Slashdot Mirror
Will Microsoft IIS Overtake Apache?
First time accepted submitter jcdr writes "February's 2014 Web Server Survey by Netcraft shows a massive increase [in the share of] Microsoft's web server since 2013. Microsoft's market share is now only 5.4 percentage points lower than Apache's, which is the closest it has ever been. If recent trends continue, Microsoft could overtake Apache within the next few months, ending Apache's 17+ year reign as the most common web server."
Developer January 2014 Percent February 2014 Percent Change
Apache 98,129,017 54.50% 94,741,928 52.68% -1.81
nginx 21,548,550 11.97% 24,206,737 13.46% 1.49
Microsoft 20,901,626 11.61% 21,196,966 11.79% 0.18
Google 15,386,518 8.54% 15,245,912 8.48% -0.07
I seem to remember a substantial amount of botnets running on Linux servers that have Apache on them. Also thanks to poor coders with bad PHP, SQL injections are quite common as well. But this article is bound to spark knee-jerk reactions to OSS software fanatics. Just don't forget that tons of people are switching to nginx and lighttpd on a daily basis which also decreases Apache's use as well.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
If I remember correctly, Microsoft was paying large hosting providers like GoDaddy to use IIS over apache
The evidence of that is the "all sites" graph which shows IIS's share increasing vs. the "active sites" graph which shows IIS's share plummeting. IIS appears to be hosting a lot of dead sites, ironically.
IIS has been on a fairly steady decline since 2000. There was a spike beginning in 2006 that rapidly died off in 2009, following which IIS continued its slow downward decline. Nginx actually has a higher usage than IIS, and Apache is still around 50%. IIS is only the server of choice among inactive placeholder pages on disused hostnames.
At this point, I'm not 100% sure what in any reasonable configuration Apache would offer over nginx.
A couple of things i've noticed
1: The combination of nginx and php can be a pain. It's easy enough to make it work for the root of a hostname but if you then add a subdirectory of the domain that is mapped to a different local directory it breaks because nginx passes the wrong path to php. I belive it's possible to make things work again with a sufficiantly complex configuration but I haven't figured out how yet. In my case I just worked arround it by using subdomains.
2: Some more specialist stuff may rely on specific apache modules that afaict don't have an nginx equivilent. For example mod_dav_svn or mod_mirrorbrain.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Someone I know runs a hosting provider in Latin America, they sell virtualization, dedicated servers and housing. I don't remember exactly how the deal was (this was about 2 years ago). Microsoft talks to everyone here to route their traffic through Window Server devices and IIS or fake server agents in exchange of money, hardware and licenses. I don't have proof and can't obviously point to specific providers, but i've seen the devices myself.