Nginx web server overtakes Microsoft IIS to rank #2 behind Apache in Netcraft Web Server survey

According to Netcraft January Web Server survey, Nginx web server has now surpassed Microsoft IIS web server in terms of active sites and Nginx is now ranked #2 behind Apache web server.  Nginx web server was surveyed to rank #2 behind #1 Apache’s 57% active sites with Nginx web server running on 12.18% of active sites compared to Microsoft’s 12.14% for IIS web server.

Infoworld reports Nginx web server runs on 25 percent of the world’s 1,000 busiest websites, including Facebook, Zappos, Groupon, Hulu, Dropbox, and WordPress.

That’s a remarkable achievement and understandable considering the great performance Nginx can bring to the table as I have found while working on Centmin Mod Nginx Auto installer project. It does have me thinking though, as sites which have Nginx setup as a reverse static file proxy to Apache etc, still show Nginx as the front end web server, but totally miss what web server is running as backend to Nginx.

There’s also an interview with Nginx author, Igor Sysoev you can check out here.