Apache Now the Leader in SSL Servers?

miller60 writes "Apache has overtaken Microsoft as the leading developer of secure web servers, according to Netcraft's monthly SSL survey. Apache now runs on 44.0% of secure web sites, compared to 43.8% for Microsoft. Apache's recent gains are attributed to the inclusion of mod_ssl in version 2, and strong growth of SSL-enabled sites in non-US markets where Apache has stronger market share."

Comments

Congratulations

[EraserMouseMan]

to a quality open source product! Whatever Apache is doing development and management-wise, don't change a thing!

Re:Congratulations

[Homology]

to a quality open source product! Whatever Apache is doing development and management-wise, don't change a thing!

They rejected many security patches from OpenBSD for httpd 1.3.29, and even before OpenBSD forked httpd 1.3 (the infamous license change) the in-tree diff was over 4000 lines of code.

Shows what I know

[Illbay]

I didn't even know that Apache had NOT been the leader in this category.

Re:Shows what I know

[PFI_Optix]

I'm not sure why this was modded redundant. I too am surprised that Apache wasn't the leading secure server. I'd find it interesting to know just how many people didn't realize that MS held as much share in this particular category as they do.

Re:Shows what I know

[DaHat]

I agree... but for a different reason: I'm surprised that this was not mentioned previously by the Microsoft camp in response to the traditional OSS claim of Apache and Linux running more web servers than Windows and IIS.

Re:Shows what I know

[gbjbaanb]

It has been mentioned, just that the figures were not available for the SSL survey unless you coughed up cash for the report.

Its the response that, despite Apache's strength in overall websites, IIS was used for more 'serious' sites. The OSS people who read these comments (usually in another Apache has more/is better/etc than IIS stories) just ignore them.

Re:Shows what I know

[Secrity]

It was my understanding that for heavy duty "serious" sites that Netscape web server/Sun whatever web server had been the usual choice. news.bbc.co.uk (serios web site, number 8 behind Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google) is using Zeus/4.2 on most of it's sites. www.yahoo.com is running something under freebsd. cgi.ebay.com, #9, is mostly running WebSphere. #10, toolbar.netcraft.com (?) is running Apache The only Netcraft top 10 most visited site that is running IIS is www.microsoft.com (#6). For reference, www.sony.com, www.weather.com, and www.cnn,com are running Apache (all of which are serious sites)

Not really. It all depends on how you count it.

[LWATCDR]

Sure Apache may have more installs than Microsoft but if you go by dollar value of product shipped I am sure that Microsoft is still way out in front of Apache!

Re:Not really. It all depends on how you count it.

[Keyslapper]

Umm, No.

If you go in dollars collected, then yes, I'd have to agree that Microsoft is way out in front. Dollar value on the other hand, is most certainly up for debate.

And of course the obligatory:

I for one, welcome our new open source overlords!!

Re:Not really. It all depends on how you count it.

[reldruH]

It does all depend on how you count it, but using the amount of revenue each product generates as your method of counting is the kind of thinking that leads to open source software being considered worthless. Yes the products that Microsoft's shipped have generated far more revenue, but Apache isn't even trying to compete on that level. If you must compare the two, compare them by actual quality of product, usually as determined by market share. If one program costs $10 and another costs $100 and you measure their quality by how much money each has made, you're not going to get an accurate comparison.

Re:Not really. It all depends on how you count it.

[DrSkwid]

How about we sum the value of the transactions shipped via the 44.0% of secure web sites, compared to 43.8% for Microsoft.

Just now?

[TimmyDee]

With IIS's myriad of security issues, you'd think this would have happened a long time ago. I guess we just have to chalk it up to the slow movements of corporations (or the death of those who used IIS ;).

Re:Just now?

[Not_Wiggins]

It is more likely attributable to corporations setting up separate web/app servers. It is fairly common to have the front-end content served up by Apache and requests for dynamic content forwarded from the front-end webservers back through firewalls to application servers. Those backend appservers may still be anything... Websphere, IIS, WebLogic, etc.

The stats listed might simply be reflecting this trend towards a split/more secure setup.

Re:oblig troll

[bepe86]

Well, statistics can always lie, but apache has had a steady growth, according to that graph, so I'm not too certain that Microsoft will take back that position by next sunday... Anyways, another victory for FOSS, and proves once again that there's still hope for alternative software has a place in professional businesses :) What I'm really curious about, is how many of those apache servers runs on windows machines, anyone got a statistic to point me to?

Why so much different?

[imemyself]

Out of curiosity, does anyone know why the stat's for SSL servers so much different for regular HTTP? Are more business or ecomm(shudder) sites running on IIS? Or am I missing something.

Re:Why so much different?

[tedhiltonhead]

The vast majority of virtual hosting is done using Apache, and most domains don't have SSL support. The SSL stat may get us closer to counting the number of IP's using the two packages, rather than just the number of domains.

Thought MS was further back.

