Web server market share 2026: where Apache httpd stands

Updated November 2026

Apache httpd is no longer the most common web server, but it is still one of the top three. In Netcraft's September 2026 survey Apache ran 11.56% of all sites, behind Cloudflare and nginx. W3Techs, on November 4, 2026, put Apache at 21.1% of websites, again third, behind Cloudflare Server and Nginx. The two numbers differ because the two surveys count different things.

11.56%Apache, all sites (Netcraft, September 2026)
15.01%Apache, top million busiest sites (Netcraft, September 2026)
21.1%Apache, websites with a known server (W3Techs, November 4, 2026)
99.8%Apache sites on version 2 (W3Techs, November 2026)

Netcraft, September 2026

Netcraft's September 2026 survey, published September 30, 2026, received responses from 1,470,435,351 sites across 323,147,961 domains and 15,463,120 web-facing computers. It was the newest edition available when this page was written in early November 2026. Netcraft reports the market in five ways:

Netcraft Web Server Survey, September 2026: leader and Apache's share by measure
Measure	Leader	Leader share	Apache rank	Apache share
All sites (hostnames)	Cloudflare	18.10%	3rd	11.56%
Active sites	Cloudflare	25.57%	3rd	12.14%
Top million busiest sites	Cloudflare	29.10%	3rd	15.01%
Web-facing computers	nginx	44.00%	2nd	17.70%
Domains	OpenResty	17.91%	4th	13.94%

Compared with August 2026, Apache lost about 1.2 million sites (−0.69%), and its share of all sites fell from 11.88% to 11.56%. Its share of active sites rose slightly, from 11.97% to 12.14%. Among all sites, nginx had 15.33% and OpenResty (a build of nginx with extra scripting) 9.02%. LiteSpeed was fourth among active sites (5.70%) and among the top million (3.66%).

The computers measure is the one where Apache looks strongest after nginx. It counts machines, not hostnames: one server with 500 virtual hosts counts once. Apache ran 2,737,362 of them in September 2026.

W3Techs, November 2026

W3Techs updates its figures daily. On November 4, 2026 it reported these shares of websites whose web server it could identify:

W3Techs web server usage, November 4, 2026
Web server	Share of websites
Cloudflare Server	33.2%
Nginx	30.0%
Apache	21.1%
LiteSpeed	13.8%
Node.js	7.4%
Microsoft-IIS	2.9%
Caddy	1.2%
Google Servers	1.1%

The column adds up to more than 100% because, as W3Techs notes, a website may use more than one web server. On September 22, 2026 W3Techs reported that Cloudflare Server had overtaken Nginx as the most used web server in its survey. Of the sites running Apache, 99.8% use version 2 and 0.2% still use version 1.

Why the surveys disagree

Neither survey is wrong. They answer different questions.

Netcraft counts hostnames: Netcraft has run its survey monthly since 1995. Its headline "all sites" number counts every hostname that answers, so a hosting company that parks a million domains on one machine adds a million sites. To correct for this it also publishes "active sites". When it introduced that measure in 2000, it explained that it compares the structure of front pages and counts only sites with distinct content, because most inactive sites are generated automatically from a template.
W3Techs counts websites with real content: W3Techs includes only what it calls the relevant web, a sample of well over 20 million sites with meaningful content. It leaves out default server pages and duplicate sites, treats all subdomains of a domain as one site (all of wordpress.com counts once), and ignores domains that only redirect. Its percentages are shares of sites whose server it can identify.

Both surveys mostly see the server software that a site reports in its HTTP response. When a site sits behind a content delivery network or reverse proxy, such as Cloudflare, the survey usually sees the front server. An Apache server behind that proxy may not be counted as Apache at all. That is one reason Cloudflare's share has grown so fast in both surveys. It also means "Apache's share" is best read as "sites where Apache is the server visitors talk to".

How Apache got to first place, and lost it

Apache passed NCSA httpd to become the most used server on the internet in 1996, less than a year after the Apache Group formed, according to Netcraft's survey. It held that lead for many years. Netcraft's June 2000 survey, for example, found a little over 17 million sites in total, with Apache running 62.53% of them by hostname and 59.56% of the 7.5 million active sites. Monthly reports like that one were regular news in Apache Today, along with results from other surveys such as Security Space; the stories from 2000–2002 are listed in the archive.

nginx gained ground for years. In August 2020 Netcraft reported that, for the first time, nginx was used on more web-facing computers than any other server, including Apache. Apache still served more active sites and more of the top million busiest sites at that point, but Netcraft noted its decline was continuing. By September 2026, Cloudflare led three of Netcraft's five measures and nginx led computers.

A falling share does not mean Apache is disappearing. In September 2026 Netcraft still counted 170 million sites and 26.4 million active sites on Apache. And Apache servers hidden behind a proxy or CDN come on top of those counts. For how the two servers compare in practice, see Apache vs nginx.

Check what a site runs

You can look at the same header the surveys use:

curl -sI https://www.example.com/ | grep -i '^server:'

A typical answer is server: Apache, server: nginx or server: cloudflare. Many administrators hide version details with ServerTokens Prod, so the header often shows only the product name. A missing or misleading header is one more reason survey numbers are estimates. Hiding the version is part of basic hardening.