Often times, I’m asked the question: Should I get Windows hosting or Linux hosting for my new website. This is a topic that comes up time and time again in my field of expertise and sadly, newbies often choose based on perception, not based on fact. This blog will cover some of the facts about both hosting platforms and hopefully help you make an informed decision about how you want your website hosted.
Due to perception, Windows hosting, by no doubt, is the most chosen hosting platform by newbies worldwide (in my experience). Unless my knowledge is outdated, Windows is the most popular and used operating system on the market today. I’d say that there are at least 2 windows users to every mac or Linux user out there, there are possibly as many as 5 or 6, but I will remain with a conservative estimate. Most new people who are just starting in the website world want their new website to be as compatible with everyone else as possible. Since most people use Windows, most newbies make the assumption that Windows hosting is necessary to ensure that most of their friends will be able to see their website without any compatibility issues.
Before I get to the main point, I’d like to explain how a web server acts under the hood. Deep down in the guts of the web server’s programming, there is a concept called a socket and a protocol. Sockets are used to open a connection from any web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, etc) to the web server sitting in a data center somewhere. A socket is similar to establishing a telephone call to a friend, the wires that connect both ends of the telephone receivers together can be viewed as a socket. A protocol can be simply described as a means of communication. When you’re on the telephone, there is a way that you speak, for example, you expect to hear hello before the conversation begins, and there are pauses and such as both sides understand the other. If the connection is weak, one side may ask to hear the message over again. This is the normal protocol of a telephone call. Computers are no different, they expect hello messages, acknowledgment messages and such to validate that the message each side got was the correct message. In the web’s case, this protocol is called Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Finally, there is data that is passed through the socket. The data follows the protocol specification. On the telephone, you’d begin speaking English, then once done, you’d wait for the other side to return its response in English. Most web browsers understand HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and this is passed through the socket. The last paragraph has been ultra simplified so that you can get the idea.
Contrary to popular belief, Windows hosting is actually just as compatible with the world as Linux hosting is! Because of HTTP, all web servers must communicate using a single protocol which is HTTP. All browsers that work with the web send an HTTP request to a web server for a certain content and the web server returns it. It may not always be plain text (HTML is written in plain text), but at times it may be binary (1/0 encoded) data that contains an image or other files. Regardless, the web server must be uniform in a response, it is up to the browser how this data may be displayed.
ASIDE: Most web developers are annoyed about how they HAVE to test Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari to make sure that their web page looks correct. Browsers all will get the same exact data from the server, but they parse the data differently. Think of English, I’m sure that you’ve been in situations where you misunderstood the other party and therefore took a different action. Computer browsers parse (or understand) the same web page differently, so they may display web pages a bit different than other browsers. To implement (program) a browser, you need to look at the specification of the HTTP protocol and HTML language then give the browser methods to display what it understands. There is no single way to write a parser, therefore all parsers (browsers in this case) may produce slightly different results. In the past, Microsoft has been the worst offender since they didn’t fully implement the HTML specification which is well known, but they’ve gotten much better.
Back to the original topic, since all servers have to return the same exact data, it doesn’t matter what operating system is on the server, it will return the same compatible data regardless. So now, what are the differences between Windows and Linux based hosting?
Windows Hosting-
- Price: Just like with your copy of Windows on your local computer, a copy of Windows for a server is quite pricey. If you want the latest and greatest Windows Server version (currently 2008 R2), you are looking at anywhere between $300-$1500 PER COPY of Windows Server 2008 R2. This is on top of the costs to keep the server running in a data center that is climate controlled and sufficiently powered (backup systems in place, multiple excellent internet connections to many providers).
- Stability: Windows has a monthly release of updates from Microsoft, sometimes these are more frequent as important issues are found and fixed. Normally, 99% of Windows updates require a reboot of the server. During the reboot, your websites are not accessible. Therefore, you can easily look at 5 to 10 minutes of downtime at least once per month if your host cares anything about security.
