Linux and Windows Web Hosting Comparison
When choosing a website hosting solution the first thing you should consider is the proper operating system for your system. The major hosting operating systems include Linux and Microsoft Windows. There are also unpopular solutions possible through Unix and Macintosh but you will often find less support for these platforms.
This article will focus on the popular solutions of Windows and Linux. Based on a given requirement each operating system serves their unique purpose. Comparisons below are made about important aspects of each operating system.
Security
Security is one of the most important areas within the industry. It is a common misunderstanding that windows servers contain more vulnerabilities than Linux servers. Security risks are often the fault of the administration rather than the operating system. Ensuring that your software updates and security patches as well as other tasks are always up to date is just part of a good security administrator?s job. As software evolves there will always be new security risks and this will not change. For security, look at your server management team rather than the operating system.
Access
The most common type of server access is FTP and both platforms allow this type of access. Both operating systems allow standard to advanced control panels. The major difference here is that Linux is able to support SSH and telnet access. Windows has the ability to support telnet however it is neither standard nor common.
File Types
Windows and Linux both support standard HTML, Cold Fusion and JavaScript files. At one point it wasn?t possible to use FrontPage extensions on a Linux server but it is now possible for Linux based servers to run FrontPage file types. Perl and CGI platforms are often supported by Linux rather than windows. If you need to use either of these file types on windows be sure that the software is specifically supported. PHP is commonly supported under Linux while ASP is commonly supported by Windows.
Databases
This is often where platforms can make a difference. Access databases are only supported by Windows where MySQL databases are more commonly found on Linux servers but are still supported by Windows servers. Many users maintaining their databases through access will want to run a windows server and vise versa.
There was a time where operating systems made a big difference. Currently, most platforms are supported on both Linux and Windows. Just be sure when shopping for a server that you have everything you need to fully develop your project.
on June 4, 2009 at 5:18 pm
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Best thing about Linux is that you can practically run it on anything. To comfortably fetch up websites and files using say Ubuntu linux, you should probably look for something equivalent to a later model Intel P3 or AMD Athlon (hopefully in the 1GHz range), 512MB or more RAM (you can comfortably run Ubuntu with 256MB, but for web server usage, you'll probably want more than that), and a good deal of hard disk space. A gigabit ethernet NIC is recommended, but you can do fine with a standard 10/100 NIC.
I'd suggest going on eBay or browsing through your local classified adverts, and finding a used comptuer and then simply install some extra hard drives into it. I reckon you can build a very speedy and reliable server for less than $250 total!
on June 4, 2009 at 7:02 pm
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It depends entirely on what the server is expected to do.
If you are looking for a stable and secure platform for services that are to be exposed to the internet you may choose one platform, if you are looking for something that easily integrates with a windows environment and has lots of pretty widgets for administration you may choose another.
A great deal of it comes down to the personal taste of the administrator, what type of package management system (RPM, Deb, Pkg, etc) he prefers, and what type of start up scriptsdirectory structures he's confortable with.
Ultimately most of the major linux distributions have something unique and desirable to offer (otherwise they wouldn't be around for too long).
One other thing that may influence the decision is the need for commercial applications, you are more likely to use one of the "big box" flavors if you need Oracle or other business software support.
Finally, it depends on the size of the support staff at the company in question and how heavily they will need to lean on the support (or lack thereof) provided by the software distributor.
on June 5, 2009 at 7:53 pm
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I doubt you have any good reason to switch (i.e. someone said you should but you don't understand why). I doubt you know what would happen if you switched. I also doubt you asked godaddy how to do it.