About to choose GoDaddy for WordPress hosting? Read this.

In dealing with a support issue with one of our customers (now resolved) I realized that when you set up your WordPress site, you get to choose between a Windows web server and a Linux web server. There are many folks out there who don’t have sufficient data to make this choice, so I thought I’d weigh in with my 2c:

Choose Linux. Here’s why:

There are more Linux than Windows web servers out there. So when folks like me who develop web applications and WordPress plugins write code that is designed to be used on an unknown web server, we write it for Linux first, then add Windows support as an afterthought.

Doing this means that in general WordPress plugins and applications like WordPress itself usually run better on Linux and are better supported.

There are subtle differences between Windows and Linux. For example, all file paths on Windows use backslashes and on Linux they use forward slashes. This introduces the occasional bug on Windows even if the developer has dealt with this difference, because often an application hasn’t been tested as extensively on Windows as it has on Linux.

So unless you have a compelling reason to choose Windows when setting up on GoDaddy or any other host, please choose Linux. It will make your life and mine a little easier.

Regards,

Mark Maunder – Wordfence Founder.