What is the difference between Windows and Linux for web hosting, in other words, what are the pros and cons of each, each’s limitations, performance development environment and deployment between Windows and Linux?
5th August 2013
Any and every operation you perform on a Linux server can be trivially automated by copying the commands you ran in to a text file. I haven’t managed a Windows server in years and I hear PowerShell is pretty great these days but an OS based around a GUI is always going to be harder to automate than one based around a command line.
Linux has a much stronger complement of high quality open source software—and new open source server software (stuff like node.js) usually becomes available for Linux first.
If you don’t know anything about Linux but are comfortable with Windows, you’ll find it easier to manage a Windows server in the short term.
More recent articles
- Phoenix.new is Fly's entry into the prompt-driven app development space - 23rd June 2025
- Trying out the new Gemini 2.5 model family - 17th June 2025
- The lethal trifecta for AI agents: private data, untrusted content, and external communication - 16th June 2025