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Recommended Web Host
Many web hosting companies advertise a lot of applications that don’t really matter from a buying perspective. They either don’t matter because you will never need them (like bad web page builders) or because they are so common that everyone supports it (like WordPress). For this reason, it’s best to ignore most of the features listed in the marketing material of a web hosting plan — especially the software and apps listed. However, the one area where software really matters is the web hosting platform itself.
You should be able to install your own applications, but you need a solid base from which to work — that means an Operating System and a Web Server that will work with the apps you plan to use.
Operating Systems
The Operating System is the most fundamental piece of software on a server. It provides an interface between the applications and the hardware. It is the foundation of the entire computing system.
Server vs. Local Operating Systems
It is not important that your server’s operating system matches the operating system on your desktop or local machine. In some cases, it can be mildly helpful from the standpoint of providing a little more familiarity, but there are usually no solid technical reasons to be concerned about this.
The one possible exception to this might be new web development — brand new applications — where you need a local environment that matches the production environment. This can be helpful, but isn’t absolutely required. Many developers work locally on a Mac and then deploy to Linux servers.
Moreover, even if you decide to use Linux in both places, you may not want to use the same distribution of Linux on your desktop as is being used on the server. This is because server distros and desktop distros have different needs.
Unix-based Operating Systems
The majority of operating system installations in the world are Unix-like. This means they are either descended from, or inspired by, the original Unix operating system.
These OSes are particularly well-suited to web hosting because they don’t tend to need rebooting on a regular basis, and they have a good separation of user permissions and root access. Because Unix and its derivatives have been so connected with software development culture, especially on the web, there are a lot more tools and applications for this family of Operating Systems as compared with other options. Even better, many of these fundamental tools are Open Source, as are many operating systems within this group.
BSDs — Berkeley Software Distribution — This was a Unix-based operating system developed at UC Berkeley in the 1970s through the 1990s. It is no longer under development, but it spawned a number of descendant projects based on it, including:
Mac OSX — The operating system on Mac laptops and desktops is based on BSD. It maintains certification with the Open Group, making it officially not just Unix-like, but a full fledged UNIX operating system. OSX is primarily used for desktop computing, and has not gained much traction on servers.
OpenBSD — This is a Unix-like operating system developed and used by a fairly small, but dedicated and highly-skilled community. It has a near-fanatical focus on security and “code correctness,” which has made it attractive for web security and encryption purposes. It is frequently used for firewalls and mail servers.
Linux — Linux is a Unix-like family of Operating Systems based on the Linux kernal developed originally by Linus Torvalds. It is based on Unix, but did not reuse any of the original closed-source code. It is fully Open Source. This, along with its technical suitability, has made it extremely popular for use on server hardware and other “big metal” systems.
Linux is available in many distributions, each one packaging the kernal with a different set of additional features and UI elements:
Windows Server
Windows, which has traditionally dominated the desktop operating system industry, especially in business and office applications, also provides server operating systems. Unlike Linux (but just like Windows desktop) the Windows Server operating system is proprietary, and must be purchased or licensed (it isn’t free).
Windows is typically only used for Servers in an enterprise setting, where the internet server is used to host access to productivity and business management software. It is not often used for typical web hosting and web applications (though it could be).
- Windows 2003
- Windows 2008
- Windows 2012
Web Servers
A web server is a software application that receives requests from the internet and then communicates them to the operating system and other applications, and then responds to those requests. It is the primary interface between a computer (server) and the rest of the world (the internet).
- Apache — The most commonly used webserver. It is free and open source and works very well with Linux and other common web technologies. Many web development and web application help guides assume you are using Apache. It is the “A” in “LAMP stack” (Linux — Apache — MySQL — PHP)
- LiteSpeed
- Nginx
- Tomcat JSP
- IIS — This is a proprietary web server that only runs on Windows Server.
