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Apache Software

Apache Now Runs On Over 5 Million Sites 101

Posted by jimjag from the developed-in-a-secret-underground-layer dept.
According to the December Netcraft survey, Apache can now be found running on over 5 million sites. Overall, Apache's "market share" dropped about a third of a percent, with the biggest change being a 0.77% increase by Zeus mostly due to its use by UUNet.
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Apache Runs On Over 5 million Sites More

Apache Runs On Over 5 million Sites

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  • +1 Apache, -1 IIS (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Oh well... I've just 'converted' an IIS server to Apache 2 days ago, at client's place.

    They were tired of rebooting the bloody server once per week, and wanted to give a try to Linux/Apache combination.

    What SURPRISED me is the fact that Apache served more (static) pages than IIS used to; I used ab to make tests (around 800Mb of HTML data on their server), so it might be 'biased' test, huh? ;)

    It seems that SGI patch to Apache 1.3.9 *really* kicks ass :)
  • (The second paragraph makes it look like a troll, but I'm not so sure about the rest of the article)

    While your healhty dose of realism is certainly appreciated others have already shown that Apache is not just used on "I love my dog"-sites, but also on high-traffic e-commerce (fah!) sites like Amazon. [netcraft.com] And while your attempt at associating Apache with the porn-industry [netcraft.com] as something bad is funny, you should not forget that those sites probably get more traffic than your average small or medium business IIS user.

    • The real-world, usable, easy to set up, high transaction internet infrastructure of tommorrow is being built by Microsoft

    Please! I am not an experienced NT user, but that's no problem since that is exactly what my point is about: Coming from a Unix background I found the IIS interface extremely confusing (compared to a straightforward and well commented Apache config file) and the management console less than stable. I glad I convinced one of my clients to switch to a more sensible solution for a site I have to maintain remotely.

    Ah! Netcraft [netcraft.com] finally knows what this [whitehouse.gov] site is running. Very cool. (Yes, I'm a lisp [psg.com] bigot.)

  • Like I tried to say but did not as I see now, sorry I wasn't clear enough, that was the point I tried to make: Ease of use is in my opinion just a matter of what you're used to and what you have grown up with. Just blatantly saying "IIS is easier to configure than Apache" is just marketing speak and thus not very useful.

    It's not that I spent hours clicking through the menus (though remotely administering an NT box through pcAnywhere got on my nerves rather quickly) but once you've done both I can't really say that IIS' GUI approach is a lot easier than skimming through Apache's config file.

    The GUI approach might be easier for beginners and people coming from a Windows background. Text-file editing is probably quicker (and certainly quicker over a so-so internet connection) and is easier to modify using scripts.

  • Netcraft has been sending these numbers to both the PHP and mod_perl teams every month.

    The mod_perl numbers are here: http://perl.apache.org/netcraft/

    The PHP numbers are here: http://www.php.net/usage.php3

    There is also an interesting survey done by e-soft here: http://www.e-softinc.com/survey/data/199911/news.h tml#modules

    They have a much smaller sample size than Netcraft, but it does give you a general impression of how big a percentage of Apache servers use the various server modules.
  • oops, should have titled that "what e-commerce sites are really running".

    heheh.

    Anyways, plenty of startups are running Apache; it's really only the stuffed-shirt suits that persist in trying to deploy on IIS. (ick, poo)

  • Amazon.com:
    Server: Stronghold/2.4.2 Apache/1.3.6 C2NetEU/2412 (Unix)

    CDNOW.com:
    Server: Apache/1.3b5

    Xoom.com:
    Server: Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) secured_by_Raven/1.4.0

    MP3.com:
    Server: Apache/1.3.3 (Unix) mod_oas/4.61

    www.jcrew.com:
    Server: Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP2

    www.etoys.com:
    Etoys web server 1.2 (hacked version of apache)

    www.ibm.com:
    Websphere (hacked version of apache)



    Who's next?
  • Ask him if you should then back Opera over MSIE and Netscape Navigator, since it is the most sold (rather than downloaded for free) browser, and thus by his logic the "market leader".
  • Is Zeus based on Apache? I know that CnG and Stronghold are Apache-derivatives but what else?
  • I've seen this one a few times. They are not lying (well, not necessarily ;)
    I had the same initial reaction you did, though. Here's how they twist the numbers so they can say that... (these are not listed in any particular order)

