Virgo survey results

Thanks to everyone who responded to the recent Eclipse Virgo and SpringSource dm Server survey. The results make interesting reading.

Close to one quarter of respondents report they are "in production".

The transfer to Eclipse.org is a success. It is 6 months since the first Virgo release and 84% of respondents are now using Virgo exclusively with only 13% using dm Server exclusively.

Virgo is popular with early adopters. Of the 84% using Virgo exclusively, 59% are using 2.1.x or 3.0 milestones and 25% are on 3.0 milestones only (some of these already in production!). Please note that Virgo has versions 2.1.0 and greater whereas dm Server covers versions 1.x and 2.0.x.

The Virgo kernel is seeing significant usage. The kernel underpins the Virgo Web Server and provides Virgo's advanced deployment, provisioning, isolation, scoping, and diagnostic capabilities. The kernel has no web-specific code and so can be used to build messaging and other non-HTTP servers and to act as a container for non-server applications. 16% of respondents are using the kernel exclusively; 5% are in production.

Documentation and blogs were the most useful information sources closely followed by the Virgo forum, Virgo wiki, and Virgo development mailing list (1= not at all useful, 5 = very useful).

The survey was advertised on Twitter, the Virgo forum, the Virgo development mailing list, at www.springsource.org, and in this blog. 166 people responded. If you are interested, the raw results of the survey are available online or a summary can be downloaded.

Finally, I'd like to thank Chris Frost for coming up with the idea for the survey and then delivering the goods.