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Linux outdoes Windows in online performance battle

While most sites still appear to favour Microsoft technologies, the results of a pan-European study show that Linux is likely to perform better.

By Maggie Holland, 20 Jun 2007 at 13:54

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Websites based on Linux are more reliable and offer users a speedier experience than their Windows-based counterparts, according to research conducted to investigate the performance of European online offerings.

In addition, the study - carried out by website monitoring specialist WatchMouse - found that sites supported by Apache web servers outperform those based on Microsoft IIS.

More than 1,500 websites spanning a variety of sectors across Europe were analysed as part of the site availability index, with most of the subjects being based on either Linux or Microsoft technologies.

Interestingly, there were geographic differences in the levels of support for each platform, with Germany and Poland favouring Linux and Apache, while Sweden and the UK prefer the Windows and Microsoft IIS combination.

Poland and Germany favour Linux combined with Apache for their websites while the professional sites in UK and Sweden rely heavily on Windows/ Microsoft IIS.

In terms of web server platforms, Apache was the winner performance-wise, despite the majority of sites researched actually favouring the Microsoft option.

Worryingly, two thirds of sites failed when it came to availability, reporting levels of less than 99.9 per cent - the equivalent of at least eight hours downtime a year -.

This finding is one research revelation that WatchMouse has slammed as wholly unacceptable.

"Even though the companies in our study seem to prefer Windows over Linux, our research shows they would be better off using Linux/ Apache based websites," said Mark Pors, the company's chief technology officer.

"Research has shown that most web users are very impatient and will wait no longer than four seconds for a webpage to load. Companies need to realise that website uptime is crucial for a healthy customer satisfaction and a solid client base. Organisations need to become more aware of the impact the choice of web server platform can have on their overall availability and performance."