Linux vs. Windows: Which is a better Web host?
It used to be that choosing Windows or Linux to host your Web site made a big difference in the kind of functionality or services offered. On Friday, as this informative article on KnockOutHost.com suggests, the choice between Linux and Windows has become somewhat less stark.
It's not that there aren't differences between the two. Security, programming languages, and more all differ between Linux and Windows. But it's a great coup for Linux to note that, if anything, the functionality available for Linux meets and often exceeds that provided by Windows, making one's choice less about operating systems and more about the Web host's other services:
It is better to pick a Web host based on its features and services rather than on what operating system...is running on its Web servers, as the difference between the two is very little. However, if your Web site particularly requires a certain language due to the programmers you work with...it would be prudent to check for system compatibility before subscribing to a Web host.
If you do not require such specific details, you should simply sit back and let the Web host handle these complicated technical details, and focus on your Web site itself. After all, the content is way more important than the programming language or the OS of the Web servers.
Some will argue with this contention, suggesting that Linux is always better than Windows (or vice versa). It's simply not true--not anymore at least.
I believe that this is a huge step forward for Linux. It has narrowed the functionality and ease-of-use gap and, if anything, has put some distance between itself and Windows as it steps into the lead.
This is what we should want for any operating system: less attention on the operating system and more attention on higher-level features and services. It makes Linux and Windows, in this case, foundations for what users really care about. How well the operating system does its job and then gets out of the way, without calling too much attention to itself, should be the next decade of OS competition.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
Linux. Wider range of functionality and access. No ASP issues. No Microsoft tax.
But if we're talking about comparison of JSP and ASPX...
I'm not very sure about performance issues, but it's surely a lot easier to develop using Visual Studio on IIS. The key is integration which JSP/PHP development does not have.
I mean, I can create a web service (SOAP complete with WSDL etc..) in a few minutes without having to browse the internet and download Axis, etc... Also, if you want to call a stored procedure, you just create an XSD in Visual Studio and drag-and-drop the target stored procedure from a SQL Server view in Visual Studio itself... All you have to do is call the stored proc from the C# ASPX code behind.
Can the so-called LAMP match that?
ASPX is another lock in tool, and a buggy, bloated and unsecure lock in tool.
That the L in LAMP can be as easily replaced as the A, M, or P, is a huge plus.
Since 90% of the computer users are running Windows, name recognition could seriously hurt Linux on web serving. All that it takes is a simpler connection between your desktop and web server....
Still prefer Linux for web servers as I am used to it now (LAMP).
Thing is, there's still the issue of $$$. I can get a Linux-based web host server going for $0.00 in software costs, no matter what kind of hardware it sits on. Windows Server 2003/2008 OTOH has differing prices based on server processor count (Web, Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter versions) and those prices are still expensive, even at the introductory Web Edition version.
Therein lies the value of Linux (assuming all other factors were equal), at least from the host's point of view.
The point that there seems to be no difference between Windows and Linux servers suggests that Windows has made great progress. The author is assuming wrongly that Windows was the ubiquitous server previously with Linux having made much inroads in to the Web hosting arena. No!
I've been very happy with Ipower.com as a host... I think I maybe had less than 10 hours of downtime last year with them and that was because I was on an older server that had to be migrated. Other than that, their Linux servers have been extremely reliable. I do miss the older VDeck backend which was a lot easier to navigate, but I rarely ever need to go in there, since I do everything in notepad and dreamweaver and then FTP it up when ready. So about the only time I need to go into the control panel is to setup MySQL DBs or edit/drop a table or two.
"Linux is the only one that offers telnet or ssh access."
This is untrue. SSH is available for windows through packages like CopSSH or OpenSSH under a cygwin installation. You can also get commercial SSH servers for Windows without much of a problem.
The point is that SSH is available for Windows. The CopSSH install is actually pretty minimal and no more problematic than installing an application through apt or port. It works well. It doesn't give the same level of performance because of the shim layer but being that OpenSSH itself isn't building for performance the differentials aren't really measurable outside of LANs or unless you're using the hpn-ssh patches.
Yes, using the term "baby linux" is a pretty good explanation.
From http://www.cygwin.com/:
Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows. It consists of two parts:
A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux API emulation layer providing substantial Linux API functionality.
A collection of tools which provide Linux look and feel.
Why do all that? Just use Linux. There is a reason in runs most of the servers on the Internet and WWW.
