Which Web Server should you choose?

This week our team have been looking into the differences between the open source Apache (Linux) servers and Microsoft's IIS servers to help you identify which server is more reliable and responsive for your website.

Firstly:

One misconception we hear about more and more is that people think you have to have to be running a Linux operating system on your computer to be able to host a website on a Linux server. This is not the case, it is irrelevant which operating system you are using on your computer.

So why choose Linux (Apache):

1. The main advantage of a Linux server is that it is open source. This means that these servers are far more cost effective than Microsoft servers.
2. Generally processes run faster on a linux server so load times are reduced.
3. Search Engine Optimisation loves Linux, due to you having more control over your server you gain gain a huge amount of assets when interacting with search engines and their robots.
4. Linux servers have an incredible record of reliability and speed and are least likely to crash as often as Microsoft IIS servers.
5. Linux supports a wide range of languages and databses such as PHP, Perl, PostGre, MySQL, PostgreSQL and many others which makes these servers extremely scalable.

So why choose Microsoft:

1. One of the biggest advantages of using a Windows server is that they can run Microsoft technologies such as Access and MS SQL databases.
2. Microsoft's programming environments such as Active Server Pages (ASP) and Visual Basic Scripts can be used without any extra modules Linux would need like Modmono, Chilisoft or Apache::ASP
3. Microsoft servers are more scalable than Linux servers and support everything Linux support as well as its own Microsoft services.

If you hadn't guessed it already

Media City Way would recommend you choose Apache (Linux) servers over Microsoft and any other server for that matter. Apache provides the most stable and responsive servers and are the best value for money.

Finally

If we hadn't provided enough proof for you to choose Linux to host your website hear is a graph provided by Netcraft on how popular linux servers have become over the last 10+ years.