Apache is the most popular web server available on the internet, Apache Web-Server is an open-source project meaning that the source code and all information about it is publicly available to anyone who wishes to take it. Often the code is adapted and changed from user input and submit back to the Apache Group who can update it for public releases. The software was originally designed for use on UNIX servers only as an alternative to others but is now available for Windows Operating Systems. The package is licensed under the GNU Public meaning that its operation is free on any Linux or Unix system. A survey conducted by company Netcraft in February 2008 showed that over 50% of websites use the Apache web server
Developer January 2008 Percent February 2008 Percent Change Apache 78,735,581 50.61% 80,580,183 50.93% 0.33 Microsoft 55,709,926 35.81% 56,265,527 35.56% -0.24 8,290,471 5.33% 8,169,930 5.16% -0.16 lighttpd 1,536,981 0.99% 1,565,536 0.99% 0.00 Sun 557,673 0.36% 547,510 0.35% -0.01
Source: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html
These figures show the huge popularity of the Apache server, but this is not the only web-server available as there are many others that have gained recent popularity. You can see from the figures that Microsoft dominate the market second to Apache, with over 30% of the web using their Windows Server which a study in 2007 operated by search-this.com showed that Microsoft Server was used mostly on websites that are for Fortune 500 companies in America, Microsoft operates 50% of this market and with a suprise Apache operates a small 15%, staying even with companies Sun and IBM. You can see this in the following chart:
Source: http://www.search-this.com/2007/06/27/microsoft-iis-vs-apache-who-serves-more/
In the recent months Google has added an addition 1.1million websites to the internet due to the rise of Google Blogger which has boosted their figures in the market making them now one of the most popular blogging systems available, but suggestions as to why they are less popular along with Apache toward Fortune 500 companies is because most are older companies and will have had Microsofts server systems implimented in the past and do not wish to change to a more modern and popular approach.
PostgreSQL is an “object-relational database management system” or ORDBMS
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue19/what-is/
http://www.search-this.com/2007/06/27/microsoft-iis-vs-apache-who-serves-more/
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/Apache_Web_server.html
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html
