Nginx overtakes Apache as the server of choice for the top 1000 trafficked sites

Last week it became official. Nginx edged out Apache to became the most used webserver of the top 1000 websites by traffic, owning 34.9% of the top 1000 sites, just ahead of Apache, which serves 34.5% of the same vertical. Apache is still the web server of choice for over 65% of all websites, and Nginx has just over 14% of the web server market share. Microsoft-IIS has about 10% of the top 1000 high-traffic sites.

Nginx continues to gain market share because of its ability to deliver content to thousands of simultaneous connections, far more than Apache or Microsoft. The capacity to serve content to hundreds and thousands (often more) simultaneous site visitors is a hallmark of WP Engine’s performance, and our Evercache technology, which leans on Nginx technology as one leg of our technology stack. Evercache is WP Engine’s proprietary server technology that is capable of serving webpages in 15 milliseconds.

We have no doubt that more and more websites will take advantage of Nginx to serve their content. As Nginx continues to grow in market share, it will be exciting to see the possibilities that the technology will open up for everyone, not only on the WordPress platform, but the internet as a whole.