Best Hosting Platforms to Choose From

There are a variety of hosting platforms to choose from. The best one depends on the hosting needs of the website owner. Each has certain advantages and the following gives a brief overview of the different types that are available.

The web host may appear to be a trivial part of the website as a whole, but it is ironically the biggest part of the equation. It’s never physically seen by those that access the site, but it’s the backbone of operations. The host has to support the scripts or applications that are used by the developers. It’s crucial to find a hosting platform that provides stability. It’s also important to find the right price range for hosting.

Windows web hosting is the platform that everyone knows. Lots of web designers choose this simply because the Windows environment is something that they are familiar with. Developers that work with the Microsoft family of ASP.net, FrontPage, Silverlight, and Access databases know that their applications will work on a windows web hosting platform without issues. The fact that Windows is well-known and widely used attracts indecisive users that prefer to go with what they know.

UNIX is another well know hosting platform that has been around for many years. It’s a stable system, but it is also more complex than the Windows web hosting environment. Developers that are more comfortable with the IBM, HP, and Sun Microsystems applications may find a greater level of familiarity in concerns to functionality. UNIX also supports scripting languages like Shell, C/C++, Tcl, Python, Perl, PHP and Java. Applications like this can run smoothly on a UNIX platform that is also heavily based on commands and manual manipulation. UNIX hosts are among the most expensive, however, because the high end servers can cost up to $500,000. The server costs are usually passed down in some form to clients that opt for UNIX based hosting packages.

Linux hosting has been around for more than a decade, but it is becoming a bigger force now with the increase in open source code that has flooded the internet. Developers that are familiar with running scripts and building applications in Linux will opt for a Linux hosting environment. These hosting platforms offer the advantage of being inexpensive and less likely to be targeted by hackers. It’s a contrast to Windows because there are a lot less issues with application licenses. Linux is grounded in freeware resources that make application development much cheaper.

The various platforms all offer different advantages that can optimize the performance of website. It is the developer’s job to sort out the sites that will provide the best performance for the websites that will reside on the host.

This article has written by Vanessa. She has written many web hosting articles ondedicated servers review site Web Host Gear, that can help you in comparing different web hosting solutions.