    Web servers:
    Apache
    IIS
    Netscape

    Platforms:
    WindowsNT
    Sun Solaris
    Sun SunOS
    Digital UNIX
    Debian Linux
    Redhat Linux
    FreeBSD
    NetBSD

    etc. Now, if you go by web server usage, obviously they are not tops. Beware the people saying MS is top for SSL sites, too. The only SSL report I saw from Netcraft (reported on the main survey page a couple of months ago) put Netscape top, followed by Apache+derivatives, followed by IIS. (Most SSL IIS sites were at MS or MS owned companies, which nullifies them as a useful statistic, IMO.) And if you go by platform type such as Windows vs. UNIX, they don't look very good, either. I think those are far more usable numbers, too, since most *nix' are so alike it becomes a matter of taste, not tech.

  • Ecommerce REALLY IS irrelevant - honest! (Score:4)

    by mikemcc ( 4795 ) on Sunday December 26, 1999 @09:10PM (#1443937)
    While the success of Open Source software in the commercial arena is a valid benchmark of the strength of the Open Source software movement, please don't make the mistake of thinking that success in the ecommerce arena is the ONLY valid area of competition.

    I do NOT use the web only to buy things. In fact, about 99% of my use of the web is NOT for acquisitory purposes, but for informational ones. I don't care if Microsoft owns (now or in the future) all the ecommerce mindshare, because selling things is NOT what the internet is about! My DSL connection gives me a static IP address, and a consistently accessible platform from which I can publicize my thoughts. The Linux OS gives me an environment that I can take for granted, so that I can concentrate on the message, not the medium. The Apache web server gives me the means to say whatever I want to say, in exactly the way that I want.

    The success or failure of Open Source software has NOTHING to do with the success or failure of commercial companies. It has everything to do with your ability to use that software in the way you want, to say what you want. Even if every ecommerce site on the web were running Microsoft's latest version of IIS, the Apache web server would still be a resounding success, because it would still permit me, Joe Average American, to publish my opinion, to use the Internet to communicate to anyone who will listen.

    those "piss-ant" sites, those "Here is a Picture of My Cat" web sites, are much more important than you might think. Boring or unimaginative though they may be (I'm a firm believer in the theory that 90% of everything is crap), those piss-ant sites are the mundane embodiment of the real potential of the internet - the ability of the average person to express an opinion, in a non-instrusive way. If MS's products let you buy things, but Apache lets you say what's on your mind, then Apache is a winner. If the Apache web server, in conjunction with the Linux OS, lets you say whatever you want, no matter who owns what percentage of the market... well, there's simply nothing to complain about.

    It doesn't matter what you own,
    it matters what you do with what you own

    - Mike McCafferty
  • but www.amazon.com does use apache. I guess that proves apache is up to the job after all.
  • also winfiles.com uses apache
  • It's hard not to agree that Apache probably runs on sites of - on average! - lesser significance and traffic than the sites which run commercial web servers, simply because it's free (as in beer) and as such it's the default choice for budget-limited people. Therefore the Netcraft survey doesn't show the whole picture.

    Would it be feasible perhaps to get a hack on a few routers running some gateway or backbone, and count the number of actually sent HTTP headers from each server? This statistics would be much more accurate; it would actually show how much data is moved around the net and how many total user requests are served by each of the servers.

    Is anybody doing this? I remember there was an inflammatory article a few months ago when one of the network monitoring companies counted browser id strings in this manner and found out that Linux browsers were only used in 0.25% of all requests passed through the routers it monitored.

    I suspect the picture might not be so rosy as Netcraft paints it. But hey, it's better not to underestimate the opponent.
  • The graph is an impresive sight, it'd be interesting to see some of the major landmarks plotted against it. Events such as the release of the major distributions from the big players and recently the 2.2x kernel release and more recent still the findings of fact in the DOJ vs MS trial.

