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."
If I remember correctly, Microsoft was paying large hosting providers like GoDaddy to use IIS over apache
Netcraft says, "Microsoft gained a staggering 48 million sites this month, increasing its total by 19% â" most of this growth is attributable to new sites hosted by Nobis Technology Group." I have no idea WFT Nobis Technology Group is, but that suggests that what is essentially one large installation swings Netcraft's idea of "the most common web server."
And that's a broken way of counting. If ten servers using Server A serve ten sites each, and one server with Server B serves 1,000 sites,Server A is still the most common web server, with ten times the installation base of Server B.
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You cannot wash away blood with blood
I don't know if Microsoft paid them, but GoDaddy did move all of their parked sites to IIS by default instead of Apache, which caused a major percentage change for Microsoft.
One needs to look beyond the first graph that shows all sites surveyed to look at the actually active sites - there Apache appears to have more *active* deployments than the rest combined. Counting inactive, parked domains is not really indicative of particular server popularity.
IIS also is hardly the crippled pile of steaming crap which it used to be.
This is very true. It's made a lot of progress in the past few years, and is now an almost unrecognizable, completely new pile of steaming crap.
Exactly. A bit of sensationalism in the story.
All Sites (included millions of parked) are in 38%/%32 mix. Looking 600 pixels down and you see the active (non parked sites). The percentage is 52% vs 11%. The big drop in for MS in 2009 was probably a nail in the coffin...
Since I've unexpectedly RTFA, just a heads up, the headline is even more biased than usual. On the total number of active websites, there are still about 10x as many apache websites than IIS. Same picture for the top million busiest sites. There's almost no yearly change, and the server gaining the most marketshare is NGINX.
I'm starting to believe the hearsay: Slashdot has really been totally overrun by astroturfers (in this case paid by Microsoft). Maybe dice sells a number of "promotional posts" on a biased article to various companies, one of them being Microsoft?
This kind of thing happens on a regular basis and is usually due to Microsoft making backroom deals with operators of parked domains, probably not paying in cash but in Windows license discounts for servers or hosting. Borderline illegal and classic Microsoft - don't ever be fooled into thinking that Microsoft has gotten itself a corporate personality transplant. The active sites graph tells the real story: Microsoft continues to languish. It is beyond me why Microsoft is so fixated on manipulating Netcraft stats.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
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.
It also looks very different if you sort them by name:
Apache
Google
Microsoft
nginx
IIS appears to be hosting a lot of dead sites
Which is good news for the IIS performance metrics MS will be releasing... :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Natalie Portman's agent just woke up in a cold sweat in fear that she is no longer held dear by ./ers
But thankfully this post was made, so Natalie Portman's agent can roll over and go back to sleep.
Just not with Natalie Portman.
Because I'm doing that right now.
Giggety.
The "active" sites shows no such growth trend, in fact it shows IIS declining. NginX is the only web server showing growth, and even this is misleading. Most of our use for NginX is does not make Apache go away. We use NginX as a front end reverse proxy that talks to Apache back ends. NginX is good at a few things, but nowhere near as robust as Apache.
This is just another case of pulling only the statistics you want to color a lie.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
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.
I think the most interesting graph is the last: 1 million busiest sites. The downtick of Apache looks a lot like the opposite of the uptick for nginx. For busy sites, it seems nginx is separating from Google and IIS, but at the expense of Apache.
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.
mmm, the "active sites" graph looks far more stable, apache is showing a slight downward trend recently but the market share it's losing doesn't seem to be going to MS
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Much more different if you sort the words by letter.
aacehp
eggloo
cfimoorst
inngx
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
"I don't know if Microsoft paid them, but GoDaddy did move all of their parked sites to IIS by default instead of Apache, which caused a major percentage change for Microsoft."
And why not, especially if Microsoft is paying them to do it? Those parked sites only represent a miniscule fraction of bandwidth, but as you say, make a big percentage difference in perceived market share.
Smooth move, Microsoft. You bring "lying with statistics" to a whole new level.