- Ease of administration: Most administrators start in Windows and never leave because Windows typically babies the administrator through any task. Windows has really nice wizards that take all the difficulty out of administration. Windows also typically can fix itself if it runs into issues, so there is less time spent fixing problems. Unfortunately, since administrators don’t need to know a lot to get by with Windows, some security measures are often overlooked.
- Control Panels: These are often desired in hosting since it gives the client the power to do anything with their website space, including create accounts, view statistics, add additional domains, control email accounts and more. There are 4 control panels that I’m aware of, they are dotnetpanel, vdeck, plesk, helm. All 4 of these controls panels can cost anywhere from $20-$100/month to maintain from their suppliers.
- Supported Languages: ASP.net, ASP, JSP, Perl (CGI), PHP, Python, Ruby, etc
- Supported Database Servers: MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle, etc
Linux Hosting-
- Price: Linux is free, so you’re really looking at the bare cost to keep the server running in a data center. This dramatically reduces the cost of hosting.
- Stability: In my experience, I see the need to reboot a Linux server every 4 to 5 months due to a major security vulnerability that involves the kernel (the heart of Linux). Linux can be easily updated without a reboot, so clients typically experience much less down time.
- Ease of administration: Linux has very few wizards and graphical screens that say “let me baby you through this dreaded task”. In fact, Linux is 99% controlled by the command line when it is used as a server. Often, Linux often will not even notify the administrator that there is a problem directly. Therefore, administrators tend to monitor Linux more closely. They also know the command line more because to get a server running in Linux takes a lot more knowledge than it does in Windows. Linux administrators are also more likely to know about security measures more because they read more about flaws that are found. This makes Linux administrators get a better pay check, but in the end, Linux tends to be very stable because the admins really know what they’re doing (in most cases).
- Control Panels: Like Windows, control panels on Linux cost between $20-$100/month from their suppliers. The most common panel for Linux is CPanel, Plesk also exists. These give you full control over your web space and in many cases, they also simply the administrator’s job by doing the hand editing of vital configuration files automatically (like Windows would do).
- Supported Languages: JSP, Perl (CGI), PHP, Python, Ruby, etc
- Supported Database Servers: MySQL, Oracle, etc
So, I’ve done a comparison, what is the verdict? In my humble opinion, Linux is by far my choice of a hosting platform. Although Linux admins may cost a little more, they really don’t cost enough more to make it unreasonable (Windows admins make a good pay check too!). It does everything that Windows can do and more. There is just one catch with Linux. Linux doesn’t support Microsoft SQL Server or ASP.NET (active server pages) fully (You can achieve partial support using MONO). Therefore, if you must have a website that uses either MSSQL or ASP/ASP.NET, I’m afraid that you have no choice if you want your website to work without problems. Most websites are programmed in PHP, so this is rarely a problem, but for some businesses that started long before PHP was created, ASP is a need, therefore, Windows is needed.
Yet another Aside: You may have noticed that not too long ago, I added a new Windows server to Matthouse (bit). This was added because I do not have a lot of ASP experience and I thought it would be nice to get some experience with it. I’ve decided to use ASP to pull data from Microsoft Exchange to display a new calendar on FamousPhil. I hope that this is done by the end of August! Unfortunately, I cannot access Exchange from PHP, so I had no real choice but using ASP.net to pull data.
This blog post was made because I’ve always seen newbies go for Windows without a real reason. Its sort of like the Mac fans who fight to get Mac products for no real advantage over something like the Android OS on Verizon Phones. Hopefully this blog post will convince you that Linux is indeed a better choice unless you seriously want to learn or use ASP.net for your website.
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Tags: choice, hosting, Linux, windows
Posted in Hosting / Server Administration, Programming, Technology
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Cheers for this article. When running a site, selecting the best web hosting company can be difficult because of the large variety of web hosting options to select, and because it’s not easy to decide whether you can trust the web host you’re with – Will they keep your files safe? Will they be reliable and keep your sites online? On the plus side, I find that researching the web host can help to find out whether they’re good or not. For this reason, I always find out other customers opinions of the web hosting company before using them.
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