  • Add many grains of salt to Netcraft numbers (Score:5)

    by Fudge.Org ( 7036 ) on Sunday December 26, 1999 @04:15PM (#1443942) Homepage Journal
    I make my living running many different kinds of web servers. They all have their cool and sucky sides respectively. However, at 3am after a bad day I don't usually get called about Apache issues... ;)

    So, if you took the time to notice the small blurb below the fancy graphic:

    "Reports are provided showing server usage for the Internet as a whole, and for selected domains, with links to all the sites responding to the survey. A facility for you to check what server a particular site is running now is also available. The same form can be used to ensure that a particular site is included in future surveys. A directory of sites running in developer domains is also provided, while the sites discovered by the survey can be explored."

    So to be included you merely have to test a site you are curious about at some point.

    What this says to me is that I can put in any number of IP addresses that are bound to a hosting server. If they are doing checks on this alone they would get different points on the graph. However, the problem with that is that a massive virtual hosting operation could really skew the number.

    Netcraft even realizes [netcraft.com] this and states it clearly on the Mechanics page [netcraft.com].

    Now, the same is true of IIS4 which just makes me think that the number isn't completely representative and that the sample has potential for being flawed.

    There are several caveats when looking at compiled data like this in a simplified graphic.

    So, before you shoot off at the mouth to your MIS director make sure you can qualify the data you present. Make no mistake that MS has some idea of how many NT4 installs took place with IIS4 counting as running as a service whether or not the people running it know about it. There are many many places with the MS equivilent of the Apache successful install home page. *grin*

    Just remember that joe business owners internal intranet IIS4 box with some canned application isn't going to show up on this kind of study. And internal MIS projects that go bump in the night won't either. How many users would really notice if you mapped let .asp be a known extension for perl cgi's? *grin*
    http://www.mp3.com/fudge/ [mp3.com]

  • Would love to see an accurate tools survey (Score:4)

    by hatless ( 8275 ) on Sunday December 26, 1999 @02:40PM (#1443943)
    We've all seen the stats on the number of hosts running PHP on top of Apache, since it's often mentioned in the server header on Apache.

    What I'm more interested in is a thorough breakdown of how many sites are running ASP, PHP, Cold Fusion, CGI, FastCGI, JSP/servlet engines and Java app servers.

    This can be hairy-to-impossible to measure; all you can really go on are substrings in URIs, and there's no way to tell if something called "foo.pl" is a Perl CGI or a mod_perl module.

    What makes this a point of interest is that what HTTP server you're running is an ever smaller piece of the story these days. After all, you can run PHP on IIS. You can run ASPs on Apache under Unix--even VBScript ones, if you buy Chilisoft's module. Servlets, JSPs and high-end application servers are cross-platform: you can most servlets, or something like StoryServer, WebLogic or Dynamo on IIS, Apache or a Netscape server on any of several operating systems without changing a line of your code.

    Heck, all those ".cfm" URLs are pretty ambiguous these days. ColdFusion, though closely associated with NT environments, has run on Solaris for ages, the core engine is also now available as a platform-independent servlet, and starting with a beta of 4.5, the flagship product is now also on Linux.

    The important NT "wins" are the sites running ASP on IIS, with the logic tier built as COM objects hosted on MTS. And that's how many larger IIS sites are built these days. And unless, like Barnes and Noble, you are getting direct development assistance from Microsoft, this combination should strike a sensible technologist as an alarming degree of lock-in to a single vendor.

    Compare this to the freedom that using open technologies, whether PHP and mod_perl, or servlets and JSP, or even large-scale Java app servers gives you. Now that the major app server vendors have coalesced around the J2EE spec, you can switch from one big, scary app server to another, change operating systems and development tools, change databases, and change HTTP servers and still keep the bulk of your code intact. And most of what you're running will also run on a free, dinky little servlet engine or one of the forthccoming open-source EJB app servers chugging down the pike.

    Doing things with ASP and don't like the latest direction MS Visual Studio is taking? Don't like the wholesale changes to the VB object model every 3 years? Want to try a different OS because you just can't get decent uptime and clustering working well enough under NT or Win2000? Too bad.
  • Where IIS is execeling is servers that are actually used by many (read: generate a substancial profit) choose IIS.

