As a web hosting company, we get many clients asking us about the difference between Windows Hosting versus Linux Hosting and which is the better contender. The truth is, they’re both great! It all depends on your website’s requirements. As with many things, both Linux and Windows come with their own advantages and disadvantages. We have gathered a list of pros and cons for each platform and hopefully, this will help you determine the best option. So, if you still cannot decide between Windows Hosting versus Linux Hosting, keep reading!

 

Windows Hosting

 

Generally, Windows hosting is catered towards sites that use ASP, FrontPage, .NET environment, Access, MS SQL or any of Microsoft’s proprietary technologies. Microsoft offers both ASP and ASP.net as scripting tools.  ASP.NET is utilized for building and deploying dynamic web services, web applications, and/or websites.

 

Pros of Windows Hosting:

 

  • IIS (Internet Information Server) is a foundation for web hosting as it enables both ASP and ASP.NET and other languages
  • Windows Server Web Edition is specifically designed for windows web hosting
  • Developers can integrate COM objects and data access into web applications
  • Offers Visual Basic, Access, and MS SQL

Cons of Windows Hosting:

 

  • Will most likely face issues when trying to convert over to Linux hosting
  • Microsoft Licenses could be extremely costly to you and your company
  • More prone to vulnerabilities as opposed to Linux

 

Linux Hosting

 

Anybody can access software based on the GNU General Public License. As a result, there are various distributions/flavors of Linux, including Red Hat, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, SUSE Linux, and many more.

You will most likely encounter an acronym relative to Linux such as LAMP, which stands for the original four open-source components:

  • Linux
  • Apache
  • MySQL
  • PHP, Python, or Perl

 

Pros of Linux Hosting:

 

  • Can be modified and/or improved and then distributed to the public
  • Allows use of other open-sources, such as database applications (ex. MySQL) or scripting software (ex. PHP, Python, Perl)
  • Generally, most open-sources are free! This can be great economically as it is cost-efficient
  • More flexible than Windows
  • Known to be more stable and secure
  • Can switch to Windows hosting smoothly
  • Consumes less space as opposed to Windows, which also plays a role in speed

 

Cons of Linux Hosting: 

 

  • May be challenging if you are a novice user
  • Little to no support for proprietary applications unless it is an Enterprise version
  • Not all programs are available to Linux

 

Conclusion

 

Both platforms offer a range of applications that can be useful to you and your website(s). Again, this is entirely up to both your site and server requirements. Linux and Windows both allow customers to access the server. With both services, you can access your files through FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

In terms of performance, there is not a huge difference between the two servers. Linux reportedly performs faster because Windows attempts to offer an ‘all-in-one’ package instead of the extendable Linux implementation. You will generally not notice a difference but if performance is important to you then opting for Linux is best.

Windows hosting wins over Linux hosting in terms of the advanced features it offers whereas Linux hosting offers a more cost-effective solution and is generally more powerful if you can work your way around it. It is easier to move a website hosted on the Linux server to the Windows server than doing it the other way around. Ultimately, the choice of web hosting is in your hands.

 

Good luck! If you have any questions about Windows Hosting versus Linux Hosting, feel free to ask them in the comments below or contact us.