[gasmonso]

Honestly, all MS bashing aside, why would anyone use MS over Apache? The support and knowledgebase surrounding Apache is second to none. Plus its free, but to me thats second to the quality and performance. Keep it up Apache!

http://religiousfreaks.com/

Re:Thought MS was further back.

[Thundersnatch]

It's all about the developers. People use IIS because it serves ASP and more importantly ASP.net. Say what you will about Microsoft, but Visual Stuido is a first-class development environment. Building scalable and functional web applications in ASP.net using the graphical tools in VS is easier than anything I've seen in the LAMP world, with the possible exception of Rails.

Plus, Microsoft's near-suicidal devotion to backwards compatibility makes heavily mixed ASP/ASP.net sites like CDW reasonably easy, probably easier than mixing different web frameworks on a LAMP or Java platform.

false readings

[Keruo]

Netcraft statistics lie.
I run several ssl www-servers with linux+apache configuration, and yet they show as windows 2003 on netcraft surveys because eNom reports them that way.
The true amount of IIS-based ssl servers is much smaller.

Re:false readings

[PsychicX]

More importantly, the reported difference is 0.2%. You can't honestly expect me to believe that's a statistically significant difference; you'd need much more data to even get 1% margin of error.

Re:Who chooses Microsoft?

[DaHat]

Yes... Call me crazy but I love Windows, IIS, ASP.NET and MS SQL.

Granted... I have limited experience with LAMP, when I set out to build my lil beg site back in January I tried doing it with LAMP for a time because of the cost savings that I'd have from hosting on Linux... unfortunately there were plenty of behind the scenes things that I just couldn't figure out and didn't have the time or desire to spend to make it work... so I backed off and did it under a pure Microsoft side and things came together quite smoothly.

My only regret is not yet getting enough traffic to my site, as well as having my Adsense account nuked.

Re:Who chooses Microsoft?

[Alkrun]

That hasn't been my experience at all. I run some PHP forums and I'm a .NET developer so I don't think I really qualify as an administrator. But my experience has been:

As far as dynamic web-page language/technology goes, PHP runs poorly, is a bit painful to install / configure compared to the .NET runtime which is almost a no-brainer install.

As far as databases go, MS SQL server comes with better tools than mysql, and generally requires less knowledge to administer.

Apache might be more configurable but editing Apache configuration XML has been problematic for me the limited times I've had to do it. IIS has most of that exposed in the UI, and there are generally more "30 second how-tos" for doing that stuff with the meta-data editor if you need to.

Linux vs. Windows comes down to the fact that I prefer Linux for a server OS but IIS / MS SQL don't run on Linux.

Re:How do you pronounce ...

[grub]

"ess ess ell" like a real man. "Sussell" is retarded. I recall a fellow who pronunced "SSH" as it was spelled "Sshhhhhhhh"...

Re:Who chooses Microsoft?

[CCFreak2K]

I think this indeed is a case in point for my argument. Why do people NOT switch from IIS to Apache? TCO. Not only do they have to change over all of their IIS running machines (may just be one, may be more than one), but they have to learn an entirely new product. Apache isn't all point-and-click, either (from my standpoint, anyway; I set up apache on a server without X on it), so they have to contend with administrative incompetence until they understand it. It costs dollars to train those people. On the flip side, Microsoft software is easier to set up, but the dollars are lost in licensing for use of the software in the first place.

I'm not FOR IIS, nor am I against it. I'm just saying that it's sometimes difficult for someone/some group to make such a big switch.

Should title not end with ! instead of ?

[Provocateur]

Or did Slashdot use up all their !!!!! during the infamous OMG! Ponies!!! issue...
 

Re:oblig troll

[Homology]

On Windows, forking a new process is expensive thus the heavy use of threads. On Unix, forking is not so expensive, comparatively.

Apache http 2.x is supposed to run much better on Windows than 1.3, and do indeed use threading.

Re:funny

[Psiren]

I mention how bad Microsoft products are for mission critical servers and applications like websites.

On what information are you basing this statement? If you looked at the stats (several comments above have the links) you'll see that IIS 6 compares very well against Apache. When you're making these statements, do you mention these statistics? I'm guessing not. There are plenty of reasons to use Apache over IIS, but security is not top of the list.

I'm all for advocating open source, but if you're going to do it, don't spout bullshit. You come across as nothing more than a MS basher, and frankly, I don't want people like you speaking on my behalf.

Re:false readings QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I ask one question -- why is this bullshit moderated up? Can anyone just post any piece of random crap and Slashdot will just believe it if it favors Apache or disfavors Microsoft?

Is it too much to ask for this Bozo to actually, I don't know, PROVE his ridiculous statement? Would it be too much to ask that he explain exactly how ANY Apache server would show if his stupid accusation were true?

Bah. I'm no Microsoft fan, but I hate stupidity more.

i believe it's because...

[WeAreAllDoomed]

everyone just now finally figured out how to create and use self-signed certs with apache and openssl :-)