We currently offer Ubuntu 16.04 as base Operating System
I see a lot of providers offering Ubuntu these days. Is Ubuntu meanwhile more popular with providers then Debian? And why did it become so popular? Does it have any technical advantages over Debian or is it because many developers have it on their local machine and therefore want the same OS on the server?
Just one data sample : every client I've worked for (we do contract development and consulting for [mostly] startups) over the past few years has deployed on Ubuntu. I can't remember encountering a debian box since the late 90's. As to why? I don't know. Mind share probably, and a load of "to make $X work, go get an Ubuntu machine...".
For our own in-house deployments we have been migrating from CentOS to Ubuntu, again "because everyone uses it" and because it seemed to offer the best chance of working on new hardware at a time when hardware was changing rapidly a few years ago (the introduction of USB3; Atom SOCs, etc).
Just guessing here. Ubuntu has more recent packages since Debian is very conservative by design. Also, Ubuntu has a company backing it which can be of great use strategically as you might collaborate/cross market etc.
One factor that I've seen impacting the decision were the LTS periods. Ubuntu guarantees five years, whereas Debian's Security Team only supports three (assuming the current release cycle of 2 years). There's now an LTS team in Debian to extend that to five years, so that may help.
