Companies Using UNIX

I run the crawler that stores the response headers of every domain we visit, and UNIX is the row in Operating Systems I'd least want read at face value. A domain counts when its Server header contains "Unix". Our October 2026 crawl puts that at 214,952 domains, 2nd of 16 in the category, with 161,122 matched to a company. On 15 October 2026 I re-requested a random 2% of the clean set, 4,274 domains, resolved every address and grouped the answers by network.

What the label means

If I could rename this row, I'd call it "Apache (Unix)". Apache's source sets one platform string for all Unix-like builds: os/unix/os.h defines it as "Unix". Packagers overwrite it. Red Hat's httpd spec swaps in the release name from /etc/os-release, FreeBSD's port writes "FreeBSD", and Debian's and Ubuntu's packages print their own names, which is what those rows count. So "(Unix)" survives on an Apache someone compiled themselves, or one a host built for its own platform. Apache's ServerTokens documentation shows the default output as Apache/2.4.2 (Unix); set it to Prod and the header shrinks to "Apache".

Sales signal: this header names no operating system vendor. Treat the row as "Apache built outside a distribution" and sell to whoever builds it.

One host writes most of it

3,469 of the 4,274 sampled domains (81.17%) resolved to STRATO's network, AS6724, and 3,467 of them answered with the identical bare Apache/2.4.69 (Unix). Apache released 2.4.69 on 1 October 2026, so that is one build rolled across a shared-hosting fleet within two weeks. No OpenSSL token, no modules. The sample held 2,611 .de domains, and 2,560 of them sat on STRATO, as did 283 of the 295 .nl domains. The next networks are small: Amazon 148 domains, SAKURA Internet 69, Hetzner 32, OVH 28, Contabo 27.

"Four in five UNIX domains are one German host's Apache build. The site owners didn't choose an operating system. They chose a hosting package." - David Thomson, CTO at TechnologyChecker.io

Sales signal: for most of this list the server belongs to STRATO. Sell the site owner what a shared package leaves out, or talk to STRATO.

How much of it is current

4,159 of the 4,274 (97.31%) still sent a "(Unix)" banner on 15 October 2026. 66 didn't answer, and 49 answered with another header, Cloudflare's in 12 cases. An earlier random draw of 50 gave 48. Not every banner fronts a site: our title census counts 5,910 domains with a blank title, 1,651 that answer "404 Not Found" and 519 showing CentOS-WebPanel's test page. They send the banner, so they stay in the count. Since we began tracking the label on 16 March 2026, 9,581 domains dropped it on at least one hostname, and 771 of those still send it from another one. The monthly total went from 199,242 in June to 214,952 in October. Part of that is our side: the set of domains we crawl turns over every month, dead sites out and newly found ones in, and our detection widens.

Sales signal: a banner that is 97% live is a usable targeting field, as long as you remember it mostly means STRATO.

Who and where

Germany has 118,114 of the 161,122 matched companies, the Netherlands 12,714, the United States 8,151 and Spain 3,199. 83.14% of companies with a known size employ 1 to 10 people; 363 have more than 1,000 staff. The industries read like a German high street: business consulting 7.54%, construction 5.79%, medical practices 4.51%, retail 3.93%, real estate 3.81%. Steuerschroeder, a Berlin tax practice, and Churrascaria Augsburg are typical rows.

Sales signal: pitch in German, to owners of firms with 1 to 10 staff, about things a site owner controls: content, bookings, payments, marketing.

The other fifth

The 690 sampled banners outside STRATO look different. They carry OpenSSL and module tokens, and 51 still announce Apache 2.2, a line the Apache project declares end-of-life, with a final release, 2.2.34, in July 2017. The large names on this page come from here: Scotiabank's Tokyo branch site, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Trellix's assessments site, Dassault Falcon's customer portal, Ashland's safety data sheets and Mitsui Chemicals' Brazilian site. These are in-house servers with their own Apache builds, nearly always on a subdomain.

Sales signal: a self-built Apache 2.2 is a maintenance problem with an owner. Security, managed hosting and migration services have a buyer in this fifth. The STRATO majority has none of those problems to sell into.

Movement and overlap

We publish four switching rows, all small. 26 domains dropped the label while gaining an AlmaLinux banner, 7 of them in the last 30 days, and 10 went the other way; 5 moved to Red Hat and 10 came from it. A "switch" here is a rebuild: a self-compiled Apache replaced with a distribution's package, or the reverse. Overlap is hostname-level. 357 domains run a "(Unix)" host and an Ubuntu host today, 226 a Debian host and 45 a FreeBSD host.

"When a (Unix) banner turns into AlmaLinux, nobody changed vendor. Someone reinstalled Apache from a package." - David Thomson, CTO at TechnologyChecker.io

Sales signal: a rebuild is when the hosting stack is up for review, and on this page the largest row is 26 domains in seven months.

The stack around it

Across the 208,314 clean domains, Apache shows on 99.97%, PHP on 70.38% and WordPress on 51.12%. Elementor runs on 14.52%, STRATO's own site builder on 7.31% and Joomla on 3.36%. Only 13.31% print an OpenSSL version, the self-built minority again.

Sales signal: half the list is WordPress on shared hosting. Plugins, themes and agency services fit; server software doesn't.

What UNIX costs, and who owns it

UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group, per unix.org, and its register of certified products lists systems such as IBM AIX, IBM z/OS and HP-UX 11i v3. Those are paid platforms. The servers on this page run the free Apache HTTP Server. The category's only commercial UNIX row, SunOS, holds 3 domains, and an Apache compiled on AIX would print "(Unix)" like any other, so we can't separate those few here.

Sales signal: if you sell to AIX or HP-UX shops, this list won't find them.

Key takeaways

1. 214,952 domains send Apache's generic "(Unix)" label; 97.31% of a 4,274-domain sample still did on 15 October 2026.

2. STRATO's network hosts 81.17% of the sample.

3. Germany has 118,114 of 161,122 matched companies, and 83.14% of sized companies have 1 to 10 staff.

4. Switching rows are rebuilds; the largest we publish is 26.

5. The enterprise rows are self-built servers on subdomains, some still on Apache 2.2.

How to use this list

Split it by network first. STRATO customers are small German businesses that bought a package; the rest are organisations running their own Apache. Compare banner for banner with Ubuntu and Debian, and see our operating system market share report for how few servers disclose an OS. The full list of 214,952 domains, with 161,122 matched companies, is on TechnologyChecker.io.