by Ivan Walsh

Windows or Linux Web Hosting?

Many newcomers prefer to get shared web hosting, which are plans that enable the user to buy space on a web server of a particular web hosting firm, wherein a single web server could contain and hold some other websites of the other account holders.

There are two common operating system setups which are used with shared hosting web servers and these would be the linux/apache setup and the Windows 2003/IIS6 setups. There are also some other software packages that are installed on web servers, but the web server software and the operating system would be the most critical.

Making the choice between the two types of setups is crucial as it would be the element that would be defining the kind of software that could be installed on the hardware of the web server and what you, as the web developer could use in the development of your website.

Linux is an open source platform operating system which works together with Apache, which is an open source web server are considered part of the LAMP systems. Other components would be PHP and MySQL. This type of software package is usually available for free and can be used for personal or business purposes.

On the other hand, the Windows 2003 server works together with IIS6 would be what forms the web hosting environment of Microsoft Windows. This is actually already incorporated in the Microsoft .NET platform. The Windows web server is generally the more popular choice of web developers and programmers who have developed their skills on the different Microsoft technologies like Visual Basic , Visual C, C# and C++.