Cloudflare overtakes Apache and Nginx to become most commonly used web server

https://twitter.com/Netcraft/status/1619064744601686016

by tosh • 3 years ago

33 30 3 years ago

twitter.com

mdmglr• 3 years ago

Cloudflare is a reverse proxy to Apache or Nginx right?

bolitol• 3 years ago

It's still a web server in its own right though, same as when Nginx or Apache are used to proxy to Node etc.

natrys2• 3 years ago

Sure, but in practice most people probably use Cloudflare with Nginx/Apache. They are more like complements, rather than substitutes.

skovati• 3 years ago

They've recently built their own proxy [1], not sure how much of their total traffic it handles though.

[1] https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-we-built-pingora-the-proxy-t...

xrayarx• 3 years ago

This is the actual report:

https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2023/01/27/january-2023-w...

The graphics shown on the bird site are labelled “market share of the top million sites”

So IMHO the tweet is a bit confusing

throwawayacc32• 3 years ago

Apache serving 21%?! What kind of websites use Apache in 2022? I haven't deployed a site on that dinosaur in over a decade at this rate. Nor have I used it as a reverse proxy in that timeframe.

jraph3• 3 years ago

WordPress pretty much requires Apache and is a very big chunk of the web.

Actually, WordPress works with Nginx but it's less plug and play than Apache, so many people are still going to use Apache, even if they put Nginx in front of it. Apache implements stuff Nginx intentionally doesn't, but this stuff is still useful in some scenarios.

https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/nginx/

throwawayacc32• 3 years ago

That probably explains everything! I've never deployed WordPress, but it's everywhere! Thanks

tredre3• 3 years ago

WordPress pretty much requires Apache and is a very big chunk of the web.

Wordpress requires a web server and PHP. If you have nginx configured to run PHP, you can drop wordpress in a folder and it will just work™.

roflyear5• 3 years ago

Not true I've run nginx for clients with WordPress setups for close to 10y now.

unity10013• 3 years ago

I haven't deployed a site on that dinosaur in over a decade at this rate

That's why your memory of Apache is a dinosaur itself: Apache has been constantly improving over the years. The advantage that Nginx had in performance was gone with Apache introducing event mpm. Now event mpm + any backend can provide you the same performance with Nginx, but with ALL the benefit of the gigantic module ecosystem that Apache has.

Like another commenter said, merely WordPress would constitute around ~50% of the web, and it uses Apache. Even if there is a nginx proxy cache at the front (as is so common with run of the mill web hosts that use cPanel), the Apache in the backend is irreplaceable - modifying .htaccess file is critical to many !very! important plugins in the WP ecosystem that people use to run their businesses. And if a web host does not provide for that, they remain gimped. You can use Nginx for WordPress, but then you will have to get non-technical users to add mod rewrite rules through a web panel or something. Good luck explaining what a 'rewrite rule' is to a non-technical user who just wants to launch an ecommerce site for his flower shop. Less, any regex that needs to be used for some specific rules...

bosch_mind2• 3 years ago

Do you use cat or ls? Those tools were written like 40 years ago

acheron• 3 years ago

Netcraft confirms it: Apache and Nginx are dying.

jraph3• 3 years ago

It's some bad news for the decentralized web.

Saris• 3 years ago

Just shows what ease of use can do for a service.

myshpa• 3 years ago

can't see it as a good thing

a] good luck launching new web search engine

b] spof

Ghoyome• 3 years ago

What about httpd? (Sarcasm)

turtleyacht• 3 years ago

For clarity,

  > Cloudflare was basically nginx (and is
    still on many datacenters) before they
    built the [sic] own webserver upon
    rust.

https://twitter.com/hakaan72/status/1619118211747946496

lopkeny12ko• 3 years ago

This is the response from Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare. Terrible look. https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1619071574744907776

jgrahamc• 3 years ago

How is that a terrible look? Cloudflare isn't slowing down. That's all he says.

Cloudflare overtakes Apache and Nginx to become most commonly used web server

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