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Shared
or virtual hosting is normally offered in both Unix and
Windows NT/ Windows 2000 operating system. The
main difference between Unix and Windows web hosting is a
difference in the operating system on which hosting server
is operating. This difference in hosting platforms is
transparent to the visitor of your site, but will have an
impact on what applications and databases you can operate
on your web site. So which is the best? The truth is it
depends on what you are doing. Here are some things to
consider about Windows and Unix hosting environments:
Windows
NT/ Windows 2000
Windows
NT and Windows 2000 servers are compatible with
Microsoft applications and product suite, such as fully
supported Microsoft FrontPage, Microsoft Access and MS
SQL. Windows NT servers also offer advance-programming
environments and features such as Active Server Pages
(ASP), the ASP.NET framework, Visual Basic Scripts, MS
Index Server, Macromedia's and Cold Fusion.
All these Windows 2000/NT based products are
commercial product with more support options than Unix and
Unix based products.
Windows
operating system require little or no experience in web
development to get advanced features working very quickly
because of better graphical user interface (GUI) Software
such as Microsoft's FrontPage is specially developed for
the webmaster to decrease the website development time and
efforts.
However,
all these better and fancy user-friendly environment,
powerful features, and good customer support, comes a cost
much larger than similar features compatible with Unix
operating system. The major drawback with Windows NT/2000
is stability and reliability. At Microsoft site every
other week you can see a new announcement of another
Microsoft security fix. To maintain continuous stability
issue, windows NT/2000 servers require additional resource
and reboot. . Each reboot and additional hardware brings
the issue of uptime and better technical support from
hosting company.
A
windows based server can support following features:
FrontPage,
Flash, Shockwave, Real Audio/Video, Cgi Scripts, Perl, PHP
SSH (Secure Telnet), Web Site Graphical Statistics,
Web-Based Email System, MS SQL 2000, Visual Basic, MS
Access, Windows Media, Miva/XML, Cold Fusion, ASP (active
server pages)
Select
a Windows NT/2000 based plan.
Unix/
Linux
Unix/Linux
based servers are nest suited for the small and
average web hosting user, most Unix web hosting services
offer a wide verity features at a very low-cost. Unix is
an open source operating system, and most web developers
are very familiar with it. If
you are new to web developing field and not familiar with
Unix/Linux unlike windows it can be very difficult to use
if you plan on adding more advanced functionality to your
website. Many of the CGI, PERL and PHP scripts development
on Unix, require advance knowledge of Unix commands in
order for you to customize the scripts to match your
website needs.
Since
Unix is an open source operating system, many web server
applications and useful scripts are free and available on
the Internet. Most of the Unix host support, Perl, JAVA,
PHP, C, C++, Miva, Shell Access and other wide verity of
feature like Telnet and SSH that provides lots of
flexibility and freedom in managing file and directories.
Due to these freely available software and scripts, the
cost for hosting on Unix is much lower then using Windows
NT or 2000.
Currently,
Unix servers have over 85% to 90% of the web hosting
market share because Unix is far more stable than Windows
in a shared-server, or multi-user environment. Unix
operating system is a robust, time-tested, flexible
platform for web server. Unix has proven to be a reliable
server platform with a very secure environment. Unix is
extremely vigorous and designed to handle heavy Web
traffic and server load and can provide up to 99.9%
uptime.
Unix
based server can support following features:
FrontPage,
Flash, Shockwave, Real Audio/Video, Cgi Scripts, Perl, PHP,
SSH (Secure Telnet), MySQL, Web-Based Control System,
Anonymous FTP, Web Site Graphical Statistics, Web-Based
Email System, Miva/XML, Cold Fusion.
Select
a Unix based plan.
Conclusion
So
which is the best? Well it depends on what you need. If
you want the tightest security and looking to create a
simple website with little experience in Perl, PHP and
other scripting language, a UNIX-based virtual server is
recommended. However, you intend or need to use some
application like e-commerce that requires Windows to run,
such as MS Access or the MS SQL Server, and then Windows
is the better choice.
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