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Nginx reaches 33.3% web server market share while Apache falls below 50%

w3techs.com

81–90 of 190 posts

Re: Nginx reaches 33.3% web server market share while Apache falls below 50%

#81
post #71

nginx is creating a name and market for itself as a reverse proxy, even though there are better solutions for reverse-proxies out there, everything from HAProxy to Apache Traffic Server to even Apache httpd. But this is an important market to have. Why? Because it allows for the perception that the "web runs on nginx" simply because all you see are the nginx web proxies and nothing behind that. So what are the server…

> So what are the servers behind nginx? 9 times out of 10 it is Apache httpd, and numerous instances of it at that. Can you cite a source for this? In my practice, the servers behind nginx are usually platform-specific application servers, such as Gunicorn or uWSGI for Python.

yeah, or just ... more nginx.

Re: Nginx reaches 33.3% web server market share while Apache falls below 50%

#82
post #60
post #30

This is kind of a weird statistic to try to analyze. So many uses of nginx are just the act of putting an Apache/IIS/etc site behind nginx, so technically, both servers still have market share but you only see nginx. It's just that nginx makes it so easy to do certain things, like supporting modern HTTPS, that you might as well add it to your stack rather than replace something.

As someone younger who never really used Apache, I don't see any reason to do anything with it instead of Nginx. Other than supporting "legacy" setups, whats the point of Nginx load balancing Apache? Configuring nginx is just so much more intuitive.

nginx is much more simple than full-service servers like Apache. Which is good if you want to do something easy fast (like terminate TLS, proxy, load-balance, simple redirect, simple header munging, etc.). And not good if you want to do something more complex and get into learning how nginx rewrite rules really work (totally not obvious), how if and other predicates really work (multiple articles in docs suggest it's not obvious at all) and what limitations are needed to achieve the simplicity and quickness. So if you want your webserver to do something complex, you'd go for Apache. But may still put nginx in front for LB, static content, pre-cache TLS, etc.

Re: Nginx reaches 33.3% web server market share while Apache falls below 50%

#84
post #30

This is kind of a weird statistic to try to analyze. So many uses of nginx are just the act of putting an Apache/IIS/etc site behind nginx, so technically, both servers still have market share but you only see nginx. It's just that nginx makes it so easy to do certain things, like supporting modern HTTPS, that you might as well add it to your stack rather than replace something.

Indeed.

This is hardly a legitimate statistics, how many sites sit behind CloudFlare/Sucuri/Incapsula IP's, which are always nginx reverse proxies.

I don't think anything changed that much as of late, apart from more and more people adopting CloudFlare.

Re: Nginx reaches 33.3% web server market share while Apache falls below 50%

#85
post #5

Netcraft's web server survey shows nginx at only 20%, and shows Apache dropping below 50% way back in August 2013. That's a big difference compared to w3techs and both sources should be taken with a pinch of salt. It's the 3rd chart on: https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2017/03/24/march-2017-web... Web server market share depends a lot on which sites you're looking at: are you checking the top X million sites or che…

So, literally, Netcraft confirms Apache is dying.

For "dying" being defined as "increases installs but slower than the whole market balloons".

Re: Nginx reaches 33.3% web server market share while Apache falls below 50%

#86
post #60
post #30

This is kind of a weird statistic to try to analyze. So many uses of nginx are just the act of putting an Apache/IIS/etc site behind nginx, so technically, both servers still have market share but you only see nginx. It's just that nginx makes it so easy to do certain things, like supporting modern HTTPS, that you might as well add it to your stack rather than replace something.

As someone younger who never really used Apache, I don't see any reason to do anything with it instead of Nginx. Other than supporting "legacy" setups, whats the point of Nginx load balancing Apache? Configuring nginx is just so much more intuitive.

Shared hosting setups where you want .htaccess support (or something comparable, but same basic issue: requires some additional layer to validate and generate a centralized nginx configuration, or some other extra layer, with Apache it is built in and well-documented).

WebDAV support.

Re: Nginx reaches 33.3% web server market share while Apache falls below 50%

#87
post #82
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone younger who never really used Apache, I don't see any reason to do anything with it instead of Nginx. Other than supporting "legacy" setups, whats the point of Nginx load balancing Apache? Configuring nginx is just so much more intuitive.

nginx is much more simple than full-service servers like Apache. Which is good if you want to do something easy fast (like terminate TLS, proxy, load-balance, simple redirect, simple header munging, etc.). And not good if you want to do something more complex and get into learning how nginx rewrite rules really work (totally not obvious), how if and other predicates really work (multiple articles in docs suggest it's…

Fair point, but,

> if you want your webserver to do something complex, you'd go for Apache

I would tend to disagree. Assuming "complex" = "business logic", Apache hardly seems the right choice. PHP/Python/Node/GoLang or Lua right inside nginx would be more appropriate in most cases, imo.

Re: Nginx reaches 33.3% web server market share while Apache falls below 50%

#88
post #86
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone younger who never really used Apache, I don't see any reason to do anything with it instead of Nginx. Other than supporting "legacy" setups, whats the point of Nginx load balancing Apache? Configuring nginx is just so much more intuitive.

Shared hosting setups where you want .htaccess support (or something comparable, but same basic issue: requires some additional layer to validate and generate a centralized nginx configuration, or some other extra layer, with Apache it is built in and well-documented). WebDAV support.

As far as htaccess support, from the couple Shared hosting providers I've used, lighttpd has been the server of choice.

Re: Nginx reaches 33.3% web server market share while Apache falls below 50%

#89
post #70

Apache has historically been a giant swiss army knife that will do just about everything you could want, from redirect databases to cgi to php interpreters to crazy auth setups. It did all that while still being a reasonably good workhorse for static file serving (when properly turned and using the right worker model, event rather than threaded or process). Nginx seems to have a different model. It does support a num…

nginx is turning into much more than just a load balancer. Projects such as OpenResty (a full CMS built into nginx) and Kong (an API management service), are built right into nginx using Lua. We've done some minor nginx Lua extensions and are looking to offload activities such as JSON validation into the front-end nginx. http://openresty.org/ https://getkong.org

Unless I've missed something for a while, openresty is more a distribution for building apps / apis or complex middleware on top of nginx, not a full-blown CMS. It's a pre-built collection of useful extensions & lua modules, more of an "app platform"
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