One of the most confusing decisions someone new to web hosting will have to make is which platform their server should be on. There are a number of different choices out there but the main two are Linux and Windows web servers.

Which operating system you run on your computer is irrelevant in making your decision. This means that if you are running Windows98 or WindowsXP on your computer, you can still choose Linux.

Linux is an open source system and is therefore more cost-effective to operate and maintain than Windows, meaning that Linux hosting will cost you less than Windows hosting. Linux also has a reputation for stability and speed which means that Linux web servers will crash less often than Windows web servers and Linux runs most processes faster than Windows.

Linux supports a wide range of software, applications, languages, and databases such as PHP, Perl, PostGre, MySQL, PostgreSQL and many others making it very scalable. On the downside, Linux is not fully compatible with some Microsoft technologies so if you are using Access, ASP, MS SQL, or VB development tools then Windows would be a better bet.

In terms of performance there's not a huge difference between the two servers. Linux reportedly performs faster because Windows (as usual) attempts to offer an 'all in one' package instead of the extendable Linux implementation. You'll generally not notice a difference but if performance is of utmost importance to you then maybe this will influence your decision.

The industry consensus is that Linux is more reliable and stable than windows 2003. Even though our windows 2003 servers are of a high spec to make them as reliable and as stable as possible Linux servers still have the edge.

There is no real difference in terms of speed between the two web hosting platforms. However Linux is slightly faster processing basic web page data.

(Posted By Nia on Friday, June 23, 2006)