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You are here : Home » Articles » General Web Hosting
| Windows vs. Linux Hosting |
| Submitted by Jessica Conelly on | 924 reads | Microsoft Windows and Linux are the two major platforms used in the hosting industry. If I sound too much techie in the above description, a plain explanation of the above would be that hosting servers mainly use these two platforms as their Operation Systems. Experienced webmasters will find it easier to choose the ideal platform for the development and hosting of their site. But it is still confusing for newbie people who are just starting or want to start their own site to choose the perfect hosting platform, specially due to the vast changes which these platforms have gone through over the years. This article should help such people who are unsure about the platform they should use for their site. Let us review each of these platforms in detail.
Windows Hosting
Almost everyone who has ever used a PC knows that Microsoft Windows is the mostly widely used desktop operation system (OS) till today. All though, the tech savvy community is now more inclined to use alternate operation systems now but still Windows has the majority share in the basic user(newbie) market just because its easy to use. Microsoft launched Windows NT in 1994 which was intended to be used with network servers. Windows NT had an all new OS kernel different from it previous versions. Since then Microsoft has released various versions of windows based on the NT core to be used as server systems. The latest of them is Microsoft Windows 2003. Like every other platform Windows has its own benefits and disadvantages. We will check these in brief.
Benefits
The benefits may vary depending upon the scripting language you use. I would call IIS (Internet Information Services) a major benefit on Windows. IIS 6 is the latest version of IIS with major performance upgrades and advance features like XML Metabase, ASP hang Detection, support for 64 bit servers etc. ASP is the widely used on enterprise level for custom made applications which need stability and performance. Windows supports Microsoft SQL server which is one of the most robust DBMS around. With features is like stored procedures, triggers etc it is the favorite choice for performance based application development. Another major benefit of the Windows platform is the support for the .NET framework. ASP.NET is popularly used now a days due to its features like memory leak and crash protection, Multilanguage support etc. Windows also supports certain enterprise level applications for high end users. One of them is Exchange Servers which is known for its rock performance in business-critical information handling.
Disadvantages
The most basic thing you should know about windows hosting is that a lot of licensing cost is involved in it. The Windows OS itself is not free. IIS, ASP support and .NET support do come bundled with Windows but MSSQL and Exchange servers need additional licenses which are not cheap. Any additional component that might be needed on the server is also paid. The concept of open source software does not apply much in case of a windows environment except for Mysql, PHP and some other components which are open source and compatible with windows. Windows hosting cannot be cheap because of these additional setup costs. The other disadvantage is that very few open source scripts which are compatible with Windows are available on the internet. You have to purchase licenses for mostly any ASP or .NET scripts you want to use. The security, stability and performance of the server depends upon how it was setup largely, but I would still rate Windows a little low on security due to the amount of worms and exploits it is known to possess.
Linux Hosting
The term Linux does basically cover all UNIX based operation systems unofficially but Linux is in reality is an UNIX based operating system. Linux is known for it rigid security structure and stability although it is not very good yet when it comes to ease of use. Linux does have GUI now but Windows still scores over Linux on the GUI end. Linux was developed by Linus Benedict Torvalds in 1991 when he was a student of University of Helsinki in Finland. It was freely distributed over the internet and since then it has become a very widely used hosting platform. Like Windows we will check its benefits and disadvantages as below.
Benefits
Linux based servers are very stable. The security model used on Linux makes it an easily manageable secure operating system. The best part is that Linux is open source and free to use. There are no licensing costs involved (unless you want to use the paid version). Many components used on a Linux server are freely available as well. Apache webserver which is similar to IIS on windows is free. Perl, Mysql, PHP, Python, Ruby, are some freely available programming languages you can use on a Linux server. Other components like Mail Transfer Agents (MTA) like Sendmail, Exim and others are free to use as well. This makes Linux hosting cheap and is the wide choice of people with a limited budget for hosting. HTML is platform independent and works on both Windows and Linux. So if your site has only HTML pages, Linux based hosting should be the best choice for you as it is cheaper. Open source structure is the greatest thing about Linux. You have a very wide range of freely available scripts, snippets, applications, tools etc designed to work with Linux hosting which makes it very easy for newbie webmasters/designers to build a website. Linux based servers can be used to build a very strong control interface due to their system architecture. Many popular control panels are available for Linux servers. WHM/Cpanel is one of them which is very easy to use.
Disadvantages
There are not many major disadvantages that can be listed out on Linux servers when they are secured properly at setup. The only known disadvantage of using Linux hosting is that you should be aware of some basic UNIX stuff like file permissions, ownerships etc which is sometimes confusing for new users. Linux is exploitable if the server is not secured before hand.
Conclusion
Both these hosting platforms have both benefits and disadvantages. The normal user is really the choice maker now. The base features needed when developing a site should really decide whether you want it hosted on a Linux server or a Windows server. You can use the above points to decide which platform you should choose if your site can work on either of the two. Both these platforms have been an industry standard since long and are here to stay. Your requirements, paying capacity, experience and instinct should help you decide the best one for you. Happy Host Hunting!
About the Author
Article by Shashank Wagh, Systems Administrator, Hostgator.com LLC. Hostgator.com LLC is one of the premier web hosting providers currently in business. Known for their exceptionally excellent customer support and reliable servers, Hostgator.com provides powerful hosting plans suitable for all your hosting needs. Their service options include Shared Hosting, Reseller Hosting, Semi-Dedicated Servers and Dedicated Servers, with each of them giving you the ability to host “Unlimited Domains with Unlimited Features.”
This article taken from : http://www.hostingtech.com/?m=show&id=1107&page=1 |
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