Linux Operating System:

It is an operating system assembled under the model of open source software development and
mostly used for server purpose. It supports a dozen of programming languages like C,C+
+,JAVA,PHP and many more.

Advantages:

Low cost: You need not spend much money to obtain license as its softwares come from
GNU General Public License. You can also download high quality software whenever
you want, free of cost and you need not worry that your program may stop due to trail
version. You can also install it in many computers without paying.

Performance: Linux provides high performance on workstations and on networks. It also

helps in making old computers sufficient and usable again and also can handle many
users at a time.

Stability: You dont have to reboot periodically to maintain performance. It can handle
large number of users and does not hang up or slow down due to memory issues.
Continuous up time upto a year or so is common.

Flexibility: It is used for high performance applications, desktop applications and

embedded applications. You can save disk space by installing components required for a
particular use. You can restrict specific computers instead of all computers.

Security: The security aspect of the linux is very strong as it is very secure and it is less
prominent to viruses, even if there is an attack there would be immediate step taken by
the developers all over the world to resolve it.

Choice: Choice is one of the greatest advantage of Linux. It gives the power to control
every aspect of the operating system. Main features that you have control is look and feel
of desktop by Windows Manager and kernel.

Disadvantages:

Understanding: To become familiar with Linux you need to have a lot of patience and
desire to read and explore about it.

Software: Linux has a limited selection of available softwares.

Ease: Even though Linux has improved a lot in ease of use but windows is much easier.

Hardware: Linux doesnot support many hardware devices.

Windows Operating System:

It is family of operating system from Microsoft. If programming languages such as Visual

Basic.net, ASP.net, Visual C#, Visual C++ are used then it is better to opt windows hosting.
Advantages:

Ease: Microsoft Windows has made much advancement and changes which made it easy
to use the operating system. Even though it is not the easiest, it is easier than linux.

Software: Since there are more number of Microsoft users there are more software
programs, games and utilities for windows. All most all games are compatible to
windows, some CPU intensive and graphic intensive games are also supported.

Hardware: All hardware manufacturers will support Microsoft windows. Due to large
number of Microsoft users and broader driver, all the hardware devices are supported.

Front Page Extension: When using a popular web design program having windows
hosting makes it lot more easier. You dont have to worry if it supported or not.

Development: If you plan to develop windows based applications then windows

platform is most suggested as linux does not support windows applications.

Disadvantage:

Price: Microsoft windows is costly compared to Linux as each license costs between
$50.00-$100.00.

Security: When compared to linux it is much more prone to viruses and other attacks.

Reliability: It needs to be rebooted periodically else there is a possibility of hang up of

the system.

Software Cost: Even though the windows have softwares,games for free most of the
programs will cost more than $200.

Conclusion: Both Windows and Linux Hosting have advantages and disadvantages. Based on
your requirements you need to opt which hosting suits better.

View Linux shared hosting plans

View Windows shared hosting plans

View Linux VPS Hosting Plans,View Windows VPS Hosting Plans

Parameters
Number of users

Open source

Cost

Linux
Windows
Linux have a plus point that many users There are many windows operating
can be logged into the system
systems considered as single user and
simultaneously.SSH (Secure Shell
multi user. Windows XP, 7 are single
security) is used in this process. This
user. Multi user comprises of
SSH enables a user sitting somewhere
Windows NT.There can be many users
else to log in to computer (also known as logged in the operating system but
remote login).Processors capability is
only one can use it at a time.
distributed amongst the users. In this way
various users can access the resources at
the same time.
YesIt comes under GNU public license, No
which gives capability to the users to
alter the source code.
Free

Not free

Type of kernel

The core component of the operating

system which loads first and remains in
the main memory is kernel.Linux uses
Monolithic kernel.As all processes are in
the same space, no context switching is
required. But this adds to the bulkiness in
design. Modularity comes into play to
solve this.

Windows have Microkernel.The

kernel processes are known as servers
in this. Some processes run in user
space and some in kernel space.The
difficulty arises when a process
running in kernel space calls a
function of a process running in the
users space. It requires context
switching. It increases the cost.

File Formats

It supports wide variety of file formats

like Xfs, Btrfs, FAT, FAT32, Ext2.

The file formats supported by it are

FAT, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT.

GUI and Kernel

separated

YesThey both are separated in this

No
operating system. One can run without
the other. For example: GNOME and
KDE are the GUIs. But these are optional

Secure

Till date, there are around 80 to 100

viruses reported in the Linux.

Ease

Although it have been improved to be

Ease of usage is one of its main
more user-friendly. Still people with little marketing features.
experience with technology prefer
Windows.

More than 70,000 viruses are been

reported till date.

Similarities of Windows and Linux

1) Windows and Linux both can have limited non-root (Linux) and non-administrator
(Windows) system users.
2) Both Windows and Linux can host PHP websites via Fast-CGI.
3) Both Windows and Linux have anti-virus (many more anti-virus programs
for Windows, almost nothing for Linux).
4) Both Windows and Linux can run mail servers, run DNS servers, run
webservers, do just about any web service you need.
5) Both Windows and Linux can run several pieces of hardware out of the box.
6) Both Windows and Linux can blue-screen (or in the case of Linux: kErNeL PaNiC!!!)

7) Both Windows and Linux make good use of your system resources.
8) Both Windows and Linux can run many days without a reboot.
9) Both Windows and Linux have file-systems that can become corrupted.
10) Both Windows and Linux are used in Professional companies for doing work.
11) Both Windows and Linux have open-source software that runs on them
(i.e. Apache Webserver or BIND DNS or SpamAssassin, etc.)
12) Both Windows and Linux can take a while to setup correctly.
For example, downloading and installing updates, making sure that SSH (or if you are using
Windows, Remote Desktop) is setup correctly, drivers are installed and working properly, hostname for the computer is set, (if you are running a web-server) making sure that you have a
separate user account for each web service you host (for increased security), etc.
(in my opinion, Windows takes less time setting up than Linux, but that may not apply in your
situation).
13) Both Windows and Linux have support (Red Hat and SUSE are two forLinux), however in
the long run, I think it would be cheaper usingWindows in this regard (both also have free online
support via webforums).
14) Both Windows and Linux can boot quickly.
15) Both Windows and Linux have pretty good security. Windows has Access Control Lists on
its NTFS file-system, but Linux uses Read/Write/Execute bits by default instead.
16) Both Windows and Linux can get viruses (Windows is the larger target for malware, but this
does not mean that Windows is easier to infect, nor does it mean that you are guaranteed to get
malware when using Windows).
17) Both Windows and Linux are stable operating systems.
18) Both Windows and Linux can be secure, if you know what you are doing.
19) Both Windows file-systems and Linux file-systems suffer from hard drive fragmentation.
20) Both Windows and Linux can read several file-systems (For Example: there are drivers for
Windows that allow you to read EXT3/EXT4 Linux file-systems).
21) Both Windows and Linux run mission-critical applications.
22) Both Windows and Linux can be hacked by malicious Internet users.

23) Both Windows and Linux can be used to host online game matches on the Internet.
24) Both Windows and Linux have plenty of development tools to write software.
25) Both Windows and Linux work on embedded devices. (Windows CE is Microsofts OS for
embedded devices)
26) Both Windows and Linux can run as a server on low-memory systems. 27) Both Windows
and Linux can be used to program micro-chips for various things.
28) Both Windows and Linux are used in industrial manufacturing of products.
29) Both Windows and Linux have 32 and 64 bit editions.
30) Both Windows and Linux have the ability to use virtual memory (SWAP).