    I'm not sure that's entirely true. Apache is used by sites such as Amazon, Etoys, and the like, and it would be hard to argue that these sites are marginal, or don't generate substantial profits.

  • you mean developed-in-a-secret-underground-lair department, or is this a reference to the rumored 8-th layer of the ISO/OSI whatever 7 layer model?
  • Name specific sites or cease and desist.

    sears.com, victoriassectret.com - right off the top of my head.. lessee.. metlife.com, uhmb..

    i worked mostly for vickie's.. anyways, there's three quick ones.. email me and i'll try and find a better list, if you REALLY don't believe me.

    --
    blue
  • Netscape!

    At least, when I worked for the IBM e-business division, all of the major sites the used a unix web server pretty much used either Netscape or Domino. Very few used apache. Netscape is threaded, ie designed to work well on large, multi-processor boxes.

    I would say only about 15% of the major IBM customers used NT on the front end, and MAN, what a mistake it was for them, across the board. ;)

    This is not, btw, an endorsement of any particular server - just the facts as I remember em.

    The web server in an e-commerce site, for those of you who haven't implemented one, is almost an afterthought. Much more important are things like the database, switching/routing, load balancing, and the boxes on which the w/s runs.

    Most of the really large sites have 3 or 4 web servers with either a cisco local director or IBM's e-net dispatcher in front of em.

    --
    Blue, formerly root@justabouteverybigecommercesiteinamerica.com :)

  • This is because it shows, when a company's profitability is on the line (and make no mistake, the main purpose of businesses is to make money), who they trust most to make them money (which includes doing it in a safe and reliable way). It's the difference between me saying "My Cubbies can kick the Yankees' asses," and you saying "Wanna bet?" You better believe that I like the Cubs, but there's no way in Hell that I'm going to risk my finances on them against the Yankees.

    Same goes for sites that use Stronghold or IIS/Commerce Server versus "JoeBob's Pet Cat Page." If JoeBob's website is unreliable, it's a pain in the arse, but that's about it. If Dell or Amazon.com's site goes down for even a couple of hours, that's millions of dollars lost. You can look at it as a case of "Who do I think is neat?" versus "When my financial well-being is on the line, who do I actually trust?"

    Or, to phrase it in the spirit of the original example: It's all about talking the big talk versus putting your money where your mouth is.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • I'm looking at the Dec. 6, 1999 issue of PCWeek, page 58. Big ad from Microsoft, which says:

    "Surprisingly (to some), Microsoft has not gone the way of the brontosaurus. The proof? Microsoft(R) Windows(R) DNA, our comprehensive platform for easily building distributed Web apps today. More proof? There are more Web sites (including Ask Jeeves, drugstore.com, Dell.com, and Nasdaq(R)) running on our platform than any other, including Sun Solaris *.
    *Netcraft Survey (September 1999).

    What the hell are they talking about? Anyone can see Apache ran on twice the number of host names as Microsoft in September (and today). Maybe Microsoft likes to think of "platform" as being an operating system plus web server etc. Well, not only is the operating system not provided by Netcraft, but on the page where Netcraft summarizes "platform groupings [netcraft.com]", the groupings are NT, Apache, Roxen, and Macintosh. So Netcraft certainly considers Apache a platform.

    I cannot think of any reasonable explanation for Microsoft's claim. IANAL, but I think the ad is highly misleading. And at the very least, they should be made to remove the footnote to Netcraft. Thoughts?
  • The layer known as the Earth's crust.

    Yeah, I know it's a groaner. But hey, it's the holidays and I've had too much Krispy Kreme.
  • Maybe Microsoft likes to think of "platform" as being an operating system plus web server etc

    Bingo.

    I cannot think of any reasonable explanation for Microsoft's claim.

    To make money?

    And at the very least, they should be made to remove the footnote to Netcraft.

    I can't find the September report anymore, but I think it was broken down by OS/webserver such that, although Unix/Apache beat NT/IIS, no single Unix/webserver combination beat NT/IIS. In other words, strictly speaking they're not lying. Of course, the fact that they lump all Unix platforms together, along with Linux whenever they talk about e.g. TCO, doesn't seem to bother them too much either ;-)

    Chris
  • Netcraft also surveys SSL servers on the Internet, and there the numbers are very different: Microsoft's 37 percent is almost twice that of Netscape's or Stronghold's share, and Sun Web Server doesn't even make the list.

