UNIX web hosting refers to the hosting services and system architectures provided on UNIX platform to open source companies.
Hosting means a service offered by company to allocate some disk space to physically place all website related information on a server to enduringly stay in the internet. UNIX web hosting is an operating system which has the capability of providing a user website with security which cannot be penetrated by any means. UNIX hosting is entirely compatible with the latest craze among all the programming languages, PHP. UNIX hosting provides reliability and has very easy usage, with quicker problem solving capabilities.
UNIX is one of the most famous operating systems next to Windows and Apple’s Macintosh. UNIX web hosting has several advantages in comparison to Windows hosting, but at the same time there are certain downsides to it, as well. UNIX was developed during the 1970s, at AT&T's Bell Laboratories, and has greatly evolved in due course of time.
Free BSD and OpenBSD are the two most popular flavors of UNIX environment. Both these versions are highly stable and secure. OpenBSD boasts of being the most secure open source operating systems throughout the world. Above all, it is free and maintenance cost of the web servers running on UNIX environment is also on the lower side.
UNIX offers support to all the common scripting languages like Shell, C/C++, Python, Perl, PHP and Java. However, these days the latest web servers developed on UNIX environment also offer support to Ruby-on-Rails and all other technological developments.
As far as database support is concerned, the popular UNIX hosting providers usually support MS SQL and MySQL databases. However, the UNIX web hosting service providers may not support all the databases. Therefore, it is important that you enquire about this aspect and pick a web host that support the database you intend to use.
The most important aspects to be kept in mind which selecting UNIX web hosting services and which have enormous impact on by UNIX operating system are:
- Performance
- Price
- Stability
- Features
Due to the benefits particularly in these four areas, UNIX web hosting is the mostly opted by many users around the world. However, Windows is trying to bridge the gap between the services provided by both the web hosting service providers.
A good UNIX web hosting provider must ensure that the customers get all the necessary resources and a good control panel to manage their website with great ease. A good UNIX web host will never let you make out that you’re making use of UNIX hosting, while the poor hosts don’t give enough resources, thereby causing discontentment amongst the users.
Ideally a UNIX web hosting plan must include all the features offered by a shared Windows web hosting plan, and there must never be any difference between UNIX website hosting and Windows hosting plan.
One will always get the added advantage in terms of pricing, if you pick UNIX web hosting services, and the reliability and flexibility of the web server hosted on UNIX platform is always higher.
Therefore, if you don’t have any business requirements that can be exclusively accomplished only on UNIX hosting environment, UNIX hosting can be a better bet. Moreover, if you happen to be a developer, UNIX hosting environment will give you the choice of making changes to the codes and also getting complete access to the root level of the web server.
Last but definitely not the least, Windows hosting can’t match the offerings of UNIX hosting environment, while vice-versa doesn’t hold true in majority of the cases. Hence, this gives an unfair advantage to UNIX hosting over Windows hosting environment.