Slashdot Mirror
Apache down, IIS up
Doctor Memory writes "Netcraft's June 2006 web server survey is out, and it shows IIS taking a dramatic upturn, at the expense of Apache. One of the biggest reasons cited is domain registrar Go Daddy switching to IIS for the domains it "parks". The report does go on to note that IIS is also making solid gains in active sites (including some large blog hosts), and further notes that it appears that large hosting companies are dropping Linux." Statistics are fun to play with, of course, but note that Apache's market share is approximately 30% higher than IIS's at the moment.
The metrics from Netcraft are hard to read with respect to OS. They don't publish a free OS graph that I've found, and you can't assume that any particular percentage of Apache hosts are running on any particular OS.
All this tells you is that the majority of "sites" (that being a nebulous term) are using Apache on some OS as at least their front-line Web servers. They might still be back-ending to whatever, and that would not show up.
Personally, I don't think you can use Netcraft for any purpose other than to say "IIS and Apache are the most popular Web servers."
The parent seems to discredit the survey by saying "It is fun to play with statistics." Obviously trying to cast doubt on the numbers by saying that they can be moved around to suite ones needs.
However, since this survey is done monthly, the question is has it been credible in the past? Is the survey only being called in to question over it's validity now, because it reports on good news for Microsoft? Are we really so eager to turn on anything that provides positive news of any kind for Microsoft?
And you know what else is up? IIS exploits hitting my apache log files... :)
I also get a lot of php 'sploits too but I am seeing an increase in IIS "features" hitting my web servers. Wow, to be so popular... sigh.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
You are absoltuely correct. Something like 90% of Netcraft is parked domains, vhosted thousands to a single server.
But every single "Security Doesn't Have Anything to Do With Marketshare" argument seems to start with a reference to these meaningless statistics. So, if the statistics shift, the faulty arguments about Linux security are weakened. Therefore it's a huge freaking deal to Linux Zealots.
Bruce Perens got so worked up about these stats, that he's starting a movement for people to park their domains on Linux servers. I wish I was making this up, but sadly it shows you the level of astounding intellect in play in Linux Advocacy circles.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
More importantly is why does it matter anyway? X uses what they like, Y uses what they like. Story over.
People that believe in their opinions don't post AC.
Microsoft's share was closer to Apache's in March of 2002 than it is now. There's no reason to believe it won't plateau or drop off again. There's not even a trend yet (like there was back then) that can lend itself to predictions.
^X^S ^X^C
I cringe just a little when I hear reassurances like (from the slashdot summary): "but note that Apache's marketshare is approximately 30% higher than IIS's at the moment..."
Personally, I cringe when I see editors making comments like that up there on the summary, rather than down here with the rest of us.
Apart from that, I agree with you; if one is serious about trying to keep IIS out of the web server business (for whatever reason), then the time to be complacent is when it no longer exists.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
IIS may be up but the question of scaliblity just is hard to beat for them. My experience and those of friends who are responsible for larger installations is that IIS just can't handle the performance that apache can. It's a fine server (except for 5.0 *cough* *cough*) but when you're ready to play in the big leagues apache is the only way to go...
but then again I'm preaching to the choir
I really don't care which is the winner here, I just don't like un-fairness. Im not trying to be shitty, I'm asking a legit question here. Let Apache loose some market share, then you might have a reason for your hearts to bleed.
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
Where I've worked in the past, it seems that the Web Server of choice follows the Application Server of choice. .Net solution, just because of what seemed "a good deal" at the time. .Net integration part and processing data.
If management find a great application that cheaper to run, and maybe has a great support contract at a low price, they buy into the idea, and don't really bother about the fact that they have to move the front end web server technology from say IIS to Apache.
I've been in a situation when a brilliant Apache / Java / Broadvision combination, was replaced by an IIS /
However in my particular situation, us "Sys Admins" loved apache so much, we decided to leave it in at the front end, to serve media, protect the front end and internal-proxy the IIS data, and then have IIS as the middle layer just doing the
So at the end of the day, Netcraft reports apache, but the real grunt of the work is being done by IIS.
Mike
Now they win over a domain parking service and everyone want to say the statistics are unfairly in their favor? What about all the years those statistics worked against them, I didn't see you complaining then.
I like to work with Apache, but 2k3 server is a large improvement from MS. If MS finally getting their act together on the server front means they win back some of the "Netcraft share" than great.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Windows/IIS will never compete in the $20/month free PHP package market, so it's not really worth bothering about.
.NET / C# / SQL Server. With low cost IIS hosting, versions of Visual Studio and SQL Server that are either free or low cost, the features of ASP.NET 2 and DotNetNuke, I probably won't be returning to LAMP any time soon.
That might have been true a few years ago but not now. Have a look at the Windows (and Linux) offerings, including SQL Server, at JodoHost. I'm not connected with them other than as a happy customer. There are plenty of bad Windows hosting companies out there but there are also good ones with prices pretty much the same as LAMP.
I've done a few spare time projects for non-profits. Previously my only realistic choice for these was PHP / MySQL mostly because of hosting and tool costs but my latest project uses
And do you know what I've noticed? I may be totally wrong here, but I don't think IIS even has a mod_rewrite-ish function! I don't know about you, but I rely extensively on mod_rewrite every day – almost all my sites are running a custom PHP/MySQL/mod_rewrite-based setup, and without it the entire thing would fall apart.
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
the story after this one slashdotted an IIS server. Did it run out of bandwidth? Nope...it ran out of memory. lol IIS sucks ass!!!
\ machine.config could not be loaded. Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown.
\ machine.config Line: 0
.NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.2032; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.2032
http://www.twingalaxies.com/
Error message below:
Server Error in '/' Application.
Configuration Error
Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.
Parser Error Message: The XML file c:\winnt\microsoft.net\framework\v1.1.4322\Config
Source Error:
[No relevant source lines]
Source File: c:\winnt\microsoft.net\framework\v1.1.4322\Config
Version Information: Microsoft
At the last place I worked at IBM did the same thing. They wanted us off LAMP and offered to give us 1-year Websphere and DB2 licenses (something like $10,000 per year afterwards!) and they would even re-write all of our web applications at no charge.
So as I'm in the meeting with these guys all I hear them talk about is their technology. Java this and Java that, scalability, DB2, XML addons, etc. It was all very impressive until I asked them a question for which they had no answer.
What business problem does our current technology fail to solve that your new technology can?
The fact is they had no idea. They didn't care at all about our business, only their technology. Our LAMP system already did what we wanted and I communicated to IBM that our business success had nothing to do with technology, but everything to do with the business model behind it. I'd be willing to bet that Microsoft isn't solving any business problems by converting anyone to IIS.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.