Linux and Mac Servers Have Less Downtime

Dec 5, 2008 by Matt | Posted in Hosting 2 Comments

A recent study conducted by Pingdom shows that Linux and Mac servers have a lot less downtime than those running a Microsoft OS.

The data is based off the uptime of the individual companies’ websites. Apple, Microsoft, Red Hat, Slackware, and the others listed all use their own operating systems to run their servers, and you would expect them to put a bit of resources into making sure their sites are as reliable as possible, correct? After all, would you use a server OS from an organization whose website goes down frequently? Normally a product’s website speaks well for the product’s reliability, or so many people assume anyway.

It should be taken into account that these websites have different kinds of resources behind them. Many are run by enthusiasts with a minimum of resources, while others have corporate backing. Keep this in mind while reviewing the data.

Yet Microsoft, who arguably has the most cash to throw around, has one of the worst scores downtime-wise. I’m not a Microsoft fan by any stretch (I like Linux on my servers, and the Mac OS for desktop use), though I have more experience with their consumer-level OSes than any other. I know Windows is a pile of swiss-cheesed spaghetti code…but with the kind of resources they have, how are they letting everyone else run cirlces around them? It’s not even funny anymore.

For all the fun charts and numbers, click through to Royal Pingdom to the full article.

  • http://www.kastedstudios.com Dan Lee

    If you really based your statement “Linux and Mac Servers Have Less Down Time” on the downtime of a website then I’m certain this entire article is worthless.

    I’m not one to attack writers, and I’m also not one to defend windows over other options out there unless there is good reason. But a website’s up-time has so many other parameters and other dependencies that trying to relate its measure to the up-time of the physical server that hosts it is much too broad of a perspective.

    Ask yourself this. Can a website be down while a server is up? Yes.That being said, your case is thrown out.

    Now that’s not saying your statement is true or false. And if I was a betting man I’d guess Windows servers really do have a greater down-time than Mac or Linux devices. But lets not make grand statements such as your title without more accurate data.

    Cheers. Dan.

  • http://www.webmaster-source.com Matt

    “Ask yourself this. Can a website be down while a server is up? Yes.That being said, your case is thrown out.”

    Yes, it can, but Pingdom checks for that. They don’t just see, “is this site available to the public,” they check to see if the machine itself responds to pings and such, if I’m not mistaken. That would imply that it’s more than the site being inaccessible.

    And I admit that there are other factors.

    Either way, perhaps my headline is a little over the top, and questionable as to whether it’s entirely true. The original post at royal.pingdom.com had a less controversial title, but it reads a little awkwardly.

    Anyway, the charts are available over at Royal Pingdom. Make of them as you will. :)