5 ms·

NGINX takes 2nd place in Web Servers from Microsoft IIS

160 points by Garbage 15y ago

mcav 15y ago
(in market share)
- mahmud 15y ago
  That's true. IIS still leads in Frobs per Clonq index. What other growth metric is there for a web-server besides market-share?
  - recoiledsnake 15y ago
    The metric that Apple afficionados like to tout, the profit derived metric. According to that, IIS is absolutely beating Apache and everyone else since they make billions every quarter off IIS.
    - diminish 15y ago
      Good point recoiledsnake; "IIS takes most of the profits" would sound their arguments.
  - mcav 15y ago
    The title was "takes 2nd place". Saying the same about anything else would also be ambiguous, though I admit web servers don't have many other legit ways to take 2nd place. My first impression was that they were going to talk about performance.
grannyg00se 15y ago
That title could mean anything. They are referring to total active sites across all domains. IIS is still 2nd place if you look at the top one million busiest sites.
btn 15y ago
The original Netcraft article has far less filler text and contains far more information (with graphs!): http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/01/03/january-2012-web-server-survey.html http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/01/03/january-2012-we...
- stanleydrew 15y ago
  I don't understand the references to Google in those graphs. There isn't a publicly available Google webserver is there? Or is it included simply because a lot of the most visited properties on the web are Google's?
  - justincormack 15y ago
    No it is not public, but it still serves a lot of sites, which is what this measures.
- mike-cardwell 15y ago
  I submitted the Netcraft article four days ago, and it got a measly 2 upvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3421864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3421864 EDIT: My title was also better.
  - akadien 15y ago
    I upvoted your comment. I hope it makes you feel better.
    - mike-cardwell 15y ago
      I upvoted your comment to thank you for your valuable contribution.
- sp332 15y ago
  In the third graph, what caused the huge spike in almost every kind of server just after April last year?
czervik 15y ago
Isn't nginx more often than not used as a front controller for apache/tomcat/etc?
- iSloth 15y ago
  It can be used like that, however I am not sure if that's the most implemented method. Personally I use Nginx > PHP-FPM, so there is no other web server on the box.
- asto 15y ago
  Earlier, nginx was used to handle just static content and passed the php stuff to apache httpd. These days people just use php-fpm instead so nginx can handle everything in a php based stack without needing apache.
  - lhnz 15y ago
    Is this faster or the same speed? There is so much FUD around this topic that I've not been able to get through.
    - asto 15y ago
      Nginx + php-fpm is MUCH faster than a vanilla apache httpd + php stack. The magic though, is not just speed. It's also the feature-set. I'm working on a pyramid(pylons) project right now and will be using nginx to load-balance the wsgi server instances and to serve static content. I don't think I could use apache for that. The configuration for nginx looks neater as well (my personal opinion)
      - gog 15y ago
        Are you sure about that? Benchmarks on my projects show that the difference is insignificant. Since I currently do not have memory constraints I am still using nginx + apache with mod_php.
        15y ago
jemeshsu 15y ago
Nginx is probably eating into Apache's share rather than IIS. It is safe to say that IIS has monopoly for those using .NET stacks. For the rest, it is Apache vs Nginx.
- throwaway64 15y ago
  The data[1] seems to suggest that Apache's market share is growing, not declining, and that IIS is infact, in decline. May have something to do with reverse http proxying, or perhaps people are just moving away from the .NET stack in general. [1]http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/01/03/january-2012-web-server-survey.html http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/01/03/january-2012-we...
tectonic 15y ago
According to my data, nginx and IIS have been neck and neck for months: http://underthesite.com/compare/nginx_and_microsoft-iis_and_apache-http-server http://underthesite.com/compare/nginx_and_microsoft-iis_and_... Apache still blows them out of the water though. (Ignore the pre-August data, it's before we had a real sample size.)
- rbanffy 15y ago
  IIS and nginx are too close in this graph. It looks suspicious.
mmaunder 15y ago
In terms of traffic served Nginx has probably already passed Apache since it's not feasible to use Apache as a front end server.
- mike-cardwell 15y ago
  Rubbish. Not only is it completely feasible, (and easy) to use Apache as a front end server, not only is it incredibly common, but we have absolutely zero evidence that Nginx has passed Apache, and considerable evidence to the contrary. You're suffering the Hacker News bubble effect. EDIT: BTW, I'm not an Apache fanboy. I recently moved my personal site https://grepular.com/ https://grepular.com/ from Apache to Nginx. I just like using the right tools for the right job. And Apache is a great server and can be configured to perform extremely well. I've personally configured and run large server farms of Apache boxes in shared hosting environments.
dhx 15y ago
It's more useful to look at the plot for the million busiest domains. nginx places 3rd and if trends continue, may take 2nd place from IIS some time in 2013/14.
mark_l_watson 15y ago
I stopped using Apache and IIS years ago. Nginx is easy to setup and uses few resources on small servers. I don't do many sysadmin tasks, but this week I needed to modify my nginx setup on one of my own servers and even though I have not had to touch an nginx configuration in a long time I could do everything quickly and from memory. With Apache I would always start with the docs and/or web search.
rlf 15y ago
What we need now is the people over at O'Reilly to publish a good book on running nginx. The documentation isn't that great.
hkarthik 15y ago
It's funny, I remember seeing similar numbers between IIS and Apache in the early 2000s right before the dot com bust. There's gotta be some correlation between number of new public internet sites and OSS Web Server adoption. We've known for long time that horizontal scaling for large sites is only cost effective when you use an open source web server and aren't taking a hit for licensing. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/06/scaling-up-vs-scaling-out-hidden-costs.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/06/scaling-up-vs-scali...

