The Business Web Server Survey
There are three Web servers battling for dominance in the business world - the open source Apache and the commercial Microsoft and Netscape Web servers. Many companies choose a Web server based on what most other companies use. BizNix conducts periodic surveys of Web servers in use by medium to large companies. We conducted a survey in March of 2000 and in March of 2004.
To assure that the results would be objective and germane to decision makers, we surveyed the Fortune 500 and Global 500 companies. The Fortune 500 are the 500 largest companies in the United States according to Fortune Magazine. The Global 500 are the 500 largest companies in the world. The results appear in the tables below. Commentary on the results follows the tables.
| Server | Netcraft | Fortune 500 | +500 | Global 500 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 2004 | 2000 | 2004 | 2004 | 2000 | 2004 | |
| Apache | 55.5% | 67.2% | 14.9% | 19.4% | 25.1% | 23.5% | 36.6% |
| IIS | 22.9% | 21% | 40% | 52.5% | 58.1% | 27.4% | 33.8% |
| Netscape | 7.8% | --- | 36.9% | 21.9% | 10.6% | 38.2% | 21.3% |
| Other | 13.8% | 11.8% | 8.2% | 6% | 6% | 10.9% | 8.2% |
"Microsoft IIS popularity is
a U.S. phenomenon."
Microsoft IIS popularity is a U.S. phenomenon. Outside of the United States, Microsoft's IIS market share is far smaller. Here's the results of surveying only the Japanese and German companies in the Global 500 list and a collection of sites in France gathered from Yahoo at random:
| Server | Japan | Germany | France |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apache | 77.1% | 64.7% | 89.4% |
| IIS | 7.1% | 5.8% | 10.5% |
| Netscape | 12.8% | 17.6% | --- |
| Other | 2.8% | 11.7% | --- |
Outside of the United States, companies don't seem to be as affected by Microsoft's stranglehold on the market - as far as Web servers are concerned.
Netcraft survey
The Apache web server is regarded as one of the best Web servers there is and the most widely deployed. Open Source enthusiasts are quick to point out the Netcraft Web Server Survey that is the result of a survey of over 49 million (13 million in 2000) web sites. The survey shows Apache to be the leader of the pack with Microsoft's IIS coming in second and the Netscape (now called iPlanet) Web servers a distant third in the 2000 survey and not listed in the 2004 survey.
Clearly, there are not 49 million physical and individual Web server computers on the planet. Large numbers of these 49 million web sites are served from a much smaller number of Web servers. When a single web server supports two or more web sites this is called virtual hosting. The Netcraft survey results are skewed in favor of those Web servers that are most commonly used for virtual hosting. Apache is the web server of choice for virtual hosting and this is one reason why the Apache numbers are so high.
There's nothing wrong with virtual hosting and with the Netcraft results. You simply need to understand what the results are saying. Apache is the number one web server for organizations that support large numbers of virtual hosts. Most of these organizations are Internet Service Providers (ISPs). While Microsoft's IIS and the Netscape servers support virtual hosting as well, far fewer ISPs use these products opting instead for the free and highly-regarded Apache.
The BizNix survey was designed to minimize the effect of virtual hosting by limiting the survey to large companies that would most likely run their own Web servers or dedicate computers to their site.
Fortune 500
The Fortune 500 list of companies ranks the top corporations in the United States. We expected the results to be dramatically different than the Netcraft results because upper management in big business generally don't understand open source software (OSS). They often forbid the use of OSS because they confuse it with the FreeWare and ShareWare from the 1980s. They're not aware that the quality of Apache rivals the commercial products and surpasses the commercial products in terms of flexibility and functionality.
As expected, Apache is far from being in the lead. Clearly, the biggest companies in the U.S. prefer the commercial Web servers. While Microsoft's IIS is in the lead, the Netscape servers are not as far behind as the Netcraft survey would have you believe.
+500
Back in 2000, Fortune Magazine only published the Fortune 500 list. Since then, they've extended this to the Fortune 1000. We've handled the additional 500 companies as if it were another list so you could compare the Fortune 500 results from 2000 to those of 2004. We call the additional 500 companies "+500".
