Hacker Trends
how it worksopen the tool →

Hacker Trends › apache vs nginx vs caddy

apache vs nginx vs caddy on Hacker News

Across 2007–2026 of Hacker News, apache leads apache vs nginx vs caddy with 47,118 mentions to nginx’s 30,371, peaking in Jan 2021.

Mention-over-time for apache vs nginx vs caddy, overlaid across 2007–2026 of Hacker News. Each line is a live date-histogram over ~45M posts and comments, computed with Upstash Redis Search.

apache47,118 mentions, peak Jan 2021nginx30,371 mentions, peak Jan 2016caddy5,571 mentions, peak Aug 2017
2008201120142017202020232026
Open this comparison in the interactive tool — zoom to any date range and read the stories behind each spike →

How the lead changed hands

Web servers across the decades: Apache rules the 2010–12 conversation, nginx overtakes it for the high-traffic era 2011–13, then Caddy arrives with automatic-HTTPS 2017–22.

The stories behind each line

Top “apache” stories
  1. I wrote a children's book / illustrated guide to Apache Kafka 1,797 points · 2021
  2. Apache ECharts 1,658 points · 2025
  3. Apache Foundation disallows use of the Facebook “BSD+Patent” license 1,277 points · 2017
  4. Apache Superset 696 points · 2024
Top “nginx” stories
  1. Do svidaniya, Igor, and thank you for Nginx 1,384 points · 2022
  2. Freenginx: Core Nginx developer announces fork 1,131 points · 2024
  3. Nginx to Be Acquired by F5 Networks 1,057 points · 2019
  4. Nginx introduces native support for ACME protocol 810 points · 2025
Top “caddy” stories
  1. Show HN: Caddy 2 778 points · 2020
  2. Caddy – The Ultimate Server with Automatic HTTPS 568 points · 2025
  3. 35M Hot Dogs: Benchmarking Caddy vs. Nginx 399 points · 2022
  4. Caddy Proposal: Permanently change all proprietary licensing to open source 357 points · 2019

Each term on its own

More comparisons

Build your own comparison on the main chart, or read how Hacker Trends works.