Linux or Windows Hosting?

16 May, 2005 at 12:06pm ET Article published in Tech

Techzone has posted an article looking at two of the main web hosting platforms, Linux and Windows.

View: Linux vs. Windows, Does It Make A Difference

This article is going to offer information for those trying to decide which hosting company to go with. The cost involved in running a server does not affect the cost of a web-hosting package as much as you may think. Despite the general opinion that Windows servers are more expensive to run, buying a Windows hosting package can often turn out to be just as cheap or even cheaper than an equivalent Linux hosting package.

Source: Techzone

Comments

20 May 2005 ~ 9:42pm Nosferatu If you're not completely clueless as to managing your website, of course it makes a difference. Especially when it comes to the software, performance, and the usefulness of the command line at getting things done quick.
20 May 2005 ~ 9:43pm Nosferatu * err, that is the command line in UNIX-like OS's of course.
20 May 2005 ~ 11:35pm GrayFox Yup I will take my console over X any day
22 May 2005 ~ 4:01pm Rob Bad article. I get a strong feeling of someone just looking from the outside at server management rather than a usefull reference or introduction. The intro grabed me though, sounded interesting. But, some of it is misleading and generally lacking in what you should know to make a choice.
22 May 2005 ~ 4:52pm Shorty

Rob wrote:

Bad article. I get a strong feeling of someone just looking from the outside at server management rather than a usefull reference or introduction. The intro grabed me though, sounded interesting. But, some of it is misleading and generally lacking in what you should know to make a choice.

Agreed.

This is a little too pro-Redmond.

I think there are necessary markets for both hosting platforms.

I would never ever want to host PHP & MySQL on a windows platform. Despite fastCGI & Isapi, Windows cannot touch a *NIX based OS on performance.

Of course, for .NET, Windows is your way to go.

Horses for course
22 May 2005 ~ 6:27pm Rob

Shorty wrote:

I would never ever want to host PHP & MySQL on a windows platform.

The hard part is realizing that linux isn't any better, unless it is maintained. Slaping a apache or MySQL onto a windows box isn't any better or worst than doing the same on Linux. Linux can be worst at times, at least Microsoft will provide support for the base OS.

BUT, with company's like Redhat offering long term binary stable platforms through patching, apache, PHP and MySQL become stable platforms compairable to Win/.NET enviroments. Notably mentioning Suse and Debian to the same cause, just cause someone is going to complain

Just slapping anything on either OS is going to cause trouble in the long term.

Of course, it is also still nice to be able to roll your own OS when the need arises too.
23 May 2005 ~ 1:52am Shorty

Rob wrote:

The hard part is realizing that linux isn't any better, unless it is maintained. Slaping a apache or MySQL onto a windows box isn't any better or worst than doing the same on Linux. Linux can be worst at times, at least Microsoft will provide support for the base OS.

BUT, with company's like Redhat offering long term binary stable platforms through patching, apache, PHP and MySQL become stable platforms compairable to Win/.NET enviroments. Notably mentioning Suse and Debian to the same cause, just cause someone is going to complain

Just slapping anything on either OS is going to cause trouble in the long term.

Of course, it is also still nice to be able to roll your own OS when the need arises too.

My argument is more from a developer standpoint

There are several variables & functions prebuilt into PHP that are not available when it's running as as CGI (which it can only be under Windows including if you use apache). That is just one argument. It is also welll documented (google it if you like) and provent that CGI / ISAPI performance of PHP under Windows is terribly inefficent in comparison to module based under NIX.

Even if both boxes were set up like crap, the NIX will perform better in almost all cases purely because the base PHP binary is proven (as you rightly say) to simply perform better under that platform

I love my Win / .NET environment where I work. Im a convert to that school of thinking but I think theres a place for both systems and it's completely dependant on needs.

One is not better than the other, it's what you need and how you implement it