Our Hosting packages are determined by size of website (disk space) and anticipated monthly traffic. As with cellphone services / contracts (for example), the monthly fees are fixed, can be upgraded or downgraded, as well as overages billed if / where package size limits are exceeded.
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Hosting packages are determined by size of website (disk space) and anticipated monthly traffic. As with cellphone services / contracts the monthly fees are fixed, can be upgraded or downgraded, as well as overages billed if / where package size limits are exceeded.
Traffic usage
Traffic overusage is the bandwidth (traffic or disk usage) that is used on and above your set package size / threshold. The over-usage amount varies according to Local (South Africa) vs International (Germany) as well as Disk Space (storage) vs Traffic Usage (browsers and downloading of files).
Linux vs Windows Hosting
Linux is more popular than Windows hosting because it supports PHP natively and most of your free softwares are PHP. Since Linux-based hosting is more popular, it has more of the features web designers expect. So unless you have websites which need specific Windows applications, Linux is the preferred choice.
One of the biggest differences between the Linux and Windows servers is security. Linux is built much more secure than Windows servers. From the offset, the root level is not available to most programs without permission. Also, it is much easier to control URL structure in Linux, which is important for search engine rankings.
Databases
If you’re going to run a dynamically driven website, then you’ll want a database. The two most popular are mySQL and Access. mySQL runs on both Linux and Windows, but is more often found on Linux servers. Access is only available for Windows.
Security
Security is very important to your web host. Many people will argue that Windows servers have more vulnerabilities than Linux servers, but the reality is that they both have security problems.
Security is more important at hosting service’s administration level than it is at operating system level. If you have good administrators, your server will be more secure – regardless of Operating System.
The Bottom Line
The differences between operating systems is much less than you might think. We would recommend, when choosing a hosting server you find one that has the options you want, rather than worrying about what operating system they are running on the backend.
Writing Your Pages
Both Windows and Linux servers will serve HTML pages and JavaScript. Typically, Windows servers use files named *.htm while Linux servers use files named *.html, but there is no real difference between these names, just what you prefer. FrontPage extensions are often cited as the reason to use a Windows server but there are Linux servers that offer this service as well.
Accessing the Server
The first difference that most people notice with web hosting operating systems is how to access the server. Both Windows and Linux offer FTP access to files, but only Linux will generally offer telnet or ssh access (it’s possible to set-up telnet access on Windows, but very few hosting administrators offer it. FTP is a way of transferring your files from your hard drive to your web server. Telnet and SSH are a way to open a window directly on the web server and manipulate files right there, usually using Unix command line commands).
Nitty Gritty’s
Should your hosting company and website developer not be from the same company. Please be aware that the responsibilities lie with the developer and hosting alone is the responsibility of the hoster. Software installations and any ongoing maintenance is not the responsibility of the hosting company and will be billed or quoted separately.
