Windows Vs. Linux Web Hosting
By Abhay Taneja
When choosing a service, one can get confused about whether to go with a Linux based provider or a Windows based. This article discusses the differences between the two operating systems in regards to their capabilities. Even though these two operating systems have some differences in regard to but both provide equally reliable and efficient hosting services. Though some experts argue that Linux servers are better than Windows servers in terms of speed, reliability or performance but these differences are marginal at best. The main point to be considered is how you intend to develop your website and what services will be required by it.

Uploading Files


Some people mistakenly assume that if you run Windows on your computer you can only upload your files on to a Windows server. This is not the case as both Windows and Linux servers allow FTP access to upload your files on them. While Linux allows other ways to also access your server files such as SSH or Telnet. These services are also now available on several Windows servers as well. Also previously support for Microsoft FrontPage extensions to upload files from Microsoft FrontPage was only available on Windows servers but now it is also available on Linux servers.

Server side scripts

For simple HTML based websites it doesn’t matter whether you are hosting on either Linux or Windows OS. But if you are planning to have server side scripts then you need to consider which scripts run best on which system. Server side scripts are most commonly written in PHP, ASP Perl or ColdFusion. Windows servers provide support

for all these script types, but PHP and Perl run best on Linux based systems as these programming languages were originally developed for Linux. ASP doesn’t run on Linux OS and is only available on Windows. Also if you are testing your web scripts on a Linux OS computer it is best that you go with a Linux server, as this make it reliable for you to upload your scripts and run them.

Databases

Another point of difference between Linux and Windows based servers is their support for databases. The two most popular databases for are mySQL or Access. Access only runs on Windows servers while mySQL can run on both Linux and Windows but its implementation for Windows may not be as good as its implementation for Linux as it was originally developed to be used for UNIX based systems.

Security and Reliability

Both Windows and Linux servers provide reliable and secure services. There have been several instances where Linux servers have been hacked into as there have been about Windows servers as well. For security it is more important to consider the provider service in terms of how they maintain their servers. You should go with a credible provider where administrators are careful about keeping up the security of their servers, than be concerned about the differences in security of Windows or Linux servers.

In summary, both Windows and Linux servers provide comparable features and it can’t be stated that one is better than the other. The point to consider is what features you will need for your website and which server provides the best implementation for those features.
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