What is Linux Shared Hosting?
Shared hosting is a type of web hosting where a single physical server hosts multiple sites. Many users utilize the resources on a single server, which keeps the costs low. Users each get a section of a server in which they can host their website files. Shared servers can hosts hundreds of users.
The hosting world is full of choice and it’s one of the most competitive industries online. When it comes time to start your own website, blog or any other online project, Linux hosting is the right choice.
Simply put, Linux hosting is any type of hosting using the operating system called Linux on the server. Linux is a Unix-like operating system provided as a free, open source choice. It was first developed in 1991 as a free operating system for Intel x86-based computers. Since, it has become one of the most popular open source operating systems on the market.
Linux allows the use of PHP, Python, CGI and Pearl, which are very popular choices for webmasters. It’s also known as one of the most stable choice for your hosting and provides more features that can be used free of charge compared to Windows hosting.
If you’re planning to configure a Linux hosting on your own, you will need to be familiar with Apache or NGINX. If you’re a regular user and don’t need to configure the hosting on your own, Linux is one of the easiest systems to use. You just need to figure out CPanel, which is largely intuitive. There are also thousands of guides covering every aspect of CPanel if you’re having any trouble.
For starters, if you own a server, you can install any Linux distro there. With Windows, you can only get a licensed version of Windows Server Datacenter. This may mean nothing if you’re a beginner, but for people who know how to configure Linux distros, this is a great opportunity to make their servers more effective.
There’s a layer of easier customizability in Linux hosting. Popular website builder platforms like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla are all built for Linux. They can work on Windows servers too, but it would require a bit of tinkering to accomplish this.
Many open-source applications that can help you customize a website or a server may not support ASP.NET as well, making Linux a better option.
Linux hosting in general has a well earned reputation for stability and security. This can once again be attributed to the gigantic open-source community of developers, all of which work tirelessly to find, patch and fix any bugs that are discovered.
Five Top Benefits of Linux Shared Hosting-
Many benefits come along with the choice to use a hosting company offering the Linux operating system. This affordable type of hosting makes it easy for anybody to get started with a blog or website. Here are five to the top benefits provided by Linux hosting.
Cost- Maybe the most important benefit for most is the price. Since Linux is an open source platform, there’s no charge to use it for your hosting. This allows hosting companies to keep their prices lower compared to Windows hosting. Often, Linux based hosting will also come with many free and popular scripts, such as Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, phpBB and many others.
Flexibility- With a Linux server, you can do many things, such as create a blog, website, multimedia application, forum or any other online entity. Linux comes with a GNU or General Public License, which means it, can be used with various distributions, such as SUE Linux, Red Hat and Ubuntu. This makes it much more flexible than other operating systems.
Security- Of course, a very important benefit of a Linux server, especially for shared hosting, is the security. This operating system has proven time and time again to be more secure than any other choice.
Reliability- Since Linux was one of the first operating systems created, it provides better reliability than Windows. Many Linux users will tell you the reliability isn’t even a comparison because Linux is much better.
Simplicity-Another huge benefit coming from Linux shared hosting is the simplicity. In most cases, it’s easier and more user-friendly than Windows hosting. Since Linux can use MySQL, Perl and PHP, it has become known as a very easy system to use.