Apache server losing market share May 5, 2007
Posted by Matsu in Information Technology, Microsoft, Open Source, Software, Technology, Web, Windows/Microsoft.trackback
In a recent web server survey, conducted in May 2007, the Apache server’s percentage of market share has shrunk, slightly. And, in this blog post, the blogger and readers speculate on the reasons for the decline.
After looking at the charts and graphs on the survey results website, I don’t see what the fuss is all about. Apache server software is clearly well ahead of everyone else in terms of market share. Microsoft is a distant second in terms of market share.
I would sure like to know what DrBacchus thinks of this new survey and his analysis of what it might mean.
Matsu's World: The One Less Traveled 
2.3% of the change was calling the Google Front End (GFE) servers apache to calling them GFE servers. (see http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/05/01/may_2007_web_server_survey.html, 2nd and 3rd paragraph).
By market share, Apache has been slipping (% change) since its high in Nov., 2005. However, both Apache and IIS have been on fairly steep growth curves.
There are 2 charts there that seem misleading at first. They are called “Total Sites Across All Domains” and “Totals for Active Servers Across All Domains”
As multiple sites can be on a single server, the first chart shows a much higher Y value (120M vs. 32M).
It really depends what you are looking for as to which of those two graphs gives you the better information. Even with the 2.3Million or so sites that went to GFE the apache growth for “Total Sites Across All Domains” continues on a steeper curve than does Microsoft.
Microsoft has a steeper curve than Apache on the “Totals for Active Servers”.
Thus, more servers are coming on-board using Microsoft – or so it would seem. I hate percentages when it comes to finding out what is really going on. All these really tell us is that relative to what they were what they are now… it doesn’t really tell us what is going on.
However, if you look at the real numbers you see what is going on…
According to the same site… there are numbers there for April and May. Ignore the percentages and look at the true difference.
Active Sites April, 2007 May, 2007 Diff
Apache 30882069 31896813 1014744
Microsoft 18181813 18658806 476993
So, according to their numbers, Apache went up by just over a million, and microsoft went up by just under half a million. Just over 2 to 1 growth for Apache to Microsoft. At least for this month, Apache is growing.
Great analysis, Moose! Agree, agree, and agree!
Yeah, statistics are interesting things. Anyone can spin them to mean just about anything they choose for them to mean. What’s interesting about these particular statistics is that the folks within the ASF tend not to care, and are *certainly* not doing anything to improve market share. Our goal has always been to produce good software, and make it available without cost, for the public good. Market share is one measure of how good the software is, and we still have a compelling lead in that area. But it’s a fairly small measure. We still have the best product. At least, according to Information Week: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199203958