Which is Good: Linux hosting or windows hosting and WHY?

i want to take hosting for my website which is not live, i am confused about between Linux hosting and windows hosting,

please suggest

Windows is a lot more restrictive with permissions. If you control the server you can change the permissions yourself; if it is a shared host you need to persuade the hosts to change them and they do not like doing it.

I had a php contact form on a server and it would not send; I contact the hosts who refused to change the permissions and so I changed hosts to a Linux server and it worked without problem.

I think if you are working with php I would stick to a Linux one.

What does your site do? What language is it written in (or is it just static HTML)? There are advantages and disadvantages to both. However, in some cases, it is dead easy to decided.

If you are using any .NET language for your site, you should host on Windows. Mono hosting is just not there yet (at least I wouldn’t qualify it for Prod use). PHP, Perl, Ruby, etc all run very well on Linux using either Nginx, Apache, etc. They can run equally as well on Windows, but keep in mind that wasn’t their target platform, so they might not run best there (and some of their functionality may not be available on Windows).

If you plan to use or need multi-threading, I’d go with .NET, unless you want to build an elaborate system in PHP that mimics multi-threading (it can be done).

Don’t be fooled by permissions being more robust in one system over another, Linux has a very thorough permission system and Windows over the past several years has greatly improved theirs as well. You can also lock down both systems fairly easy anymore.

So that brings you back to what does your system do and what language was it written in?

I always run on Linux platform, unless the code is developed under .NET framework with MS SQL Server.

How about Google Go (golang), or Erlang, which are both highly concurrent? Or, for PHP, a asynchronous worker solution like you can achieve with beanstalkd?

[ot]My biggest gripe with PHP and multi-threaded applications is they aren’t out of the box. I find it more often than not, I need it (probably because I work on such odd projects that either do a LOT of data crunching or have the ability to make good use of parallel processing).

In .NET it is SO simple to spawn multiple processes and then wait for all to finish before proceeding (once you get to the point where the results are needed). With PHP, you have a LOT of hoops to jump through before you can even begin to start that. You have to install and test multiple components that try and implement it, you then have to configure it for each environment, and so on. It just irritates me to no end.

I’m also not a huge fan of mixing and matching languages in a project unless there is a significant boost in performance or flexibility to meet the requirements in a short time frame. Having a system that is fluid in one language makes it easier on devs to be able to quickly work in all parts, versus, if your async processing is in one language and your presentation another, you could be siloing your devs (again personal opinion).

I really don’t think it would be THAT difficult for PHP to properly implement asynchronous operations, especially since they are pushing OOP. Take a look at the Parallel Library in .NET, that made things DEAD simple and it is very powerful.[/ot]

end rant

In the end, (no offense to you @neotericuk ; ), the system you run on should be determined before your project really is off the ground. You should be developing against it, testing against it, and eventually deploying to it. You should be using the requirements to determine what language suits it best, taking into consideration the tools that are available to each system, etc. Certain languages are good at specific tasks, others are kind of a hodge podge and can be utilized for just about any project (though they may suffer a few performance hits here and there if they weren’t specifically designed for what you were attempting; or require a lot of additional components…).

Linux is a good option in terms of price and security but windows can be more helpful for you if you need GUI.

thanks

I agree with Rubble. Plus it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish with your web design, performance and content.

Linux and Windows are two kinds of operating systems. Windows is more powerful at desktop and most of sites are powered by Linux servers. To decide which host to use, it depends on how your site being built. If your site built with php, like wordpress, then Linux will be a better choice.

Both Linux and Windows is good, the most i prefer the best in terms of quality and and reliability is Windows, and easy accessibility. These are a very few pros that i would go for Windows Hosting rather than Linux Hosting.

I’m not sure I agree with you at all on that analysis. Both Windows and Linux have quality and are reliable when setup properly. As far as Accessibility, I definitely disagree and must give Linux the edge as you can access it remotely and perform any task via the command line, good luck doing that with Windows. You must have a way to remote in unless using a tool specifically for managing IIS (or unless they greatly changed things with Windows Server 2008, but I don’t think they changed that much).

Hi Neotericuk,

Although all websites run either on Linux server or Windows server. But we can’t say that windows hosting is better than Linux hosting or Linux hosting is better than Windows because both have their own pros and cons. Basically PHP/PERL/MySQL (Linux based technologies) runs on a Linux server and ASP/ASP.NET (A Microsoft based technology) runs on a windows server.

Some reputed hosts like Godady (there may be some other) offer PHP and MySql on windows server is well.

But still vast majority of sites use Linux based server because Linux has a strong reputation for the security and web server performance. Linux may be faster in some reasons and apart from this Linux is cheaper than Windows as Linux is free open source but in the case of Window it does not apply.

So finally it depend on the needs if you want your site in PHP then you should choose Linux platform and if you want your site in ASP.NET then you should choose Windows platform.

Thanks
Gajender

Linux hosting and windows hosting has some good and bad features in it . It depends on the website code you are using . Mostly linux server are prefered as they are cheap and has high security measures taken in it . Windows server also has some good security features enabled by default in it . So it depends on you which platform you should go.

Folks,

When posting about the benefits/drawbacks of each hosting platform, please be specific. Comments that are simply sweeping generalizations will be removed from this point forward.

Thanks :slight_smile:

Do you run on ASP or .NET? Would you be needing full database access via MSSQL? If so, you should probably go with Windows. Bear in mind, however, that Windows requires a license to run which means it will be more expensive to host on.

Linux is your versatile hosting platform. Can’t go very wrong with it, unless you have niche requirements.

Thanks for your input everyone. Considering that the OP has not responded in quite some time and that there haven’t been any additional responses with a significant amount of detail, this thread is now closed.

If anyone wishes to start a new thread discussing something specific between the two platforms, you are perfectly welcome to do so.