Chicago (IL) – The Internet is growing on a faster rate than ever before and is quickly approaching a size of 150 million websites, according to survey results released by Netcraft. Apache remains the most popular software running web servers, but it is surrendering market shares to Microsoft and Google at a dramatic rate.

Netcraft said that it detected 142,805,398 web sites during its monthly web server survey. The October result is about 7.6 million sites higher than in the previous month. The internet is currently growing at a rate of 5% a month and is adding more sites per month than in any other month in the survey’s history. The main drivers behind this new growth are MySpace, Microsoft Live and Google Blogger, which gained more than 1 million sites each in the last month alone.

As a result, Apache-powered servers are in a freefall in terms of market shares in the Internet landscape. Apache is, according to Netcraft, installed on 47.73% of web servers, which is down from 60.64% in January (Apache’s all-time high was in November 2005 with a share of 70.98%). In the same time frame, Microsoft IIS was able to increase its share from 30.67% to 37.13% in the same time frame. In absolute numbers, Apache gained about 1 million sites over the past month, while Microsoft IIS gained more than 3 million.

Netcraft said that October is the first month in which Microsoft software is running on more than 50 million web servers worldwide.  

Google is also marching into the web hosting territory: The firm’s software now running 7.8 million sites – or 5.44% of all Internet sites. 

IIS is fine but not impressive

Oct 12, 2007 11:57     

We run IIS on a server at work and dread every MS patch that comes out b/c they sometimes have unpredictable results on our machine. Then again we are running Windows 2000 but still...it's suprising how often their patches nerfed our setup.
CJ report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Site "Count"

Oct 12, 2007 13:50     

How are they actually counting "sites" is it based on domain names? Is it based on unique addresses? What with individual websites have theoretically unlimited "sites" due to content management systems it seems like a very stupid stat. I think a more relevant stat, yet almost impossible to determine would be to measure market share based on sites accessed, because as it stands, sure Apache might have 47% of the "sites" but if no one's visiting those sites that number is meaningless.

Kellen report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

The numbers say it

Oct 12, 2007 18:21     

CJ: Move to IIS6 on Windows Server 2003 and you will see the improvement on all fronts, especially security. Sorry you continue to suffer on Windows 2000 and IIS5. No need to worry on security bugs for IIS6 vs IIS5, Apache 1.x, Apache 2.x - just 3 for IIS6 since its release back in 2003 vs tens/hundreds in Apache 1.x / Apache 2.x / IIS5. Stability of one's "Setup" often depends on the setup itself. Maybe your setup is more fragile than most? Without more details it is hard to blame patches. IIS5 has hardly been patched recently (it is at End-of-Life support, after all). Kellen: Netcraft counts hostnames and the "Server:" response header returned for the hostname. So yes, there are a large number of parked sites on Apache inflating its numbers, but there are also more parked sites on IIS now. Basically, both numbers are "fluffy". Netcraft does not account for Enterprise deployment behind the corporate firewall, which shows a different statistic.

David report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

RE: IIS is fine but not impressiv

Oct 12, 2007 19:05     

You said it your self. If your running Windows 2000, your way behind and are really in no position to judge. IIS 6.0 on Windows 2003 has been and is rock solid, and IIS 7.0 on Windows 2008 only promises even more performance and features. Time to retire that old server and get updated!
Egil report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

Uninteresting way to count

Oct 12, 2007 21:37     

When you count every individual MySpace homepage as a tally for IIS, no wonder their numbers are looking good. These figures are very bloated, and rather meaningless. I could create a single Apache server that serves 500,000 personal pages, and it would affect the numbers significantly. But it doesn't tell me anything interesting. Now if there were 100,000 servers each serving 5 individual sites, that is much more interesting.

duh report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

RE: IIS is fine but not impressiv

Oct 13, 2007 03:28     

To David & Egil; CJ is correct, IIS5 has patch issues. What none of you seem to realize is that they are unrelated to Win2K. The instabilities are caused by issues within IIS5 itself. IIS6 has had the very same types of issues with updates. Win2k3 is no more or less stable than Win2k, and IIS5 is no more or less stable than IIS5. Each has its unique quirks. Trying to make CJ or the company he works for feel ignorant for not upgrading only shows how ignorant you are. And FYI specking from experience, There have been more than just 3 security updates for IIS6. Try 38 last time I counted. CJ[and higher ups] IIS5 and Win2k are solid and functional. Unless you "NEED" the newer functions that IIS6 and Win2k3 provide, stay with what you have. The firm I work for upgraded at the suggestion of Microsoft reps., and they now wish they had listened to me. The whole thing cost them $85000 and we gained nothing. Thus the old adage rings true, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it!"....

lexluthermiester report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Love

Oct 13, 2007 09:49     

I love IIS, I run about 60 sites on my VPS server and it's rock solid, absolutely wonderful for me. I'm a web designer/developer and not a server admin - yet I can manage IIS and keep my server running perfectly.
John Doe report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

Other Web Servers?

Oct 14, 2007 00:45     

I'm curious how many sites run other smaller web servers such as Abyss Web Server or lighttpd.
Blake report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

yeah well

Oct 14, 2007 04:13     

not to sound like a mac/apple guy, btu, i use apache, it works fine, does what i need, is fairly stable and has plenty of handy addons, i use it because because i use it and i can't be stuffed changing sine it works for me, like lexluthermiester said, if it isn't broke, don't fix it
rammedstein report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

More Love

Oct 14, 2007 16:20     

I've been working with Apache and IIS5/6 for quite some time and both of them are excellent server technologies. The reason I think IIS will continue to gain ground and ultimately take over Apache is because of all the other technologies that basically cater to IIS. If you have server software, development software and productivity software coming all from the same company and all attuned to each other, building state-of-the-art websites becomes much more accessible. It's not unlike the situation with IE or Microsoft Office which, in my opinion, succeded because they where better integrated into Windows and therefore were performing better than any other browser or office software from independent ISVs.

Johannes report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

Google?

Oct 15, 2007 03:09     

"Google is also marching into the web hosting territory: The firm’s software now running 7.8 million sites – or 5.44% of all Internet sites" I never realized that they had their own propriety http server. Anybody got any info on it?
Choknuti report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Sloppy/Misleading Reporting

Oct 15, 2007 14:05     

Uh... Google's version is a modified version of Apache... What's really going on is that Apache is losing ground to itself...DOH!
ikaruga report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Inflated numbers.

Oct 15, 2007 16:46     

Yea, these numbers are pretty much bullshit. I don't know what all they are counting their sources as, but there's no way MS IIS crap is getting that much ground on Apache.
apache!! report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Don't forget IIS is under Windows(2003,2000,XP)

Oct 21, 2007 07:52     

Hey I'm a Network admin, I have Ubuntu and 2003 running in my servers, in stability terms windows is the loser, the big sites have cluster of servers for high availability and that maybe be the reason of IIS growing, but guys came on, IIS is a joke running under 2003 in a single server, you need more than that for defeat Apache, well after all you don’t need know much for configure IIS and maybe that is another reason. I not a fan of Linux, actually I have seven 2003 servers against only two Linux but the facts are the facts. Sorry my English.

fide report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0