If you surf the Internet you will find a wide range of Web Hosting Providers each offering phenomenal features and priced conveniently so as to fit anyone’s budget. With each touting why their services are the best and most reliable, it becomes quite difficult to understand which Web Hosting Provider to go for. Some say Linux is better than Windows while others predict that Windows offers much more user-friendly functionality as compare to Linux. It becomes a tedious task for you to choose a platform that would be most beneficial for your website.

No matter what people say, there is no direct answer to which platform to choose for web hosting purposes. All platforms have their own merits and demerits, so the trick of the book is to figure out which platform is best for your website keeping in mind your own personal and business needs and the budget you have.

In order to evaluate each platform let’s take a look at each web hosting tool and figure the pros and cons. Firstly starting with the Windows Web Hosting Tool, this has been created by Microsoft meant to run on the Windows operating system and is called the Internet Information Server or IIS. The web-hosting software tool allows programmers to build web pages using the ASP/ASP.NET technology in compatibility with languages like PERL. The core strength of IIS lies in the fact that it is most compatible with most other programming languages. Using the power of IIS and ASP, a programmer can easily incorporate COM objects, which would give the person the flexibility to access any web application. In fact, applications like MS Access and SQL Server can be controlled easily by using ASP pages. The main demerit of the Windows Web Hosting Software Tool is that it is very costly and you may have to pay a fortune in its licensing fees in order get the server running. The costs would even go up if you also need a SQL database to be installed on it.

Next comes UNIX. This remarkable platform has been used for quite some time now and is mostly recognized as being a very stable operating system. Most versions of UNIX were introduced to run on specific hardware systems. Another prominent feature that UNIX has is its security feature. The only demerit that UNIX has is its non user-friendly console and limitations to enrich any website.

Finally we arrive at Linux. The Linux platform is an enhanced version of the UNIX platform and it offers more flexibility than its predecessor. Since it is based on the same architecture that UNIX has, hence it is stable and secure. The best thing about this operating system is that it can be run on a wide range of hardware systems and offers a user-friendlier console. When it comes to web hosting, Linux is a perfect platform to use. Not only is it cheaper but it also exhibits all the necessary features for secure and reliable web hosting.

So, if you are confused as to which platform to use for web hosting, it really depends on your individual and business requirements.