When choosing a web host there are a number of things that must be taken into consideration. These vary from the price we are willing to pay to the software and hardware characteristics of the server. A rule of thumb when picking a host is that a cheap does not mean necessarily good. In fact, in the web hosting world, generally "you get what you pay for". So don't be fooled by the first host that gives you unlimited resources for a very low price. Most probably they will give you a bad service and lots of downtime.
Another important decision to be made when looking for a web host is choosing windows or linux hosting. There is no special rule, you generally choose what best suits your needs. I am going to outline the basic differences between linux and windows hosting.
The first difference (and probably most important) is the support for the various programming languages. In Linux you have a vast choice, ranging from basic CGI / script support to high level programming languages like Perl, Php, Ruby etc. This is a major plus for the programmers and technical users. In Windows you get the Microsoft powered languages like .Net, Asp etc.
The second difference is how you access the host. While both offer ftp access , Linux has more advanced features for you like ssh, telnet, VNC and many others. As you can see it's focused more toward to more technical users. With Linux you get more power but less user friendly interfaces.
The last difference I'm going to discuss is security and performance. It's known that linux hosting is much secure than windows , and even when exploits are found they are fixed generally in less than 24 hours. Also, it's true that Linux servers tend to manage better the hardware on which it runs. So if security and performance is important to you Linux is the way to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment