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The new entries in the web world will totally get confused as to what to choose for their servers. There are several options available but the two main competitors among several options are Linux and Windows web servers. One can easily avail the information about the hosting through many sources but the majority is contaminated by the author’s biased personal opinion unfortunately making the issue complicated. One should just indulge in deep study researching the topic and then it wont matter as to which server to use. For majority of people it is most important to choose a really good web host and for them type of server does not matter.

Microsoft is the owner and developer of the Windows operating system but Linux is generally free and an open source. So this means that the windows server is more expensive to ran and set up. Generally the monetary factor don’t effect the user if he/she is actually setting a server for him/her self. One should get through the entire information thoroughly about hosting before he/she is going to choose one among the two. Any of the web-hosting packages will not affect the budget very much. This is a general opinion that windows servers are more expensive to run than Linux. But actually web-hosting packages can easily be available at cheaper rates and some times even cheaper than the Linux hosting package

Some people form a wrong opinion that if their pc is running on windows, so they need to buy windows hosting package only, which is not at all correct. The access to one’s web account is possible thorough FTP or a control panel and both the types of servers support these methods. However the main point of difference between the two is that some of the FTP commands are slightly different between Linux and Windows and some FTP programs are designed with one or the other in mind. Thus it clearly means that if one tries and gets his/her FTP program to do something it returns an error message, but the good thing is such things did not happen very often but only occasionally.

One’s choice of server will depend upon the way he is using it. The large number of web features run perfectly on both platforms including PHP, MySQL, POP3 active one intends to create his/her site using ASP, FrontPage, the .NET environment, Windows Streaming Media, Access, MSSQL, or any of the other Microsoft proprietary technologies then he/she should definitely opt for a Windows host. Linux have a limited support for a number of these technologies, but the drawback is they are expensive and usually lack several features. It is a true fact that if one is using server specific technologies and later tries opts for changing his/her host; in that case he/she will have to face tough time. Running generic technologies eradicates one’s need to focus on specifics and allows one to focus solely on the quality of service itself.

Generally, reliability and stability of the different platforms are the topics of many long arguments. The reason behind treating Windows as insecure is that it is the most widely used operating system for home PC’s and people devotes more time looking for mistakes in the most common system. In case of Linux, it is the most common server type and surprisingly has a number of successful hack attempts made on it. Coming on the security issue, in case of both the platforms the security measures depend upon the competency of the system administrators. Thus if one is security minded then he/she should make sure about the reputation and reliability of the hosting company rather than just worrying about the type of server they are using.

As per the performance there are not many differences between Linux and Windows but the performance of Linux is more better in terms of speed in comparison to Windows, as Windows is all in one package and have to perform more functions than Linux. In most cases this difference remains unnoticed but if the user pays much attention on the performance then this will definitely influence his/her decision.

Thus in the end it can be concluded that unless one is specifically using features that are totally unique to one platform or another, then he/she should spend his/her time in searching for a good quality host rather than considering the quality of server. Now days with growing competition developers are trying continuously to improve both Linux and Windows so that the difference between the two in terms of features like security, reliability etc can be eradicated. Thus think again before finalizing between the two now.