One of the most common pre-sales questions we receive is 'Which hosting platform should I choose for my website, UNIX or Windows 2000?' Below we go over the two operating systems and explain the major differences between them to help assist you in making your decision.

UNIX

UNIX has been around for over thirty years and is very mature in terms of performance with a proven track record for performance, reliability, scalability and security. UNIX grew to its full stature after about thirty years of continuous research and development with contributions from quite a number of volunteers. The result of their dedicated efforts is an operating system which has powerful processing capabilities and whose performance is still unparalleled. It not only meets the demands of today's computing needs, but in many cases exceeds them.

Windows 2000

Microsoft's Windows 2000 server is well-known. It is younger compared to UNIX, but the Windows operating system is well-established in the PC market and users are reasonably comfortable with it. The Windows 2000 market is quickly becoming the largest share of the server market.  The PC market is large and it is well-known that products that are friendly to the user alone can win the market. The Windows 2000 server is way ahead in this area.

Major Differences

To begin the comparison, it makes no difference which operating system you are using on your personal computer. One of the biggest misbelieve is that you have to use UNIX in order to host your website on a UNIX platform, which is not true. Whether you are running Windows, Linux, Mac OS, UNIX, it does not matter whether your website runs on UNIX or Windows.

Some individuals and organizations feel very strongly in favor of one operating system over another. Both of these operating systems make excellent platforms for mission-critical Web hosting, and they function well in the data center environment. MuchoWebHosting™, Inc. offers full support for both platforms in order to provide a complete line that satisfies all of our clients.

Simplicity

Both UNIX and Windows have been around for over ten years which has enabled a large number of resources to go into making it easy to host your website. We believe that our control panels for both the UNIX and Windows platforms make both user friendly.

Reliability

Even though UNIX has been around much longer than Windows, we have taken a great deal of steps to make sure that the reliability of the Windows 2000 platform closely matches that of UNIX's. This allows you to make your decision based on the differences in features instead of reliability.

Functionality

The functionality between the two operating systems is where they differ the most. There isn't much that can be achieved in one platform that can't be on the other. The main difference is how the end is achieved.

For example, if you need a website driven by a database, you can go with either PHP/MySQL with UNIX or ASP/MS SQL with Windows 2000. For example, Microsoft FrontPage is a very popular website editor on the market and is supported on both UNIX and Windows 2000.

Pricing

As you may have already noticed, our Windows plans are priced higher than our UNIX plans. The reason for this is because many of the applications that are available for UNIX are free, whereas Windows based applications cost significantly more. Unless you're in need of a specific feature (see below) that is only available on Windows 2000, you'll probably rather go with UNIX.

NOTE: Not all of our web hosting plans offer support for each of the features listed. This is simply a comparison to show whether or not the feature is supported on a UNIX or Windows platform.

For many websites the type of platform the server is running doesn't make a big difference. The main question is 'Will you be maintaining a website or database that is more appropriately hosted on Windows 2000 instead of UNIX (or vice versa)?' Whatever your needs may be MuchoWebHosting™, Inc. offers hosting plans under both operating systems.

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