Difference Between Windows Web Hosting and Linux Web Hosting
Introduction :
- Linux and Windows are two different types of operating systems.
- Linux is the most popular operating system for web servers.
- Since Linux-based hosting is more popular, it has more of the features web designers expect. So unless you have websites which need specific Windows applications, Linux is the preferred choice.
Windows Specific Applications:
Windows applications which require a Windows server:
- ASP Classic
- ASP.NET
- MSSQL (Microsoft SQL Server)
- MS Access (Microsoft Access)
- Visual Basic Development
- C#
- Remote Desktop (dedicated server only)
Windows Dedicated Servers can support additional Windows-specific applications. For some applications, you may need to purchase a license and install the software on your Windows dedicated server.
- Microsoft Exchange (requires license & Installation)
- Microsoft SharePoint (requires license & Installation)
Linux Specific Applications:
Applications that require a Linux-based server.
- SSH
- Scripts or applications that require specific Apache modules
Control Panels:
Windows servers and Linux servers use different control panels.
- cPanel is available on all Linux-based hosting plans, such as Linux Shared, Reseller, VPS and Linux Dedicated Servers.
- WHM (Web Host Manager) is available on Linux Reseller, VPS and Dedicated Servers.
- Plesk is available on Windows Shared and Dedicated Servers.
File Names:
Another difference between Linux and Windows servers is that Linux files are case sensitive while Windows files are not.
For example:
- On a Linux server, home.html and Home.html are different names.
- On a Windows server, home.html, Home.html, and HOME.HTML are all the same name.
Server Security:
Although many people consider Linux to be more secure than Windows, both operating systems are equally secure. Security really depends more on the server setup and the administrators running the server. All of HostGator's managed servers are maintained with the latest security and performance patches and configured for optimal security.
| Service | Shared/Reseller | Dedicated/VPS |
| Ad serving |  |  |
| Adobe ColdFusion (Installation & configuration not available) | | |
| Adobe Media Server (was Flash Media Server) | | |
| AdSpy Sites | | |
| Ajax | | |
| Alias files, aliases | | |
| aMember Pro | | |
| Amfphp | | |
| Apache 2 | | |
| Apache Cassandra | | |
| Apache Flex | | |
| Apple Mail, Mac Mail | | |
| apt-get (would require a different OS than we provide) | |  |
| Aspell, Pspell | | |
| Autossh | | |
| AWstats (included) | | |
| AWstats includes | | |
| browscap, browscap.ini | | |
| Bugzilla (Installation & configuration not available) (Snappy VPS 2000 or higher) | | |
| Byte Range Requests/Byte Serving | | |
| C, C++, GCC, C Compiler | | |
| CakePHP | | |
| Clam AV | | |
| CentOS 6.4 (included) | | |
| CGExtensions | | |
| ClipShare/File Sharing | | |
| Code signing | | |
| Colo, colocation services | | |
| Composer (Installation & configuration not available) | | |
| Compressed Files (.rar* .zip .tar.gz .bz2) | | |
| concrete5 | | |
| CouchDB | | |
| cPanel | | |
| cPanel Pro | | |
| cPanel skins - Third party | | |
| CRE Loaded Sites | | |
| CRE Loader (Not included, but you can install it) | | |
| Cron jobs (included) | | |
| Crypt::SSLeay5 | | |
| CS-Cart | | |
| cURL, libcurl, PHP/CURL (included) | | |
| Cyberduck FTP | | |
| Delavo | | |
| Disable open_base dir | | |
| Django (shared requires fastcgi) | | |
| dl() function | | |
| Dolphin 7 (You provide installation and license) | | |
| Ray, Orca, & older Dolphin versions (Boonex.com) | | |
| Drupal (included) | | |
| e107 | | |
| eAccelerator | | |
| eGroupWare | | |
| elgg | | |
| Email Piping | | |
| ExpressionEngine | | |
| FastCGI | | |
| FFmpeg | | VPS = Dedi = |
| Flash FLV (browsers must have MacroMedia Flash Player installed) | | |
| Flv2tool | | |
| formail | | |
| formmail | | |
| fopen | | |
| FreeBSD, Ubuntu (all at your own risk) | | |
| fsockopen | | |
| FXP (File Exchange Protocol) | | |
| Game server | | VPS = Dedi = |
| GCD (Google Cash Detective) | | |
| GD2 Library (included) | | |
| get, Wget | | |
| Ghostscript | | |
| Git client | | |
| Git server | | |
| Gnome/KDE (No support or installation provided, install at your own risk) | | |
| GnuPG | | |
| Google AdSense & AdWords | | |
| Google Apps & Email | | |
| gzip | | |
| HIPAA compliance | | |
| HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) | | |
| HTTP Digest Authentication | | |
| HTTP keep-alive | | |
| HTTP streaming (audio/video) | | |
| If-Modified-Since HTTP header | | |
| ihtml | | |
| ImageMagick, Image Magick (included) | | |
| IMAP | | |
| imap_open | | |
| innoDB | | |
| ionCube Loader, decoder | | |
| IPsec | | VPS = Dedi = |
| IRC | | |
| Java, Tomcat, .jsp | | |
| Java virtual machine (JRE, JVM) | | |
| JavaServer Faces (JSF) | | |
| JavaScript | | |
| JIRA | | |
