Nginx overtakes Microsoft in web server market, but still trails Apache

Open source web server Nginx has overtaken Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS) as the second most commonly used platform across all active websites, however its market share remains a long way behind market leader Apache.

According to Netcraft’s January 2012 Web Server survey, Nginx claimed 12.18% of the market after being deployed on 1.9 million websites during December 2011, overtaking Microsoft IIS on 12.18%.

The figures also show that Apache remains the clear market leader with 57.93% market share, while Google claims fourth place with 7.9%.

Meanwhile, in the million busiest sites category, representing the high volume end of the market, Nginx (with 8.49% market share) still significantly trails both Apache (64.36%) and Microsoft (14.99%).