If you are going to start a business online, whether it is a blog, a landing page, a corporate website, an e-commerce site, or something else, in any case, you’ll need to host it somehow, which means that, unless you are going to be your own physical server, you’ll need to find a hosting provider and to choose one of the hosting services that are offered. The services are rather diverse.
You can choose, whether you will rent a whole server (dedicated hosting), a part of it (shared hosting), or a “dedicated” part (a VPS, short for virtual private server). If you are interested in dedicated hosting or VPS, you can also choose the operating system for your server – either Windows Server or Linux, with all its distributions.
Linux is a rather popular solution for the various advantages it provides. To help you understand the advantages, we’ve prepared this article about the features and benefits of the Linux Server.
Benefits and Features of Linux Server
- Open-source – the most known feature of Linux and its difference from Windows Server is that its source is open. That means that developers are free to modify it and adjust it as they see fit. Therefore Linux has a broad variety of distributions (Debian, CentOS, FreeBSD, Ubuntu) as well as a vast community of developers. If flexibility is what matters for you, then a Linux server will be a great solution.
- Free of charge. Linux is equally known for being completely free. If you are going to create and host a website, you’ll have to make a serious investment anyway and you shouldn’t be mean if you want your business to prosper. But it’s good to know that there is an option to save you money on something and this something will provide you with various advantages anyway.
- Security. The open-source nature of Linux is also a significant benefit when it comes to security. First, the variety of Linux versions and distributions is rather heterogeneous. For this, it’s harder for cyber criminals to create a universal malware to which all variations of Linux will be vulnerable. Also, the vast community of developers is actively engaged in fixing the breaches in the operating system’s security and they cope with it much more operatively and rapidly than the rigid teams of proprietary operating systems like Windows or IOS possibly can do. Also, the latter enjoys more popularity among the developers of malware for being easier to hack and more widespread among PC users.
- Performance. If we compare Linux with Windows OS, the latter seems to be fast at the beginning, but over time its speed reduces due to the software that gets installed on it and is running in the background as well as its internal registry that is used to track installations. The Linux OS doesn’t use the registry so the problem isn’t present.
- Customizability. If you opt for proprietary software, then you’ll have to get used to the features that have been chosen by the developers whether you like them or not. In the case of Linux, you have much more freedom to choose, much more customizability due to the variety of distributions, and better customizability as to adjusting them.
This applies to various parts of the system, including the interface. Where Windows can offer just a couple of possible configurations, Linux OS offers you an incomparably greater number. - Lower hardware requirements. While Windows OS is rather demanding to the machine it has to run on, Linux offers you more freedom here as well. With it, you’ll be able to find the right distribution that will be able to offer a decent set of features even on an older machine.
- Privacy. Whether privacy matters to you or not, with Linux you’ll be able to adjust its level according to your preferences. If Windows collects a significant amount of data about its users, providing maybe a better service, but also a stronger control over them, Linux is literally free from all this big brother stuff. Moreover, you are always free to choose the software solutions you are going to implement, so if you realize that any of the solutions you use collects more data than you want it to, you can just replace it with anything more private.
Conclusion
Linux is a flexible, customizable, private, and cost-efficient operating system for your server. If the advantages we have just told you about are what you are seeking for your web presence and hence Linux Server is what suits you best, then we advise you to check out Debian virtual server hosting from this reliable web hosting provider. Especially, if you are starting a website or think you don’t really need a whole dedicated server to host it, but you still need a decent level of performance and security – as these features are exactly what a good VPS provides. Take care!