Linux Hosting vs Windows Hosting
For anyone wanting to load data on the Internet will require the services of a Web Host. The services offered through web hosting have evolved from simple HTML pages and sites with a few images into sophisticated web based applications, interactive web sites where end users can purchase goods and services over the Internet.
The Internet has been promoted as a tool to integrate global businesses with the help of Web Based software applications. This has given rise to several web based technologies such as ASP, ASP.NET, JSP and PHP.
Web hosting platforms vary from different types of operating systems. Microsoft Windows Server and Redhat Linux are considered two of the most well known web hosting platforms.
The Linux platform has been developed by community based efforts and rendered for professional use with the efforts of many IT companies like Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake and the like. This combined with the open source of Linux makes it extremely powerful, inexpensive and secure. Besides, all major web-based technologies work well with Linux. The virtually free distribution of PHP, MySQL, PERL has decreased the costs of the website hosting tremendously on the Linux Server. Moreover, Linux experiences much less risk of viruses, because of its robust architecture as well as the cost effective software available for protection.
Linux as compared to Windows has some distinct benefits. These are:
- Linux/Unix operating systems are typically considered very stable and robust. Web sites housed on a Linux operating system are known to have very high up-time, always about 99.9%
- The Linux OS comes free or at negligible costs. Also, it has full fledged server, and desk top applications that comes free along with the OS.
- It is very easy to host on Linux web servers due to its user-friendly nature. You can use almost all types of file extensions (or scripts) when using Linux web server.
- A web site designed to be hosted on a Linux based web server can be hosted on a Windows web server easily, where as the reverse is not always true. Linux/Unix based web hosting is most widely used compared to Windows based web hosting.
- By virtue of a web site being dynamic, the scalability and future growth of a web site are critical. It is essential to remember that although a web site may begin with a few pages of HTML, it may expand over a period of time to suit varied customers requirements. A web site designed for compatibility with a Linux/Unix based web server meets these requirements easily without having to make significant site-wide changes.