The Most Popular Web Server Software
A Web Hosting Article Contributed by Frances Rhea
Web Server Popularity
Popularity should not always be an important part of your web server selection. Only the most complex, mission critical web sites will be adversely affected by a poor web server choice. It is difficult to determine the popularity of various web servers due to the process of selecting which sites meet your criteria.
From a technical standpoint, AOLserver is one of the best web servers available. If your web site requires database integration and threaded architecture then it is an excellent platform. Apache and Microsoft IIS have risen to take the place of AOLserver and it is losing its small share of the current server market.
Web Server Growth and Market Share
If a server is useful by serving a corner of the market, then the total number of servers is not important. However, the relative growth of the number of servers being used is. The growth of Apache is fairly constant. IIS has also followed this stable growth pattern. In contrast, the growth of the AOLserver is consistently less than other web servers.
Development and Support Community
More important than popularity is the help available when you use a server. Popular products have a large community of developers, but the value of a community is in its level of expertise.
The community does not need to be particularly large. Questions need to be answered quickly and concisely.
Does Popularity of the Web Server Really Matter?
Almost all web sites could be handled reliably by the web servers available today. These makes the choice of which web server to use irrelevant. The web server choice is only important for large sites who have some type of application or service. If their application is extremely simple, changing platforms is a small task.
On complex, large, mission-critical sites the server choice is important. There is a large investment of time and development resources that goes into creating the site. Their choice of web server is important to reduce further development time and find a solution which will function on a long-term basis. These sites place priority on reliability and scalability. Their investment in hardware and resources would be large and difficult to change.
The last consideration is the availability of expertise. Popular platforms attract more developers making help easier and cheaper.
So What Web Server Should We Choose?
There are thousands of hosting companies who use Apache/PHP or IIS/ASP at a small cost. There are very few AOLserver/TCL hosts.
For a complex, extensive mission critical web site, IIS is probably one of the most used platforms. Top Sites (a web hosting directory) has confirmed this information from their user selections. The platform is well tested and seems to be very popular. Forming partnerships and/or integration with other web sites would be much simpler if you are running on the same platform.
The second web server choice is Apache with PHP. PHP scripts are readily available and the support that can be found is very knowledgeable.
