While shopping for website hosting, people typically come across many plans that differ in operating system, functionality, price, database formats etc. Well, for a non-technical person the options look very confusing unless the person has prior experience of using one of these services before. Generally, providers offer both Linux and Windows hosting as a part of their package, differing in technical specifications and prices. In fact, many get confused if the operating system of the hosting platform really matters when designing and publishing the website. Before discussing the differences between these two, let us first see the things that they have in common.
Common features
When it comes to data management both have similar approach, but only differ in technologies. MySQL was supported only by Linux before, but today even the Windows server has the flexibility to process these files. Both these operating systems support the HTML and javascript file types, but differ in files names. Linux files are strictly case sensitive whereas Windows files can have both upper and lower case extensions. When it comes to file management, both support FTP server for transferring the files. There is a misconception among people that Linux is more secure than its counterpart, but to be truthful both provide the same level of security for the data.
How to choose the right hosting
Most of us think that the operating system that we are using on our PCS should be in sync with the hosting platform to make the web host running. It is absolutely irrelevant whether we are using Windows, Linux, Mac or others because the OS provided by web host and the OS that we are running on our personal computers are entirely different things. No matter what operating system we are working on, the user interface or the web editor provided by the hosting service to create the applications will not be connected to your computer OS. What really matters depends on what kind of technologies your website is mostly depending on – either microsoft technologies that requires Windows hosting or PHP, Perl & MYSQL that needs Linux hosting.
Windows vs Linux hosting
Unlike windows, Linux is an open source platform with flexible features, good compatability with many database formats and most importantly it is cheaper than the other. Even though PHP, Perl and MySQL run on Windows machines, these formats work well when they are used in Linux environment. Infact, those who like to start with a small blog or website, can opt for basic linux shared hosting because the system is flexible with low cost. Similarly, if the website is using ASP or ASP.NET code, or requires Microsoft Access or MSSQL databases then Windows is a more convenient option. Overall, it the individual choice to choose between these two specific technologies and make maximum use out of it is based on the website requirements and server needs.