    Stronghold? Uhhh... I have Apache. I have SSL on my Apache. I do not have Stronghold. Just because Stronghold is a hardened Apache, doesn't mean it's the only hardened Apache.

    I only have this sample [netcraft.com] to go by, but right off the bat you can see a how different the plot can be if you don't cut part of the story:


    Server..........Sites...Percentage
    Microsoft-IIS. .6272. . 30.66

    Stronghold. . . 3277. . 16.02
    Apache. . . . . 3062. . 14.97
    Apache-SSL-US. .110. . .0.54
    Apache-us-ssl. .16. . . 0.08
    Apache-SSL. . . 12. . . 0.06
    (Aaaarrrgh! Why can't we use tables or 'pre' tags?)

    Let's see... (whips out calculator) that makes:

    31.67% using an Apache with SSL (6477 sites) against Microsoft's 30.66% (6272 sites). And that's only the servers which are recognizably Apache derivates (I'm sure some people here could add a few to the list)

    Sure Apache only has a small lead, but that's a lot different than only half as many! Look a little more deeply next time.

    Chris
  • In the last issue of MCP magazine (January 2000), Microsoft openly admits to having the #2 web server, with 22% of the market. This makes them far and away behind Apache. (Which I would guess has better than double that).
    If you want, you can check out the article here:
    http://www.mcpmag.com/members/00jan/fea1main.asp

    Though you may not be able to get in if you're not an MCP.

    Here's the exact snippet, though:
    "IIS 4.0 and the Option Pack, which were also released for use with NT 4.0, has allowed NT to become the second most popular Web server platform on the Internet today. According to the Netcraft Web Server Survey (www.netcraft.com/survey), IIS follows Apache, with about 22 percent of the market."

    Personally, I figure that since both Apache and IIS are basically free products that the survey is probably going to be skewed somehow. *sigh* the trouble with sampling is just that -- it's only a sample. I'm willing to bet that way over half of all hosts didn't bother to answer. I'm also pretty sure that Novell and Apple hosts are probably grossly under-represented.

    Personally, I prefer IIS for setting up smaller sites with low requirements, as pretty much anybody can administer it after I'm gone. Usually it depends if they want NT or Red Hat, really...

    (Note to lovers of other distributions: I just happen to like RH, and haven't really had the opportunity to delve into all the nooks and crannies of Debian, Suse, et al. There's only so many hours in a day. :-)
  • Go to http://www.netcraft.com/whats/ [netcraft.com] and enter your hostname:port. (The port, of course, defaults to 80.) You'll be revisited by their bot monthly.
  • You're right: Netcraft confirms that IIS is growing in number of pages. Just not as fast as Apache. :)

    Number of pages is a meaningless statistic: most large sites have a fair amount of dynamic content nowadays. Of course, one can argue that the number of hostnames is also a meaningless statistic, but I challenge you to find a better one.

  • Re:beowulf cluster (Score:3)

    by Imperator ( 17614 ) <slashdot2@NOSPAm.omershenker.net> on Sunday December 26, 1999 @02:01PM (#1443956)
    Yeah, I took the data from a bunch of Netcraft surveys and put it in a cluster. I call it a "chart". :)
  • Name specific sites or cease and desist. As an employee of another "big" site, I can tell you we tossed the free server license NS gave us in the garbage, along with their crappy server.
    So why don't you:
    A) Name specific sites
    B) Name the software you do use
    or simply take your own advice and keep quiet.
  • 50% is 50% more than 25%.
  • Duh! I feel like an asshole. You're right.
  • There seems to be a trend here that says ecommerce is the only criterion for a "real site with actual users;" anything else is presumed to be a minor site.


    Consider the following: ZDNet, cNet, travel.com, thetrip.com (Apache); The Weather Channel, CNN, Smithsonian Institution, New York Times, General Electric, Nokia, Merrill Lynch (Netscape). I wouldn't regard any of these as a "little piss-ant website;" I'd reckon they all get fairly heavy usage by real people, and not one is running IIS.

