Worldwide web server stats (was Re: [vox-tech] Microsoft triumphs over open source in India)

Tue Dec 21 14:48:44 PST 2004

on Tue, Dec 21, 2004 at 12:41:32PM -0800, Norm Matloff (matloff at cs.ucdavis.edu) wrote:
> I'm sure many of you will love the line, "But Microsoft is popular even
> in the villages." :-)
> 
> A similar thing happened in Mexico, I believe, with Bill Gates meeting
> directly with Pres. Fox after Mexico's academic community recommended
> that the country use Linux.
> 
> Linux seems to have a better chance with the Chinese government.
> Interesting, they view it as a security issue--they don't view Windows
> as insecure, but consider dependency on it to be insecure.

Hrm.

This is probably more vox than vox-tech, but....

Most of you are familiar with Netcraft, home of the legendary webserver
survey, which shows Apache's ever-increasing lead (67.84%, up 0.07%):

     http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html

While webserver hosting stats aren't a full measure of server OS
popularity, they _are_ one highly visible proxy measure, and give an
indication of acceptance and prevalence.  What's interesting is to see
the trends both over time and across domains.  

With that in mind, I've just learned of another web survey site,
Security Space:

    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/index.html

Overview results are similar to Netcraft, though based on fewer (18.9m
vs. 56.9m) sites, with Apache at 74.64%.

    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/index.html

The really interesting thing, though, are the per-domain breakdowns:

    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/domain.html

Among the interesting results:  com, gov, edu, and net, mostly
reflective of US concerns.  com tends to reflect overall trends.  net
and org (capability and cost driven) favor Apache (79% and 71%).  

The edu domain is surprisingly stronger for Microsoft than I'd have
thought (57% Apache, 32% Microsoft).

gov trends far more than general toward Microsoft, with about an even
1/3 split for Apache, Microsoft, and other (38% Apache, 37%
Microsoft); mil favors Microsoft strongly (18% Apache, 65% Microsoft). 

    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/com
    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/net
    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/org
    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/gov
    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/mil

Countries with overwhelming Apache preference include Germany, South
Korea, and Japan (95%, 86%, and 90% Apache, respectively).  

    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/de
    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/jp
    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/kr

On the other hand, Australia, Canada and the UK are less avid about
Apache (63.9%, 57.4%, 64.5% Apache).  

    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/ca
    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/au
    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/uk

Of the significant emerging markets, we have China and India, where
Microsoft is favored (28%/66% A/M China, 36%/59% A/M India).

    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/in
    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/cn

Our neighbor to the south (and much of the Latin American market) is
more sane, generally 50-60% Apache:

    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/mx

Russia I'd have to put in a category of its own.  While it favors Apache
(67%), second place is "other", which has grown markedly since late
2001, at a cost to both Apache and Microsoft:

    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200411/ru

There's more to it than the snapshot stats.  Trends are also interesting
(Microsoft has been falling somewhat in almost all domains in the past
six months), as are the relative sizes of domains (all of China has
fewer webservers (99,310) than the state of California (155,731)[1]).
The historical plots also show some very large moves, which tend to
indicate large hosting companies moving blocks of sites simultaneously.
Netcraft noted this in the past when one of the large hosting companies
moved from Apache to IIS...and then, apparently, back, some months
later.

Some interesting results, enjoy ;-)

Peace.

--------------------
Notes:

1.  Timesink alert!
    http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/man.200411/areacode.html

    Note that you get webserver density (servers/population) as you
    hover over the map.  Much of the western US is at about 250
    residents/server.  The Deep South peaks at 566 residents/server
    (MS), highest density per population is Vermont, with one webserver
    for every 151 residents!

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
    W3C standards are important -- say it proudly
    http://twiki.iwethey.org/Main/UserAgentString
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://ns1.livepenguin.com/pipermail/vox-tech/attachments/20041221/2e563fdd/attachment.bin