Web site Hosting, Windows Server vs Linux Which is Better?

Question

We currently have a hosting company that looks after our website, I have found out that they are running Windows based Server. My question is should a website provider/hosting really be running Windows server or do respectable Hosting companies run Linux. I just need information like the cons of having windows environment.

Answer 1

My website is hosted by Microsoft on Windows servers, but having administered many servers (Novell NetWare, OS/2, Unix, Windows NT4 thru Server 2003, Linux), Windows would be my last choice for most server functions.



Management likes Windows servers because they think that the graphical user interface will lower the cost of administrators, but total cost of ownership is greater for Windows servers (greater hardware requirements, less MTTF).



I had heavily used NetWare servers that would run without rebooting for 11 months, yet Windows NT4 nd 2000 servers that were less lightly loaded needed to be rebooted every week or two, or their processes would die or slow due to memory leaks. NetWare and Unix servers, though tricky to set up and tune, would run and run without attention.



Unix servers can execute PHP, which is a powerful server side scripting language. Windows web servers can't run PHP.

Answer 2

All websites today currently run on either a Windows web server or a Linux-based server. The vast majority of websites run on a Linux-based platform as Linux has a strong reputation for security and web server performance. With standard (static) HTML-based websites, the web hosting platform doesn't make much difference. When it does make a difference, however, is when the website uses a dynamic scripting technology such as ASP (A Microsoft based technology), or PHP / PERL (Linux based technologies). A Windows-based hosting solution will run a Microsoft Windows server with IIS (Internet Information Server), and is necessary to run an ASP / ASP.NET scripted website. A Linux-based platform is typically used for PHP, Perl, and most other types of websites. Basically, unless your website uses ASP (pages ending in the .asp extention), Windows hosting is not neccessary.

Answer 3

The use of Windows server or Linux for website hosting is entirely depends on what kind of development language or database use with your website. Here choosing a Linux Hosting account if you are going to use PHP, PERL, Python or Cgi scripting. Linux account use mysql database.if you plan to use web application on blog or creating a shopping cart.

Choosing a windows server account if your are going to use ASP.NET. Here windows server will use sql server.Here asp.net application typically requires some programming on your computer before you use the application online.

Answer 4

Linux Web Hosting or Windows Web Hosting ? Make your Choice !



When it comes to Web hosting, Linux has, for some time, been widely considered the best OS for Web servers. It?s typically found to be the most reliable, stable and efficient system and, as such, it?s commonly used for the demanding environment of Web and mail servers. Indeed,Most of the clients websites of aalpha NET runs on the Linux OS precisely because of this traditional stability........