The popularity of Apache Axis2 has been increasing over the years. It has come a long way since its 1.0 release in early 2006. It is somewhat becoming the de-facto standard Java Web services framework. In this article, we will analyze the popularity of Axis2, in terms of the number of downloads, as well as other important aspects of a successful open source project, such as community, stability & continuous evolution.
Downloads
Figure 1: Axis2 Monthly Downloads
Figure 1 shows the exponential growth in Axis2 downloads. The popularity of Axis2 continues to increase which indicates that the adoption of Axis2 is increasing. This also means that more and more companies are putting Axis2 into production. Note that the downloads graphs and figures indicate the downloads only from the main server at Apache Software Foundation. There are several mirrors around the world which host Axis2 release artifacts, and contribute to thousands of downloads per month each. Hence the real download figures are much higher.
Mailing List Activity & User Community
Figure 2: Axis2 mailing list activity
User activity on the mailing lists can be seen here. The user activity has steadily increased, peaking in March 2007, it has declined a bit thereafter & now has stabilized. This is one of the characteristics of a healthy & popular open source project. In the beginning, there are not much resources available about the project, but there is a lot of interest. Hence, there is lots of activity on the mailing lists. When the project reaches maturity, it is much more easier for the users to figure out things and find relevant resources, hence there is a decline on the mailing list activity. Some open source projects reach maturity, but then simply fade away because nothing new takes place & the community gradually drifts away from the project. A healthy project keeps evolving at a steady pace, which is indicated by the steady traffic on the lists. Axis2 has also a healthy & growing community. If you look at the mailing list archives, it shows that most of the users have started to get actively involved in the discussions & help fellow users, which are indications of a very successful open source project.
Project Page Views
Figure 3: Axis2 Project Page Views
Figure 3, shows the page views related to the Axis2 project. Again, this shows that more people are coming to the project Website, which indicates increasing popularity. The above graph does not show the visits to the OxygenTank, the Developer Portal for SOA, which hosts a large number of articles on Axis2. The forums on the OxygenTank also show increasing interest on Axis2 & related projects. The increase in page & article views is correlated with the decrease in the user queries on the mailing lists. There are more resources available out there for Axis2 users to figure out things by themselves, before having to resort to asking for help on the mailing lists. In fact, the mailing list archives contains a wealth of information, and this information is indexed by popular search engines. Hence users can simply do some searching on Google and find out how to do various things with Axis2 or find solutions to problems they face.
Contribution to Apache Axis2 from WSO2
The majority of the contribution towards Apache Axis2 & other leading Apache Web Services projects such as Apache Rampart, Apache Sandesha2, Apache Neethi and many more, was by WSO2. Some of these contributors are now pursuing their higher studies at leading Universities. However, there are several other major companies which are also actively involved in this project. This is another sign of a successful & truly open-source project.
WSO2 WSAS & Axis2
WSO2 Web Services Application Server (WSAS), the award winning enterprise ready version of Axis2, integrates this popular Web services framework, and in addition, provides security integration through Apache Rampart, Reliability through Apache Sandesha2, high availability & scalability, a user friendly management console & much more. It is also released under the Apache Software License. The robustness of the Axis2 core in WSAS has been proven by battle testing it in real-world enterprise setups. If you are interested in how Axis2 & WSAS can fit into your enterprise, read this article on the WSO2 WSAS blog.
Conclusion
The popularity of Axis2 is rapidly increasing. Axis2 is a mature & stable project. It has a healthy user community. It also keeps evolving to cater to changes in the technology landscape & user requirements.
Resources
1. Axis2 Statistics Page.
2. Axis2 1.4.1 Release (Latest release at the time of writing)
3. Axis2 Mailing List Archives
2 comments:
The downloads you can see are only the downloads from Apache main site, I think.
If we add up all the downloads from all the mirrors, then this number will be at least 6 to 10 times more than this.
Chinthaka, you are correct. The graphs show only the stats from the main site.
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