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Netcraft: Microsoft Closing In On Apache Web Server Lead

angry tapir sends this IDG report: "After almost two decades of trailing the market leader, Microsoft's Web server software is coming close to rivaling the dominance of the Apache Web server, according to the latest Netcraft survey of Internet infrastructure. May saw an additional 9 million sites using Microsoft Web server software, increasing the company's share of the Web by 0.37 percent. In the same period, Apache's market share fell by 0.18 percent, despite gaining an additional 4.3 million sites. Microsoft is now just 4.1 percentage points behind Apache, which, as the most popular Web server software on the Internet, now powers about 37.6 percent of all sites."

14 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Apache is dying... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Funny

    Netcraft confirms it!

    1. Re:Apache is dying... by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ...but did they confirm that most of Apache's lead was eaten away by nginx?

      Also, there's this:

      "Nearly seven million of this month's new websites are using Microsoft IIS. Around 11 thousand of these new sites are hosted on the Microsoft Azure platform (including a few phishing sites)"

      Also, what are the odds that the majority of the new sites are on parked domains?

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    2. Re:Apache is dying... by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 5, Informative

      The other graphs on Netcraft pretty much answer this:

      Web server developers: Market share of active sites = looks like MS is on a slight downward trend.

      Web server developers: Market share of the top million busiest sites = looks like MS is on a slight downward trend.

      And in both of those graphs, Apache is far and away holding the biggest share, *and* Nginx is ahead of MS. But let's face it, we all knew that anyway.

  2. Netcraft Cofirms! by snarfies · · Score: 4, Funny

    It is now official. Netcraft has confirmed: Apache is dying

    One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Apache community when IDC confirmed that Apache market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Apache has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Apache is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

    You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict Apache's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Apache faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Apache because Apache is dying. Things are looking very bad for Apache. As many of us are already aware, Apache continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

  3. Nginx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Probably because a lot of us jumped ship from Apache to Nginx. I got tired of my server eating up all the CPU for what little my sites were doing. Moved to Nginx and freed up 75%, and I wasn't doing anything special server-side to account for that.

  4. Re:squatting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most. The chart after the one this paid for M$ cheering post points to is a measure of "active" websites. Funny, M$ is 11% of that, and Apache is 52%. Yup, Apache is going to die any day now... any day.

  5. Re:squatting by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Informative

    This happens so often. Some big web hosting firm (GoDaddy or whoever) switches from Linux to Microsoft, or vice versa. That causes millions of parked domains to switch OS. And, to be fair, Netcraft often points this out in the comments.

    With web sites that are actually active - as noted by a previous commenter - Apache's lead is huge. It always has been. And, in truth, the biggest "danger" to Apache is probably Nginx (another free, usually Linux-based web server) rather than IIS.

    --
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  6. Re:This article is a load of PR bullsh*t by miknix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Please mod parent up.

    What a load of PR bullshit this article is. If people actually care reading the netcraft results [1], you will see that in ACTIVE WEBSITES the Microsoft webserver is falling below 12% during the last two years, while Apache has been well over 50%, despite all other webservers gaining place (Nginx for example).

    [1] http://news.netcraft.com/archi...

  7. not for the reason you think. by nimbius · · Score: 5, Informative

    Microsoft has been growing steadily against apache for a few reasons that are important to keep into perspective:
    1. Park Webs: these are domain parking spaces that exist to sell targeted advertising in a users domain name until they change the DNS for the domain or add content in a shared/dedicated hosting environment. GoDaddy parkweb is exclusively Microsoft IIS for example as are many others as Parkwebs are static pages that dont need to be policed for vulnerability as, say, wordpress lamp stacks might. Its no skin off registrars and hosting providers backs to convert their parkwebs to IIS and usually microsoft will license it and do it for free or in GoDaddys case, pay them to switch to Microsoft IIS.
    2.competitors: Nginx for example approaches near 20% marketshare. Its faster in some cases than apache and for many admins, easier to maintain.

    the marketshare for active sites, not just all sites, is what is important (netcraft realized what microsoft was doing early on and should be commended for their countermeasure.) and when we consider that metric, Apache is still nearly 5 times more prevalent than IIS. Even Nginx beats out IIS in both the active and top busiest sites surveyed so when we take that into account, Microsoft is closing in on Apaches lead in much the same way a Windstar minivan closes in on a Ducati.

    --
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  8. Re:squatting by Alioth · · Score: 5, Informative

    Most of them. The headline is very misleading. The next sentence in TFA is:

    "Apache's position is much stronger when considering only Active Sites — it retains an absolute majority of 52.3%, and second place is held by nginx (14.4%), rather than Microsoft (11.3%). By excluding much of the automatically-generated content present on the internet, the Active Sites metric better reflects web server market share amongst human-maintained web sites."

    In other words, most of IIS's "catchup" is really just parked domains and the like. In reality, I bet Apache is nearer 60% because most of the "nginx sites" will be reverse proxies in front of an Apache server. We have four domains that are hosted by Apache for example, but Netcraft thinks they are nginx because of the reverse proxy.

  9. Re:OTOH by Alioth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Although a popular use of nginx is as a reverse proxy. We don't have any nginx hosted websites here, but Netcraft thinks they are all nginx because they only get to find out what the reverse proxy is running. In reality the actual webservers themselves are mostly Apache (with a couple of specialist things, like an embedded Jetty instance). But to anyone outside it looks like nginx.

  10. Re:squatting by LordThyGod · · Score: 4, Informative

    The biggest threat to Apache is Apache. HTTPD 2.4 removed support for a number of operating systems and is tuned only for Linux. They've gone to the dark side and it's going to hurt them.

    Combine that with nginx, varnish and lighttpd and there are several real choices in the *NIX world. There is no need to go Apache anymore. This will make them look bad for some time to come as people try out alternatives. I'm evaluating switching to nginx now. The configuration is much different, but in the end it should make things much better.

    What are the "number of OS's"? It clearly supports windows versions > windows 2000 (which my guess is better than the most recent release of IIS). I feel pretty sure the BSD guys would find a way to get supported. So what else, Solaris? Whoops, no, looks like people are doing that somewhere. BeOS? Android? If Apache looses ground, its primarily its reputation for memory and performance related issues.

  11. Re:squatting by javilon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In fact, the actual highlight should be:

    In October 2013 both Ngix and Google passed struggling Microsoft in active web server market share. Netcraft confirms.

    That tells a lot more. Seen from that point of view there are three types of web servers using IIS:
    Parked domains,
    Default Windows server installations,
    Azure

    Very damming for Microsoft, I think.

    --


    When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."