When choosing between website hosting plans one of the choices to be made is whether to use Linux web site hosting or Windows. The aim of this post is to provide a simple non-technical explanation to help in making that choice. However, in practice, most people will be better off focusing on the service provided by the hosting provider, such as customer support.
Firstly a few key factors:
- The operating system used by your web hosting service is not connected to your PC operating system. Knowing Windows well will not mean that it is easier to use Windows hosting.
- Most web sites are powered by Linux servers using the Apache webserver so support for Linux is good.
- Linux is open source so there are no license fees involved. As a result Linux web site hosting may be slightly less expensive.
- There has been debate about the reliability, security and performance of the two platforms but for practical purposes they can be assumed to be the same.
If you are just going to build a standard web site then either Linux or Windows will be fine. Site builder software will probably be supplied with your hosting plan but 3rd party software can also be used.
If you are building a database driven site you need to be careful. If you are going to use the popular WordPress publishing platform it is best to go for Linux.
There are technologies which only work with one operating system and others that work more easily with one. If you are having a site built for you the developers will advise on the hosting requirements, otherwise your choice depends on what you want to do.
Windows hosting is appropriate when:
You will be employing Microsoft databases (Access, SQL Server) or ASP or .NET.
Use Linux Web Site Hosting if:
You will be employing a MySQL database or using CGI, PHP or Perl.
Bottom Line
If you need a Microsoft environment then go for Windows. If you don’t (or don’t know) go for Linux web site hosting.
