Advantages and disadvantages of Linux web hosting

Before we delve into the advan­tages of using Lin­ux web host­ing let us first under­stand what it means. Sim­ply defined Lin­ux web host­ing is a sys­tem where­in a com­pa­ny can build it’s web­site using the Lin­ux Oper­at­ing Sys­tem. In this case the com­pa­nies have the advan­tage of using some open source tech­nolo­gies like PHP MySQL, Python and XML for their web devel­op­ment process. One of the main fac­tors that deter­mines what sort of web host­ing you are going to use for your web­site is the script­ing lan­guage that is being used in it. The fac­tors that go in favor of the use of Lin­ux Web host­ing are as fol­lows.

Lin­ux web host­ing is afford­able and bud­get-friend­ly and this fact itself makes it a prefer­able option espe­cial­ly with small and new busi­ness­es. It is what we call an open source soft­ware prod­uct and hence is devoid of the huge licens­ing fee that is required by oth­er soft­ware. It can be down­loaded for free and used at no cost at all. It is usu­al­ly only the cost of dis­tri­b­u­tion that is borne by the own­er.

A web­site that is mak­ing the use of Lin­ux web host­ing can eas­i­ly be con­vert­ed into a Win­dows plat­form if one wish­es to do so. This is a lot hard­er to do in the reverse case. In addi­tion to that it is eas­i­er to make changes on a web­site run­ning on the Lin­ux plat­form when the web­site grows.

Anoth­er advan­tage that the Lin­ux oper­at­ing sys­tem has is the fact that is sup­ports a large num­ber of lan­guages that are used when a web­site is script­ed. These lan­guages include PHP, MySQL or Perl. The only lan­guage that it does not sup­port is dot.net.

The use of Lin­ux web host­ing is also ben­e­fi­cial because it ends up sup­port­ing a wide vari­ety of data­bas­es that are usu­al­ly used by web providers. These include mSQL, MySQL AND Post­greSQL. These data­bas­es allow com­mu­ni­ca­tion that is high­ly opti­mized due to the fact that they are rela­tion­al by nature and this leads to quick­er recla­ma­tion of data.

Anoth­er fac­tor that goes in favor of Lin­ux web host­ing is the fact that it pro­vides a lot more secu­ri­ty. Due to lim­it­ed use, it dimin­ish­es the chances of users adding spy­ware and virus­es to your web­site. For this rea­son you can actu­al­ly get away with the option of not using grad­ed virus pro­tec­tion for your web­site.

Lin­ux web host­ing servers are con­sid­ered to be quite reli­able and they do have a good his­to­ry to hav­ing very lit­tle down­time. Also, in a case where one is encoun­ter­ing prob­lems they have a very good sup­port sys­tem with staff who are tech­ni­cal­ly sound to han­dle prob­lems effec­tive­ly. They are also more sta­ble as com­pared to oth­er web host­ing sys­tems.

Based on the afore­men­tioned fac­tors one can safe­ly say that the use of Lin­ux web host­ing can turn out to a ben­e­fi­cial exer­cise for web­site own­ers. Has­sle free run­ning and less time spent on main­te­nance of the site means you can devote your efforts towards the actu­al devel­op­ment and growth of your site and busi­ness which is going to a prof­itable propo­si­tion for you.