  • Hmm... While Apaches rise is rapid, MS is catching up according to the graphs, though it is interesting to note that Apache is increasing at a rate more than double Microsofts. I wonder (and hope) that the report has a negitive effect on Microsoft's stock and BGates.

    On another note,
    Has anyone seen Doonesbury in the newspapers for the last week (the website is a week behind). The comic ran a feature on MS and Web-related businesses...

  • Having inherited a new PHB, I was dismayed to find yet another manager who sits under the equivalent 'Home Sweet Home' sign of 'Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft'.

    He likes to back the winners, and considers Micro$oft the best way of backing the 'market leader'. But this led to an arguement in the office over the best web server.

    I mentioned the latest NetCraft results, and how Apache was clearly the market leader with around 55% compared to Microsoft and Netscape's offerings. However, the arguement raised was that Apache cannot be the 'market leader', because it isn't market-ed. It isn't sold as such, so isn't part of the web server 'market'. Obviously I fought my corner well, but I do have a little difficultly arguing this technicality as I work in a business school. Comments please.
  • Devastating logic, thanks.

    You're right, that would make Opera the 'market leader', although I don't know if anyone else in the office has heard of Opera ;-)

    I still think, whether it's sold or dnloaded for free, 55% of webserver 'market' is still pretty impressive. Apache is miles off the competition.

    If the only reason it was popular was because it was free, then Linux would out-'sell' Windoze 2 - 1.
  • Would it be feasible perhaps to get a hack on a few routers running some gateway or backbone, and count the number of actually sent HTTP headers from each server? This statistics would be much more accurate; it would actually show how much data is moved around the net and how many total user requests are served by each of the servers.

    If done on a large enough scale, you'd get much more accurate figures. But I'd bet good money that it won't happen.

    Firstly: You'd have to monitor a lot of the edge routers (i.e., those closest to the customer) at a lot of ISPs. Many routers (most notably Cisco, who has a product called NetFlow) can be configured to monitor and report on traffic, but AFAIK can't pick off seleced packages and deliver the contents somewhere else. Even doing the basic traffic information puts a heavy load on the CPU, and ISPs aren't going to burn cycles on an ongoing web survey when those cycles can be used to produce revenue.

    Secondly: Most corporate customers of most ISPs would probably consider the number of queries being made to their servers proprietary information and wouldn't want it released in discrete or aggregate form. I'm sure B&N would love to know how many hits www.amazon.com takes in the average day.

    Thirdly: If something like that were to happen, half the population of Slashdot would be screaming "Echelon" at the top of their lungs. :-)

  • Netcraft requires that one purchase the SSL report, to the tune of about US$2000 a year.

    Having seen said report, IIS commands a lead of about twice the nearest competitor. There is a sample report at Netcraft.

    Dave
  • Could you point us to these reports?
  • Number of sites is a meaningless statistic. All other reports continue to show IIS growing in pages actually served over the internet.

  • those "piss-ant" sites, those "Here is a Picture of My Cat" web sites, are much more important than you might think. Boring or unimaginative though they may be (I'm a firm believer in the theory that 90% of everything is crap), those piss-ant sites are the mundane embodiment of the real potential of the internet - the ability of the average person to express an opinion, in a non-instrusive way.

    Well put! Nowadays too many people get caught up in the "revolutionizing the way the world shops" buzz, and forget the "low-barrier to entry publishing almost anyone can take advantage of" side of things.

    Oh, and say hi to my cat [kevino.com]!

    ======
    "Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16

  • Since when are quotes original? Am I expected to quote myself, then? What would be the point of that?

    A quote is, by definition, to repeat in speech or writing from another.
  • Like a loosing politician hearing a poll, you doubt the data before you, and yet Apache continues to be the leader.

    I quote this data from an article previously /.'d:

    "Though Apache is obviously in wide use, this statistic overstates its popularity. Why? Because it measures Apache's market share based on the number of unique domain names, as opposed to the number of unique servers. Apache, popular among ISPs because of its price (free) and unlimited configurability, can host hundreds or thousands of domains on a single server.

