Hi, I can spin up for free a Windows VPS (win server 2016 with graphical interface or win server 2022 core version since it has only 1GB of RAM). The problem is that outside of Linux I have absolutely no experience. I would like to try hosting something also on Windows server just to take away some load from other machines or even just to learn something new.
Therefore I have the following questions:
*Is there any starting resource for windows selfhosting you can recommend? I would love if a list like the awesome selfhosted existed for services that can run on windows.
*Is there anything non-enterprise for which a windows server would provide any advantage over Linux?
*Does anyone self hosts on windows server? Can I ask what you use it for?
Thanks
I have little experience with windows (web)servers and more with linux.
I have no idea why someone would want to set-up or manage a windows server. It’s just pain if you previously did it with linux. Everything sucks. Where to find log messages, how to upgrade a php version and get that used by the webserver, backup, maintenance, how to write short and useful scripts for maintenance, the mixture of config files and lack thereof, and it needs double the resources.
I wouldn’t do it in my spare time. I’d rather work on a way to get that OS in that VPS replaced… (My personal oppinion.)
Yes, that’s also my feeling at the moment. Not an option to move to Linux unfortunately (it’s a Microsoft offering for academic staff). I was hoping for some fun suggestions, If nothing comes to mind it will just become the backup server of the backup server or just stay off and save electricity.
In my experience, there’s a reason most things on the internet are not hosted on windows.
That said, you’ll want to look at IIS as a starting point.
Honestly, I think you’d be better served learning/understanding docker and just get that up and running in windows to host stuff instead. Managing windows hosting is a bizarre mix of hoping between quasi gui property windows and control panels.
I totally agree. If I could choose, I would have preferred my seventh personal Linux server instead of a windows machine but that’s what Microsoft offers to me. I fear that Docker, which I use all the times on Linux, would probably have too much overhead on windows. I still have to deal with a small size VPS. I have not many chances to run a Linux VM on top of windows to host docker and expect to have resources left to run a container with it in 1 GB of RAM.
I will defined look into IIS for web server/reverse proxy though. Thanks.
Windows isn’t typically meant to run manually installed web servers or apps that would also run on Linux.
For example, unless you’re Microsoft you wouldn’t set up IIS just to run a web server and manually configure it all unless you had a good reason.
Microsoft Windows Server absolutely excels at this though - Apps built for Windows. If an app is built for Windows then you typically don’t have to do the manually fiddly stuff like authentication and database setup. It will typically do it for you. It will just be an Exe you run and click next next and you’re done.
So I would recommend one of the following
- run a Windows Server Core (headless) and have docker/kubernetes inside it.
- run windows server (maybe core headless depending on app) and find an app worth trying that’s made for windows.
The best example app I can think of that is made for Windows that would need Windows Server and is so simple to install is PRTG or Veeam B&R. Both huge apps in Enterprise and both only run on Windows.
Just bear in mind that microsoft.com is hosted on Linux. If Microsoft don’t host their own website on IIS, why would anyone else?
Yeah exactly. Also: there’s more Linux on Azure than windows, and AWS hosts more windows than all of Azure.
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Even the very few things that I hosted that required Windows… I actually hosted through Wine just so I could skip running a windows server…
Install docker for windows containers and play around and see what you can get running? I ran pretty much all the same containers as I do on linux when I was using windows server. 1GB of RAM is going to be the big limiting factor.
protip: if you have RDP open, you WILL get hacked.
Is it that bad? I mean, I am not much concerned myself as I would not leave the port open to anything but a small IP range, but I thought that the protocol was fine once a random long password is used.
Install Windows Subsystem for Linux and pretend windows doesn’t exist
