6 ms·

"While it seems unlikely that NGINX could overcome Apache’s commanding lead ..." Oh zdnet, don't you realize that actions like this release from Apache, obvious

by chbrown 15y ago

"While it seems unlikely that NGINX could overcome Apache’s commanding lead ..." Oh zdnet, don't you realize that actions like this release from Apache, obviously under pressure from NGINX, are precisely the indicators that you will be eating your words in a year or two?

hullo 15y ago
I don't think they'll ever need to eat those words. It does indeed seem unlikely that NGINX will pass Apache. Not that it can't happen, but reasonable people would agree that such a thing does seem unlikely.
batista 15y ago
Apache might very well be under pressure from NGINX, but getting out a new major release (and after so many years), is DEFINITELY NOT a sing of this. Much less is a new release indicator that Zdnet will be "eating their words in a year or two" regarding Ngix/Apache market share. On the contrary, if this release DOES improve performance a lot and reduces memory usage, on top of all the other savings, it would make it even LESS possible for NGINX to win over Apache. Besides raw performance, there are lots of reasons to use Apache still, from the fact that it's a battle tested server with tons of documentation, know best practices, tools and modules support, knowledgable admins etc available for it. So, if performance is improved, many people won't bother switched that otherwise might have.
- lbotos 15y ago
  A counter to this is all the people that have switched to NGINX are not going to "jump ship" back to Apache. I'm one of those converts and while this may be great for people who NEED Apache, most people don't need it and may have already made the switch to NGINX.
  - absconditus 15y ago
    Except that most people did not make the switch. Apache continues to hover around 65% of the market while its next nearest competitor, Microsoft, hovers around 15%. nginx is below 10% and climbing very slowly. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/02/07/february-2012-web-server-survey.html http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/02/07/february-2012-w...
  - batista 15y ago
    Well, I have switched to NGINX for some projects, and am considering the switch back if Apache gets a few things nailed down (this release is a move in the right direction). The main reason is: I don't care for that much performance in the raw one standalone server case, and I can always put Varnish on top. But I do care for easy of installation, breadth of documentation, etc, and with Apache you got that in spades. This can be in even very simple things, that I can solve in Nginx in 15 minutes, like, say, Wordpress having specific rewrite rules and support for Apache built-in and not for Nginx. It's trivial to solve, but if I used Apache, I wouldn't even have to. Given two platforms, one of which is better than the other but less popular, I usually stick to the most popular one (within reason. Like, I won't go for PHP, but I would go with Rails, not Padrino or some even less known thing). Fewer problems down the road, and if you get into those, people have already encountered them.
maratd 15y ago
Apache is more than sufficient in handling the traffic of the majority of sites on the net. Which gives very little reason for those sites to switch (or for that matter, upgrade to the new version). Which means ZDNet is right on the money. It is extremely unlikely that anything will overtake Apache in the next few years. As for 10 years down the road? I doubt it'll be Apache in the lead. I also doubt it'll be NGINX.
recoiledsnake 15y ago
IIS takes almost all the profit in web servers though. /Asymco
- bwarp 15y ago
  And from 12 years of experience with it, delivers only soul crushing PAIN. Is it just me or the more you pay for software, the more it hurts you these days?
  - cooldeal 15y ago
    As compared to what? The mind numbing Apache.conf? I am using and administering it from 6 years, seems pretty much okay to me if you use the .NET stack. If 18% of the top million sites are using it over completely free alternatives, they must be doing something right.
    - rhizome 15y ago
      Maybe it's because I've been using it for 15 years, but I have never thought of Apache's httpd.conf as mind-numbing. Sometimes the terminology is a little arcane, necessitating an extra few Google searches, but it's always been completely logical to me.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  And people stay with it because it would be so much pain to migrate to anything else. Just imagine rewriting all that VBScript code... That's mostly why companies kept IE6 for so long. edit: forgot the "burn, karma, burn" line...
  - cooldeal 15y ago
    Yes, those legacy servers went from 57 million in Feb 2011 to 88 million in Feb 2012, all running VBScript. VBScript must be the hottest programming language, right? Netcraft confirms it.
    - 15y ago

by chbrown 15y ago

hullo 15y ago

I don't think they'll ever need to eat those words. It does indeed seem unlikely that NGINX will pass Apache. Not that it can't happen, but reasonable people would agree that such a thing does seem unlikely.