160 points by Garbage 15y ago

mcav 15y ago

(in market share)

mahmud 15y ago
That's true. IIS still leads in Frobs per Clonq index. What other growth metric is there for a web-server besides market-share?
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  The metric that Apple afficionados like to tout, the profit derived metric. According to that, IIS is absolutely beating Apache and everyone else since they make billions every quarter off IIS.
  - diminish 15y ago
    Good point recoiledsnake; "IIS takes most of the profits" would sound their arguments.
- mcav 15y ago
  The title was "takes 2nd place". Saying the same about anything else would also be ambiguous, though I admit web servers don't have many other legit ways to take 2nd place. My first impression was that they were going to talk about performance.

grannyg00se 15y ago

That title could mean anything. They are referring to total active sites across all domains. IIS is still 2nd place if you look at the top one million busiest sites.

btn 15y ago

The original Netcraft article has far less filler text and contains far more information (with graphs!): http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/01/03/january-2012-web-server-survey.html http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/01/03/january-2012-we...

stanleydrew 15y ago
I don't understand the references to Google in those graphs. There isn't a publicly available Google webserver is there? Or is it included simply because a lot of the most visited properties on the web are Google's?
- justincormack 15y ago
  No it is not public, but it still serves a lot of sites, which is what this measures.
mike-cardwell 15y ago
I submitted the Netcraft article four days ago, and it got a measly 2 upvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3421864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3421864 EDIT: My title was also better.
- akadien 15y ago
  I upvoted your comment. I hope it makes you feel better.
  - mike-cardwell 15y ago
    I upvoted your comment to thank you for your valuable contribution.
sp332 15y ago
In the third graph, what caused the huge spike in almost every kind of server just after April last year?

czervik 15y ago

Isn't nginx more often than not used as a front controller for apache/tomcat/etc?

iSloth 15y ago
It can be used like that, however I am not sure if that's the most implemented method. Personally I use Nginx > PHP-FPM, so there is no other web server on the box.
asto 15y ago
Earlier, nginx was used to handle just static content and passed the php stuff to apache httpd. These days people just use php-fpm instead so nginx can handle everything in a php based stack without needing apache.
- lhnz 15y ago
  Is this faster or the same speed? There is so much FUD around this topic that I've not been able to get through.
  - asto 15y ago
    Nginx + php-fpm is MUCH faster than a vanilla apache httpd + php stack. The magic though, is not just speed. It's also the feature-set. I'm working on a pyramid(pylons) project right now and will be using nginx to load-balance the wsgi server instances and to serve static content. I don't think I could use apache for that. The configuration for nginx looks neater as well (my personal opinion)
    - gog 15y ago
      Are you sure about that? Benchmarks on my projects show that the difference is insignificant. Since I currently do not have memory constraints I am still using nginx + apache with mod_php.
      - 15y ago

jemeshsu 15y ago

Nginx is probably eating into Apache's share rather than IIS. It is safe to say that IIS has monopoly for those using .NET stacks. For the rest, it is Apache vs Nginx.

throwaway64 15y ago
The data[1] seems to suggest that Apache's market share is growing, not declining, and that IIS is infact, in decline. May have something to do with reverse http proxying, or perhaps people are just moving away from the .NET stack in general. [1]http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/01/03/january-2012-web-server-survey.html http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/01/03/january-2012-we...

tectonic 15y ago

According to my data, nginx and IIS have been neck and neck for months: http://underthesite.com/compare/nginx_and_microsoft-iis_and_apache-http-server http://underthesite.com/compare/nginx_and_microsoft-iis_and_... Apache still blows them out of the water though. (Ignore the pre-August data, it's before we had a real sample size.)

rbanffy 15y ago
IIS and nginx are too close in this graph. It looks suspicious.

mmaunder 15y ago

In terms of traffic served Nginx has probably already passed Apache since it's not feasible to use Apache as a front end server.

mike-cardwell 15y ago
Rubbish. Not only is it completely feasible, (and easy) to use Apache as a front end server, not only is it incredibly common, but we have absolutely zero evidence that Nginx has passed Apache, and considerable evidence to the contrary. You're suffering the Hacker News bubble effect. EDIT: BTW, I'm not an Apache fanboy. I recently moved my personal site https://grepular.com/ https://grepular.com/ from Apache to Nginx. I just like using the right tools for the right job. And Apache is a great server and can be configured to perform extremely well. I've personally configured and run large server farms of Apache boxes in shared hosting environments.

dhx 15y ago

It's more useful to look at the plot for the million busiest domains. nginx places 3rd and if trends continue, may take 2nd place from IIS some time in 2013/14.

mark_l_watson 15y ago

I stopped using Apache and IIS years ago. Nginx is easy to setup and uses few resources on small servers. I don't do many sysadmin tasks, but this week I needed to modify my nginx setup on one of my own servers and even though I have not had to touch an nginx configuration in a long time I could do everything quickly and from memory. With Apache I would always start with the docs and/or web search.

rlf 15y ago

What we need now is the people over at O'Reilly to publish a good book on running nginx. The documentation isn't that great.

hkarthik 15y ago

It's funny, I remember seeing similar numbers between IIS and Apache in the early 2000s right before the dot com bust. There's gotta be some correlation between number of new public internet sites and OSS Web Server adoption. We've known for long time that horizontal scaling for large sites is only cost effective when you use an open source web server and aren't taking a hit for licensing. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/06/scaling-up-vs-scaling-out-hidden-costs.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/06/scaling-up-vs-scali...