Difference between Linux Web Hosting and Windows Web Hosting

Launching your own website means choosing a suitable web hosting provider to host your site. You will also have to decide on the Operating System, and there are two main choices – Linux Web Hosting and Windows Web Hosting.

Linux Web Hosting

Linux is open source and is generally free. It is a popular choice among new business setups for web hosting as it is cheap to install and run. Recent changes in Linux have made it more user friendly as many companies are now offering graphical control panels. These graphical panels are similar to those found in Windows.

Linux supports: Perl, PHP, MySQL Databases and Ruby on Rails.

Windows Web Hosting

Microsoft Windows is the most popular OS used worldwide on home and business PC’s. As a result, a majority of people are familiar with all the features and it is easier to integrate with other MS products.

MS Windows supports MySQL databases, Cold Fusion and ASP.NET.

Linux and Windows specific Applications
In terms of popularity among web servers, Linux is more popular than Windows as it has more features which are suitable for web designers. Certain Depending on your website needs choose between Linux and Windows.

Applications that need a Windows Server:

ASP Classic
ASP.NET
MS SQL
MS Access
VB Development
C#
Remote Desktop
MS Exchange
MS Sharepoint

Applications that need a Linux Server:

SSH
Apache Modules
MySQL

Accessing your Server
The way in which you can access your server differs from one OS to the other.

FTP Access: Both Windows and Linux offer FTP access for your files. Using FTP you can transfer files from your hard drive to your web server.
Telnet and SSH Access – Linux offers both Telnet and SSH access to its users. By using Unix commands, you can easily make changes in the files directly in the Web Server by opening a connection.

Control Panels
Different Control Panels are used by Linux and Windows.

cPanel / WHM – This is available on Linux Shared Plans, Linux Reseller Plans, Linux VPS Plans, and Linux Dedicated Servers.
Plesk – This is available on Windows Shared Plans, Windows Reseller Plans, Windows VPS Plans, and Windows Dedicated Servers.

Case Sensitivity on web page filenames
Linux files are case sensitive whereas Windows files are not. On a Linux server .Html, .HTML and .html are three different things while in Windows all three are the same. Both Windows and Linux servers support Java and HTML.

Databases
MS Access and MySQL are the popular databases used for running websites. MySQL can be run on both Linux and Windows whereas MS Access and MSSQL can only be run on Windows Servers.

Price Factor
In terms of cost, Linux is a much better choice than Windows. Since Linux is an open source, most of its applications are free and are written in PHP for developing Linux platforms.

Windows however, is a licensed product which costs more. Therefore web hosting and applications for Windows are usually pricier.

The final decision for choosing a Web Hosting Company should always depend on your comfort levels, operating system requirements, and recommendations.