When it comes to Web servers, the big two are Apache and Internet Information Server, but their faster, more nimble rival, NGINX is catching up with them.

Apache remains the top Web server, but open-source NGINX has just taken second place from Microsoft's Internet Information Services.

Apache led the pack by picking up 22.8 million sites. Nginx picked up a total of 4.5 million, which is nothing to sneeze at – but it’s less than 20% of what Apache garnered.

In this context, I’m talking about the software—like Apache or nginx—which you can set up on your own desktop computer. That machine will then act as a web server.