    Netcraft also surveys SSL servers on the Internet, and there the numbers are very different: Microsoft's 37 percent is almost twice that of Netscape's or Stronghold's share, and Sun Web Server doesn't even make the list. Because SSL servers are more likely to be real business servers (as opposed to those hosting "Great Doghouses of the South" or other home-page marginalia), Netcraft's survey is a telling indicator of Microsoft's presence in the market."

    Given MSs very small share, it's no wonder those numbers have gone up, 'double not-much' is still not much.

    Regardless of how you cook (or ignore) the data, MS's share cannot be described as "small," unless you are involved in some serious wishful-thinking.

  • As I understand it (read: w/o hard proof of any kind) Apache has a greater number because any one can download it and have a powerful server to do simple things affecting very few. Where IIS is execeling is servers that are actually used by many (read: generate a substancial profit) choose IIS. Thus what I'm alleging is that IIS is used for more important thing than apache and the statistic should be modified to perhaps groups the indentified sites by hit or some other type. It would be nice to know what webservers most companies/individuals/elves/onions choose.

  • The source of the second issue you brought up is mentioned in the article [slashdot.org] referenced just a little while ago here on Slashdot. The Netcraft survey is counting unique domain names, not number of servers according to the article.
  • This can be hairy-to-impossible to measure; all you can really go on are substrings in URIs, and there's no way to tell if something called "foo.pl" is a Perl CGI or a mod_perl module.

    Not exactly.

    slashdot.org is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) mod_perl/1.21 on Linux

    mod_perl identifies itself quite well in the reponse string. I think that the main reason that mod_php stats are available is that Ramus or someone on the php team contacted netcraft.com and asked for them.

    jay
  • Minor nitpick, and offtopic at that.

    Amazon.com is far from profitable, though they move millions of dollars in book and other sales. No "profit" (as defined by paying back all their investments into infrastructure and making money past any running costs) in the foreseeable future.
  • notwithstanding the official IBM lets suppourt apache (instead of domino?) there is a huge developmental resource that lives at IBM.

    AFAIK, Rasmus Ledorf and some of the other PHP hackers work at IBM, and a fairly large cross section of the Apache core either work their or are supported...
  • just make it realtime and i'll have your babies :)
  • Microsoft controls the ecommerce site market

    I would respond with:
    Microsoft controls the ecomerce advertising.
    As is often the case with a second tier suplier, they've waisted millions of monopoly dollars alligning there name with 'e-comerce' in order to catch up with the leader. Apache.

    I would also respond that each one of those 5 million sites are all doing e-comerce of one form or another.

    just 2 quick points.
    _________________________

  • Like a loosing politician hearing a poll, you doubt the data before you, and yet Apache continues to be the leader.

    Given MSs very small share, it's no wonder those numbers have gone up, 'double not-much' is still not much.

    5 Million domains people use it (and millions recieve pages served by it) beacuse Apache just works well.
    _________________________

  • FYI, netcraft.com is running Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) mod_perl/1.20 on FreeBSD [netcraft.com]. One of 5 million =).
  • Well looking as NT managed to come in the top sport for server hacked for more then 3 months now i would say that this person needs to rethink his own comments.
  • Zeus is a rather nice server. It has a very easy web-based administration interface, that remains pretty powerful (I like it better than Roxen's admin interface. I seem to have to click continuosly in Roxen to set a simple option). Zeus isn't cheap though.

    --
    WorldServe Consulting [worldserve.net]

  • There was once a server "Apache",

    Who's quality was all too catchy.

    Our good old friend Bull

    His milk did he spill

    When he heard of this market share banshee.

    Well, at least I tried. :)

  • Okay, the science isn't too good, but here goes. Below are the "Top 10" most-trafficked sites for November, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, along with what Netcraft says they use:

    1. AOL- AOLServer/Solaris
    2. Yahoo!- ? on FreeBSD
    3. MSN- IIS4 on NT3(!?)
    4. Lycos- Netscape-Enterprise on Digital Unix
    5. Go- ? on Solaris
    6. Microsoft- IIS5 on NT5 Beta
    7. Excite@Home- Apache on Debian GNU/Linux
    8. Amazon- Stronghold/Apache on Digital Unix
    9. Blue Mtn. Arts- Apache on FreeBSD
    10. Time-Warner- Netscape-Enterprise on Solaris

    Obviously this ignores a lot, but I find it interesting that the only sites running Microsoft are in Redmond. At least they eat their own cooking.

