Windows Hosting vs Linux Hosting
This is an interesting question asked many times over the Internet. Which is Operating System of choice when considering the platform for web hosting? It doesn’t matter whether you are opting for shared web hosting or dedicated hosting; many hosting companies offered both options – so what are the differences between them?
Hosting Prices
If you do a web search for web hosting packages, you will find that Windows hosting option is likely to be more expensive than Linux hosting. Why is this so? This is likely due to the license charges for proprietary software packages used in Windows hosting – including Windows Server licenses. On the other hand, Linux offers more variety of open sourced licenses and hence the cheaper prices.
Website Development
Windows hosting is suitable for companies who adopt Microsoft .Net technologies as a standard development platform for their website, or have been building websites using FrontPage. This is especially true for those opting for dedicated Windows hosting as there will be lesser associated training, development and deployment costs. The ease of integration with other Windows products also makes this kind of hosting a viable choice for Microsoft-centric web content providers.
Linux dedicated hosting, on the other hand, is more suitable for those on the LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) platform primarily using PHP as a tool for website development. Linux junkies, however, will like the “total control” the shell scripts offered by Linux. PHP is a matured development platform of choice for the open community and had been adopted by major content providers, including Facebook.
Dedicated hosting generally provides more flexibilities and options to deliver contents over the Internet. With dedicated hosting, you can install different types of web scripting engines to host your application. For example, for those savvy with Java Server Pages (JSP) technology, you can easily configure it in your dedicated hosting server and start loading your application in no time. This is not usually possible in shared web hosting, as JSP is not commonly available in such platform.
For those opting for shared web hosting, it doesn’t really matter which are the underlying operating systems. This is because most web hosting companies provide GUI based site configuration tools e.g. cpanel hosting tool, to help you managed your sites. You will have no problems with other third party application installations, such as WordPress, Joomla etc, as these installations are usually provided as a package, regardless of which hosting platform. Moreover, it is very common to find PHP and MySQL hosted even on Windows shared hosting. However, recall that Windows hosting, even for shared hosting, can be considerably more expensive than Linux hosting. Thus, with everything things being equal, Linux hosting is recommended if you are considering hosting your site in a shared hosting.
Performance and Resources
In terms of processes handling, Linux is known to be better than Windows and it offers more flexibility to manage processes. Linux is also known to be less “resource hungry” and requires lesser memory resources to operate. Thus, for the same memory configuration and server configuration, it is no surprising that Linux hosting offers more “bang for buck”. Correspondingly, you will find you need higher memory requirements to run Windows. That also partially explains why Windows hosting can be more expensive than Linux hosting.
In Conclusion…Which One to Choose?
There are no conclusive “right or wrong” answers which platform i.e. Windows Hosting or Linux Hosing is a better choice. My recommendation would be:
For shared hosting, I would recommend Linux hosting; simply because of its cost effectiveness. Most hosting companies would have restricted your accesses to a configuration web page with instant installation scripts for 3rd party applications. So, it wouldn’t make a huge difference, except for the prices.
For dedicated hosting, the choice of the platform would really depend on your technical expertise, your selected development language, your familiarity with the operating systems and how much flexibility and controls you require over the web site. Choose only the platform which you can easily administer and deliver your contents in lighting speed. At the end, it is the content that will bring you traffic and ultimately money, not the choice of platforms.
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