Usually, web hosting use two kinds of operating systems for their servers. While one is Linux, the other is Windows. Linux is the most preferred choice of most
web hosting companies because of the affordability factor, easy to install features, and free open source availability. Another most popular choice of the web hosts is the Windows OS, which is most suited for the businesses that use Microsoft technologies such as ASP.NET, and others. There is one stark difference between Linux and Windows web hosting platforms and that is the matter of security. Linux based web hosts are considered as more secured than the Windows based ones. It has been seen that Windows easily fall prey to spyware vulnerabilities. There is another factor where difference is witnessed and that is in the way of accessing the back end. While Windows server’s backend can be run on Plesk, Linux based servers can be run on cPanel and WHM (except
Linux shared servers). Some of the applications that need
Windows server for running are MS Access, MSSQL, ASP.NET, Remote Desktop, and Visual Basic development. These applications will not run on
Linux based servers.