Web servers are the front ends that serve up web pages to web browsing clients (browsers, as we know them). The communication back and forth is based on the HTTP or the hypertext transfer protocol. Depending on the request, the web server serves up a file from your web site structure of files. The browser then renders the file on your screen to show you the page you requested. So, the web server is a crucial platform that ensures all requests from visitors are serviced properly and in a timely fashion. The time window is just few seconds. If you take any more time to serve up the page, the visitor would simply click away to another interesting site, rather than staying with you. Choosing this platform well is a key design decision when setting up a web site.
Web servers work within the environment of an operating system. Windows, Unix and Linux are the most predominant OS packages that are in use today in hosting web servers and, hence, web sites. The functionality that you get from a web server is the functionality of the combined package of the OS and the HTTP server. We take a comparative look at the web servers that work with these OS flavors; namely Windows, UNIX and Linux.
We take a look at the market numbers of these three types. Market indicators are always a good guide to what people are using. We will also look at an IDC report about server shipments during the last quarter of 2008, released by IDC recently. Recession has taken its toll. The overall market picture is as follows.
The Windows server market size last quarter was $4.8 billion, and the UNIX servers size was $4.9 billion while Linux servers did a business of $1.8 billion. We are just looking at the server software based on the respective OS only.
Since we do not have the corresponding numbers related to how many web sites are supported by each of these servers, it is hard to conclude which has an edge in popularity. Linux numbers look comparatively lean because individual licenses typically sell for lower prices. UNIX sells for a higher unit price in comparison to Windows. There is a further twist. Data centers may be running your web site with more than one other web server virtually. These may have different operating systems running them. The only thing we can possibly conclude is that Windows and UNIX + Linux have a more or less similar share with UNIX/Linux combined having an edge.
Next: Continue on to page 2 to find out more about Windows, UNIX and Linux hosting services.