batista 15y ago

Apache might very well be under pressure from NGINX, but getting out a new major release (and after so many years), is DEFINITELY NOT a sing of this. Much less is a new release indicator that Zdnet will be "eating their words in a year or two" regarding Ngix/Apache market share. On the contrary, if this release DOES improve performance a lot and reduces memory usage, on top of all the other savings, it would make it even LESS possible for NGINX to win over Apache. Besides raw performance, there are lots of reasons to use Apache still, from the fact that it's a battle tested server with tons of documentation, know best practices, tools and modules support, knowledgable admins etc available for it. So, if performance is improved, many people won't bother switched that otherwise might have.

lbotos 15y ago
A counter to this is all the people that have switched to NGINX are not going to "jump ship" back to Apache. I'm one of those converts and while this may be great for people who NEED Apache, most people don't need it and may have already made the switch to NGINX.
- absconditus 15y ago
  Except that most people did not make the switch. Apache continues to hover around 65% of the market while its next nearest competitor, Microsoft, hovers around 15%. nginx is below 10% and climbing very slowly. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/02/07/february-2012-web-server-survey.html http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/02/07/february-2012-w...
- batista 15y ago
  Well, I have switched to NGINX for some projects, and am considering the switch back if Apache gets a few things nailed down (this release is a move in the right direction). The main reason is: I don't care for that much performance in the raw one standalone server case, and I can always put Varnish on top. But I do care for easy of installation, breadth of documentation, etc, and with Apache you got that in spades. This can be in even very simple things, that I can solve in Nginx in 15 minutes, like, say, Wordpress having specific rewrite rules and support for Apache built-in and not for Nginx. It's trivial to solve, but if I used Apache, I wouldn't even have to. Given two platforms, one of which is better than the other but less popular, I usually stick to the most popular one (within reason. Like, I won't go for PHP, but I would go with Rails, not Padrino or some even less known thing). Fewer problems down the road, and if you get into those, people have already encountered them.

maratd 15y ago

Apache is more than sufficient in handling the traffic of the majority of sites on the net. Which gives very little reason for those sites to switch (or for that matter, upgrade to the new version). Which means ZDNet is right on the money. It is extremely unlikely that anything will overtake Apache in the next few years. As for 10 years down the road? I doubt it'll be Apache in the lead. I also doubt it'll be NGINX.

recoiledsnake 15y ago

IIS takes almost all the profit in web servers though. /Asymco

bwarp 15y ago
And from 12 years of experience with it, delivers only soul crushing PAIN. Is it just me or the more you pay for software, the more it hurts you these days?
- cooldeal 15y ago
  As compared to what? The mind numbing Apache.conf? I am using and administering it from 6 years, seems pretty much okay to me if you use the .NET stack. If 18% of the top million sites are using it over completely free alternatives, they must be doing something right.
  - rhizome 15y ago
    Maybe it's because I've been using it for 15 years, but I have never thought of Apache's httpd.conf as mind-numbing. Sometimes the terminology is a little arcane, necessitating an extra few Google searches, but it's always been completely logical to me.
rbanffy 15y ago
And people stay with it because it would be so much pain to migrate to anything else. Just imagine rewriting all that VBScript code... That's mostly why companies kept IE6 for so long. edit: forgot the "burn, karma, burn" line...
- cooldeal 15y ago
  Yes, those legacy servers went from 57 million in Feb 2011 to 88 million in Feb 2012, all running VBScript. VBScript must be the hottest programming language, right? Netcraft confirms it.
  - 15y ago