When your server is 2,000 miles away it is much easier to SSH in and edit a few text files. If you want to run 20 instances of Linux on your server, it costs no more than 1. When you get your system running the way you want, but you need bigger hardware, Just copy the operating system from one box to the next.
Linux is smaller, faster, and you can compile your copy with only the services you need (Thus it is much more secure).
Windows does have some advantages like the ability to play FreeCell and compatibility with many fun viruses.
Linux is just overall better for web servers IMO.
Windows is just too bloated, especially if you have a site where every cycle counts.
And removing services and files can be unpredictable at times... speaking of files, much larger footprint in that area for Windows.
Hopefully MinWin kernel will be a little better for hosting.
I guess it's still fashionable to trash Microsoft, but IIS7 is pretty sweet, in particular because of its deep integration to .NET. The platform has borrowed and learned a great deal from the other platforms. We now have a pretty great MVC framework to use, a decent client library, open embrace of things like jQuery, and, wait for it, the source code for most of the framework.
It doesn't have to be an either-or proposition.
Really? Wow, I didn't know that companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, yellowpages.com, Amazon, the O'Reilly network, etc... (and the list goes on) I would say they are pretty big companies with rather large-ish installations.
And a quick jump over to the MySQL site shows a list of their customers. I would say that organizations like NASA and CERN aren't exactly hobbyists.
There are exceptions, but very few legitimate reason to risk your server setup on Windows,
Again, there are very few cases where using MS software and protocols is necessary. Most of the time you are doing it because you don't know any better and simply just locking yourself into an expensive and buggy treadmill.
Microsoft once tried to pull that stung in 2000, basically blocking all access to its site unless you used Internet Explorer. Within the day, folks happily reported that you can get around all of microsoft.com just fine with Konqueror or Opera as your web browser - you merely changed your browser's user agent string to mimic that of IE's.
It took less than 48 hours for the mainstream media to run with the story, and for MSFT to realize that they weren't fooling anybody... so they changed it back to where it was before. Now you still need ActiveX to get to some bits of it, but otherwise it runs just fine no matter what OS/browser combo you use.
/P
Now if Hosts were to start offering Mono on Linux to counter ASP.NET then that would be interesting!
Even were Windows license free (as in beet), they would still be far too expensive. The lack of observability, comprehensive scripting, plain text configuration files rather than proprietary databases that go corrupt at the slightest provocation, and many other terminally idiotic flaws in design make Windows the worst possible OS.
Claiming that Linux is catching up is ridiculous - Windows was never a contender, except among the magazine-reading clueless pointy-haired boss class who saddle people like me with cleaning up the mess.
The language does matter Matt. You should really understand programming if you are going to pretend you are competent enough to work for a software and services company.
Do you want to be Microsoft's b*tch, or do you want to be your own man?
Go be dependent on MS. The rest of us are happy being able to call the shots, instead of being told what we need, when we need it.
The thing is in linux it is automatic. Also you dont have to defragment your disks (filesystem does not get fragmented easily), run antivirus, or worry about hackers nearly as much. Just from a security point I though this was obvious. 80% of the exploits for webservers is for windows.
A: If you are using .Net Windows otherwise Linux.
However for typical Desktops Windows still beasts any Linux variation for ease of use,.
http://kaisercomputers.com
- by wanderson January 16, 2009 8:53 PM PST
- Many of the comments from "so-called" web professionals who advocate Microsoft Windows for web serving, particularly in large implementations are simply dillusional.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (50 Comments)A cursory look at all the "very large Media companies" - e.g. ABC, NBC (not MSNBC), Fox, PBS, CBS, NASA, Boeing, all large universities with possible exception of Cornell, and most Fortune 500 will show that most - probably more than ninety percent use *NIX. Even Akami, on whom Microsoft relies for "heavy duty" web hosting during major releases, etc. uses *NIX. Why? They could not do job themselves.
A perfect "factual" story is that were contracted MacWorld hosting company - using Windows crashed under the load - at iphone introduction, so Apple resorted to their own *NIX web hosts to stay up. Another is the European Union Public Safety and Health site - supporting more than 300 million users in twenty six countries in 10 languages. They found in test for fairness of consideration for Windows that it could not even start site up.
Give me a break you guys - this is 2009, not some fairyland in the future.
W. Anderson
wanderson@nac.net