    I've always had a problem with these raw server counts becuase they ignore the "mindshare" factor. Perhaps a methodology more like the one I used above could make some accounting for this.

    -cwk.

  • Nope. Even the webmasters of a site have a hard time getting truly reliable stats. What happens if someone decides that they want to up the hit counter on a site?

    Now just imagine trying to figure out if a webmaster is lieing. You can't.

    The only way to get reliable stats on a web site is to actually go and monitor users. Say by monitoring their http requests at major routers. But not only are their privacy issues here but how are you going to do that? You would need the co-operation of the ISPs. And even then you might not be right due to HTTP requests going through other routes.

    Even the netcraft HTTP requests can be faked. But I don't think many people would bother...

    And with those netcraft studies people are still complaining that "the big sites" don't use Apache and instead use Microsoft. And many of the sites running on Apache are actually just small-time sites getting very few users.

    You can't win...

  • I keep hearing this argument that even though apache has more sites, Microsoft controls the ecommerce site market. Is this true? Also, I've heard that the 5 million site count is biased because most ISPs use apache and therefore every little piss-ant website counts as a apache. Please fill me in on the straight story so I know how to respond to the FUD. Thanks all!

  • It would be nice to know what webservers most companies/individuals/elves/onions choose.
    Well, I don't know about the elves, and don't have time to take a statistically significant sample of companies or individuals, but I can tell you about onions:

    earth:~# telnet www.theonion.com 80
    Trying 209.83.2.145...
    Connected to www.theonion.com.
    Escape character is '^]'.
    HEAD / HTTP/1.0

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 10:12:32 GMT
    Server: Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) mod_perl/1.21
    Connection: close
    Content-Type: text/html

    Connection closed by foreign host.

    And that's the only onion on the web that I know of, at least.

    Good... bad... I'm the one with the gun.
  • Just out of curiosity, how do they pick the sites to check? For example, my hostname is jrstudent.student.university.edu. I am hosting three pages, with zero content. What are the odds that I am counted as one of the Apache users?

    --Jack
  • [frisco@hormiga frisco]$ telnet www.uu.net 80
    Trying 208.243.117.123...
    Connected to www.uu.net.
    Escape character is '^]'.
    HEAD / HTTP/1.0

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 01:00:28 GMT
    Server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix)
    Connection: close
    Content-Type: text/html

    Connection closed by foreign host.
    [frisco@hormiga frisco]$

    point being, www.uu.net is running apache.
  • Is there any reliable (i.e. not pres-release stuffing) way to determine how many users access a site?
  • *what* other reports? I have an urgent need to get _hard_ data because my company is seriously considering switching to IIS =8O
  • www.hotmail.com (a Micro$oft, Inc. owned company)
    Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.8 SSLeay/0.9.0b on FreeBSD

    www.cdrom.com (current record holder in data transfer: 1400 Gigabytes/day)
    Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) ePerl/2.2.14 Perl/5.005_02 on FreeBSD

    www.slashdot.org (not e-commerce, but very significant)
    Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) mod_perl/1.21 on Linux
  • I'm finding it very hard to get a meaningful answer. How do you qualify those sites?
    I have seen the following chain of arguments:
    1) Apache has more sites than all the others together
    2) But commercial sites use IIS
    3) However, companies that use IIS are those that do not depend entirely on the web, Hertz Rent-a-Car, for instance. Web based companies, like Yahoo, or Amazon, all use Apache
    Where is the "real" truth?
  • How's their support of Lotus *, i.e. Domino, Notes, etc? By support I mean, how those softwares perform in a network compared to the same softwares in a micros~1 machine?
  • Do they mean sites where the user must submit a credit card number, which will be billed X dollars? In this case, neither Smithsonian nor Weather Channel would qualify.
  • is here [netcraft.com], where you can see that, even if the market share varies, they are all increasing in total use.
  • Doe those five million contain stronghold and other apache based products or just pure apache

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