Blogger: Anne Thomas Manes
I've been corresponding with Pam Derringer (TechTarget's SearchEnterpriseLinux.com's News Editor) during the past week. We started the conversation when she asked me to comment on the status of LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python). My immediate reaction was, "I don't get very many questions about LAMP anymore." In fact, I rarely hear people mention LAMP anymore.
Does this mean the LAMP has gone out?
If you take the acronym literally, I'd say that LAMP has lost its luster. Not that there's anything wrong with Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python, but I get the feeling that the last two letters in the acronym are getting supplanted by numerous alternatives. SQLite, which is lighter weight than MySQL, has become particularly popular in Ajax and mobile applications. And Ruby, Groovy, and JavaScript seem to have a lot more cache than PHP, Perl, or Python these days. Even Linux is subject to replacement. We went through a phase when folks were talking about WAMP -- replacing Linux with Windows. OpenSolaris and Mac OS X are other popular alternatives (SAMP and MAMP respectively). Of all the letters in the acronym, only Apache HTTP Server still reigns supreme.
If you use the acronym figuratively -- in which any letter in the acronym can be replaced with a suitable alternative, then I'd say that LAMP is alive and well. The figurative acronym refers to any lightweight, open source or low-cost platform. The "lightweight" aspect of the platform implies that you avoid "enterprisey" technologies, such as Java and .Net, and Oracle, DB2, and SQL Server.
The fact that the term "LAMP" has faded from our vocabulary, I think, is an indication that the lighweight, open source platform alternative has gone mainstream. For info on one of the newer fads in this market, Burton Group subscribers can check out our document, Ruby on Rails Revisited.
LAMP is just as important today but focus has shifted from basic LAMP to composite Open Source Content Management systems like Joomla, OpenText etc.
Posted by: Per Weisteen | November 19, 2008 at 07:25 AM
I wouldn't say that Apache is immune to replacement. nginx is at 3M sites, up from 0.5M a year ago: http://survey.netcraft.com/Reports/200811/. Not nearly as big as the growth of Apache, but certainly at a faster rate. More importantly, at least one community, the rails community, has embraced it as a good alternative to Apache.
Posted by: Nick Bugajski | November 19, 2008 at 10:33 AM
linux rules
Posted by: | November 28, 2008 at 09:51 AM
Hey Anne, I think the biggest part of LAMP was the P's since that was the biggest change. Linux was not that much different from Solaris, Apache not that much different from Netscape, and MySQL not that much different than Oracle. They were just cheaper and lighetweight as you point out. But the P scripting languages were a whole lot different than Java. And as you point out, scripting is still huge, particularly Ruby and JavaScript. So in the end scripting languages became as mainstream as well as lightweight stacks.
Posted by: Peter Yared | January 15, 2009 at 02:25 AM
Well, Apache has a lot of problems, there might be the "netscape" alternative (Open Web Server) which sun just is announcing (based on the Java System Web Server)
Besides that LAMP is the bread-and-butter of the Web 1.5 (nearly all Blogs most free CMS run on it).
Posted by: Bernd Eckenfels | January 15, 2009 at 08:46 AM