| Joomla (included) | | |
| JSON | | |
| Kayako | | |
| KVM | | |
| LAME MP3 Encoder | | |
| Laravel | | |
| LaTeX (but we do not support the binary) | | |
| LDAP, openldap | | |
| lib_curl | | |
| libmysqlclient | | |
| Libogg + Libvorbis | | |
| Live streaming, webcam, radio or video broadcast | | |
| Load balancing | | |
| lynx | | |
| Magento | | |
| Mail - Exim | | |
| Mail - any other MTA (postfix) | | |
| memcached (Snappy 2000 VPS or higher) | | |
| Midnight Commander, MC | | |
| Ming (PHP module) | | |
| Miva empresa | | |
| mod_deflate, mod_gzip | | |
| mod_layout | | |
| mod_mime | | |
| mod_pagespeed | | |
| mod_perl, mod_python, mod_sql_auth, mod_ruby | | |
| mod_rewrite, mod_speling (must enable in .htaccess) | | |
| mod_security, mod_sec | | |
| Mokoala | | |
| MongoDB | | |
| Moodle | | |
| mpeg2enc | | |
| Mplayer + MEncoder | | |
| MySQL 5 (included) | | |
| MySQLi | | |
| mysqlnd | | |
| MySQL Cluster | | |
| NNTP/Usenet | | |
| Node.js | | |
| Nulled scripts (forbidden per our TOS) | | |
| NuSphere PhpExpress | | |
| OLSB, OLP | | |
| Online chat programs | | |
| openSSL 0.9.8o | | |
| Oracle (not recommended for VPS plans) | | |
| ownCloud (against our TOS on shared servers) | | |
| paFileDB | | |
| ParaChat | | |
| Payment gateway/merchant provider | | |
| PCI Compliance | | |
| PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions) | | |
| PDFlib (requires commercial license) | | |
| PDFtk | | |
| PDO or pdo_mysql | | |
| Pear MDB2 | | |
| PEAR modules - full list | | |
| PennyWize | | |
| Perl 5, Python 2, CGI, CPAN (all included) | | |
| Perl DBI module | | |
| PHP 5 (included) | | |
| PHP-FPM with Zend OPCache (Snappy 2000 VPS or higher) | | |
| PHP iconv | | |
| PHP and PECL modules - full list | | |
| PHP shell_exec | | |
| PHP tokenizer | | |
| PHPArcadeScript, phpas | | |
| phpFox | | |
| PHPmotion | | |
| PHP Multibyte String (mbstring) | | |
| phpMyAdmin (included) | | |
| Pine (email client) | | |
| Plesk | | |
| Podcasting | | |
| POP3 (included) | | |
| PostgreSQL, Informix, Sybase Solid, Generic ODBC | | |
| PrestaShop | | |
| procmail | | |
| Proxy servers, socket servers, SOCKS 4, 4a, &5 | | |
| Push Button Cash Site | | |
| Push Email | | |
| Python setuptools | | |
| QuickInstall (included) | | |
| Rapid Leech | | |
| Red5 Media Server | | |
| Redis | | |
| RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) | | |
| Riak | | |
| Round Robin DNS | | |
| RSS feeds | | |
| rsync | | |
| Ruby on Rails (included) | | |
| Safe Harbor Certified (included) | | |
| SCP, SFTP | | |
| sem_get | | |
| Sendgrid SMTP (Sending email via Sendgrid's SMTP servers via script) (Note: Sendgrid's Web API may work on shared & reseller, but is untested at this time.) | | |
| Server clock adjustments (other than Central Standard Time [CST] & Central Daylight Saving [CDT]) | | |
| Server redundancy | | |
| session_gc, probability, divisor, maxlifetime | | |
| Shared SSL | | |
| Shopping carts | | |
| SHTML (SSI-enabled HTML), SSI, server side includes (all included) | | |
| ShoutCast, Icecast | | |
| SimpleXML | | |
| SiteBuilder by Parallels Plesk (available by request) | Shared = Reseller = | |
| Smarty | | |
| SMF (Simple Machines Forum) | | |
| SMS Gateway, MMS | | |
| SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)(included) | | |
| SOAP | | |
| Softaculous | | |
| SourceGuardian (decoder) | | |
| SoX (audio processing) | | |
| SpamAssassin, spamd | | |
| SQLite | | |
| SRV record (Service Record) | | |
| SSH2 (included) | | |
| SSH tunnel | | |
| Streaming Flash | | |
| Subversion SVN Client | | |
| SVN/CVS Repository | | |
| SWFTools | | |
| tmpfs (configuration requires billing for admin time) | | |
| Trac, TracInstall | | |
| Urchin Stats (discontinued) | | |
| vBulletin | | |
| vi (requires SSH) | | |
| Vidiscript | | |
| VMware (virtualization) | | |
| VirtualEnv | | |
| VNC (You provide installation) | | |
| Voice servers (TeamSpeak/Ventrillo) | | |
| VPN/VPS | | VPS = Dedi = |
| vtiger CRM, SugarCRM (You provide installation and license) | | |
| WAP | | |
| Webalizer (included) (Video tutorial) | | |
| Webdav (class 1) | | |
| Web Disk | | |
| WebMail Access: Horde, SquirrelMail, Roundcube (all included) | | |
| WHM | | |
| Wiki (MediaWiki, PhpWiki, TWiki) | | |
| Wildcard SSL, multi-domain SSL | | |
| Woopra | | |
| WordPress (included) | | |
| WordPress MU (now incorporated into WordPress 3.0 and above) | | |
| WSGI (Web Server Gateway Interface), mod_wsgi | | |
| X Windows (X11) | | |
| XAMPP | | |
| xdebug | | |
| Xen | | |
| XML, xml-rpc | | |
| XMPP (you provide installation) | | |
| XOOPS | | |
| XSitePro | | |
| XSLT | | |
| XSSI (extended server side includes) | | |
| yamdi | | |
| yum | | |
| Zend Core | | |
| Zend Framework | | |
| Zend Guard (replaces Optimizer) | | |
| zip_open | | |
| zlib compression library | | |
| Zope/Plone | | |
Truly a lot of awesome data.
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