Linux vs Windows Web Hosting: Top Five Reasons That Could Change Your Mind

Posted by Ahmad Barirani in Web Development      2 comments

Nov
1

So you wrote and tested your new web application using PHP-MySQL and you’re wondering about Linux vs Windows web hosting. If you are like me, you don’t want to get involved with web server administration and especially not with server up-time. You want to concentrate on the business side, which made you consider choosing a web hosting service where you’ll have everything you need to get your website up and running for less than 10$/month. If this is your case, this article is to help you in the decision of a Linux vs Windows web hosting service.

Before I go any further, I would like to warn readers that are used to my critiques of Windows OS that when it comes to the server market, I am much more friendly to Windows. The main reason for this apparent confusion is that I mainly criticize Windows because of the perverse effects of its domination of the desktop market. This is less true in the server market where balance exist between 3 main players: Unix, Linux and Windows.

Linux vs Windows web hosting is not really an issue if you are a strictly PHP-MySQL developer and that after 10 years of web development, it never occurred to you to use an ASP.NET-based module. You’ll never need ASP.NET or SQL Server to run your application, so why bother? I would like to point a few reasons that are related to my own experience:

1. There’s not a big difference in price:  most Linux vs Windows web hosting difference in price is around 1$/month. If you need a dedicated server, price differences are in the same proportions. However, this price difference is only a fraction of your development or maintenance costs. Even if your website is not making money, you’re time is worth a lot more than you might think. See it this way: if you spend 20 hours a week developing and maintaining your website that is not making money, you are losing 20 times 50$/hour equals 1000$/week not working as a freelance consultant. If you do spend this time on your website, it is because you think it is worth the investment of 1000$/week. So why try to save 12$/year? Of course, this is if you live in North America and Europe where 1$/month doesn’t make a big difference in your pocket.
2. You’re not loosing anything with Windows: most Windows web hosts will include PHP-MySQL. FastCGI on IIS 7 will host PHP with no problems. For that extra dollar, you’ll also be compatible with ASP.NET and SQL Server. If you are going to host many websites, then this option is going to be very attractive, especially if you might have to deploy solutions that are developed in ASP.NET (ex: Kigg, DotNetNuke).
3. ASP.NET is gaining market share: C# is gaining popularity amongst developers. Therefore, chances that the next hot module is developed in .NET increases with time. Let’s say you found this great addition to your website and that it is written in ASP.NET. Does your Linux web host support mono project? If not, you’re not going to be able to use that addition.
4. Windows gained some market share: same thing goes here for windows platform. Until 2006, Apache was de facto choice of web server. But Windows 2003 and IIS were stable enough to convince enough webmasters to own more that one fifth of the market today. This means that a lot of innovative will show up on the Windows platform exclusively and that you might not want to miss them.
5. Don’t go crazy over security: The strongest argument against Windows is security. Don’t forget that this is true for the desktop market where 90% of PCs run on Windows, making it the dream target for hackers. However, when it comes to web servers, it is the website’s popularity that comes in play. What it means that unless you are not having huge traffic, security is not really an issue. When you’ll get traffic, you’ll need to invest in security and that is going to cost you as much in both platforms because the real cost again is in human resources as opposed to the platform.

In this article, I have explored the case of Linux vs Windows web hosting for those who want to outsource web server administration. This will be an issue in the first few months where traffic is not important. But even after, when you’ll have a clientele, the platform is not an issue. The big reason is that human resource costs are the main operations cost for your business. Since Windows will give more compatibility and interoperability, it becomes a wiser decision to go for this platform, as a lot of webmasters are going for it.