Figure 1: SSL Site Operating Systems in the US, February 2001 

Source: 

http://www.netcraft.com/survey/

Java, although not an Open Source product, has become the dominant Web programming 

language due to its complete class library and easy to use syntax, and is also available free of 

charge. Open Source databases have matured and provide enough stability to be used in quite 

large applications as a low budged alternative to Oracle or SQL Server 2000. Last but not least, 

the Open Source Web server Apache is actually dominating the market, as shown in recent 

studies (see Table 1). 

Server Type 

Total # of Sites Market Share in % 

Apache 16,871,744

59.99% 

Microsoft IIS 5,522,069

19.63% 

Netscape Enterprise

1,751,123

6.23% 

WebLogic 1,039,605

3.70% 

Zeus 801,215

2.85% 

Rapidsite 380,217

1.35% 

Thttpd 367,724

1.31% 

tigershark 166,465

0.59% 

AOLserver 153,296

0.55% 

WebSitePro 114,655

0.41% 

Table 1: Market Share for Top Servers, February 2001 

Survey Results (over 28 Million responses). Source: 

http://www.netcraft.com/survey/

The major downsides of Open Source are twofold. First, accurate documentation is often more 

difficult to find, and second, Open Source products are usually harder to configure than their 

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