The results show that Netscape is the big loser in 2004 and its loss is picked up evenly by Apache and Microsoft IIS.
Global 500
The Fortune 500 list is limited to U.S. companies and doesn't tell us about the rest of the world. The Fortune Global 500 list is the top 500 companies in the world. It includes many of the same U.S. companies that were at the top of the Fortune 500 list but also includes companies in other countries - primarily Japan and Europe.
The 2004 results show that Apache is used more than IIS but not by much. Apache's gain comes at the expense of the Netscape server, which lost significant share since the 2000 survey.
"Apache wins by more than
a factor of ten."
The second table shows what happens if we strip out U.S. companies from the survey. When we surveyed only companies in Japan and Germany, Apache wins by more than a factor of ten. The only reason why we didn't extend the survey to other countries is that the sample size was too small. Large numbers of the world's biggest companies are located in only a few countries.
Why are more non-U.S. top companies using Apache than their U.S. counterparts?
One working theory is that upper management in non-U.S. companies put technical decisions in the hands of their technically-astute middle management while top U.S. companies make these decisions at upper levels of management.
Another theory is that IT managers trained outside of the U.S. are better grounded in computer science and capable of making better decisions. This theory is especially popular given that Bill Gates, when testifying before the U.S. Senate in 2007, warned that the U.S. must expand its H-1B immigration to allow U.S. technology companies to attract "the best and the brightest."
Note: H-1B immigration Visas apparently do not produce the results Bill Gates claims. See: Importing the Best and the Brightest?
Limited Scope
This survey includes only those Web servers that appear in the Fortune Magazine lists. Many of these companies run other Web servers that use different Web server software. For example, a company might use Microsoft IIS for its main public-access Web server because the people who design the highly-graphical and animated Web pages have experience using Microsoft-centric tools. Other company-internal Web servers running industrial-strength applications or requiring some level of security may run Apache.
This survey makes no attempt to discover what other Web servers companies are running. We don't have the volunteer labor to handle such a survey, we'd have no way to validate the results, and the objectivity of the results would undoubtedly be questioned.
Multi-platform
This survey concentrates on Web servers and not the operating system platforms they run on. A general trend in the computer industry today is multi-platform products and software. The prevailing attitude of the technically-astute is that software that is independent of an underlying operating system or platform is more flexible and, therefore, more cost effective. This is not necessarily an attitude that is shared by upper management (in the United States mostly) who continue to direct their technical people to deploy more expensive single-platform products.
It's useful then to point out just how these Web servers rank acording to their ability to run on multiple platforms.
Clearly, the leader is Apache. It can be compiled to run on nearly any platform. Apache runs on any flavor of Unix. This includes Linux, xBSD, and Macintosh OS X. It also runs on Windows NT/2000/XP and NetWare servers.
While the Netscape (iPlanet) Web servers are not open source, they have been ported to numerous platforms. They can run on Unix/Linux, Windows, and NetWare.
Microsoft's IIS can only run on the Windows platforms.
If you're a Windows shop, you can use any of the three Web servers. If you use Unix, Linux, or xBSD, you can use Apache or the Netscape web servers. If you're a NetWare shop, your only real choice these days is Apache. Novell no longer supports the Netscape servers.
Small business
In order to stave off criticism from the Open Source community, we must point out that if small businesses were included in the survey the results would certainly raise Apache's ranking in the United States. Consultants and system houses are installing significant numbers of computers running Apache that the market research firms never hear about.
Acknowledgements
The details of conducting the survey were handled by Tailored Computers. Thanks to Philip Tellis for his httptype program that allowed us to automate much of the survey.
These volunteers helped put the Fortune 500/1000 and Global 500 lists in a form our software required: Mary Steiner, Dennis Reynolds, Joshua Fulero, Niki Bergmanis, John Hight, Evan Acey, Reginald Edwards, Joe Robertson, and Ed Sawicki.
If you need more information or you're a member of the press you can contact us at info@biznix.org.