dimension where IIS works better than Apache.
    4. Because they were playing a practical joke on their users and then died suddenly.
    3. Because they are brainwashed from listening to too many Steve Balmer speeches.
    2. Because really all those IIS servers out there are just Microsoft's own servers trying to keep MSN.com running.
    1. Because they smoke a lot of crack.

  17. Logical Target by soloport · · Score: 4, Funny

    Look. Apache is targeted by all the script kiddies because it's SO popular. I mean, if you were a script kiddie and saw such a huge target as Apache, compared to the IIS install base, which one would YOU go after? You IIS *zealots* are a big turn-off to the rest of the web serving community.

  18. Re:Why is apache so popular? by SumDog · · Score: 3, Informative

    Because most of the tools we use for web development work and are actively maintained on Apache. mod_php, mod_perl, mod_ruby, etc. Sure you can use these via CGI with any web server, but the in process execution makes them more convenient to use.

    Apache has turned into a de-facto standard. People can expect security updates for it, and the large user base insures its longevity. With any major piece of software, there are always better alternatives. But still, people use sendmail, even though we have postfix and qmail. People use bind...

    Apache works, is solid, scalable and is supported by many languages and many people. That's why most people use it.

  19. Re:Apache share *INCREASED* by cakesy · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, but from October to September, Apache's share went from 69.89% to 69.15% (-0.74%).

    Makes you think, doesn't it?