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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM AIX

    Score9.4 out of 10
    N/AIBM AIX (for Advanced Interactive eXecutive) is a Unix operating system, developed, offered and supported by IBM.N/A

    Microsoft IIS

    Score7.4 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft IIS is an application server and infrastructure.N/A
    Pricing
    IBM AIXMicrosoft IIS
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM AIXMicrosoft IIS
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    IBM AIXMicrosoft IIS
    Application Servers
    Comparison of Application Servers features of IBM AIX and Microsoft IIS
    Feature
    IBM AIX
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft IIS
    8.2
    29 Ratings
    3% above category average
    IDE support00 Ratings8.020 Ratings
    Security management00 Ratings8.029 Ratings
    Administration and management00 Ratings7.029 Ratings
    Application server performance00 Ratings9.029 Ratings
    Installation00 Ratings10.029 Ratings
    Open-source standards compliance00 Ratings7.018 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM AIXMicrosoft IIS
    Small Businesses
    CentOS Linux
    Score8.9 out of 10
    NGINX
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Oracle WebLogic Server
    Score7.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    NGINX
    Score9.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM AIXMicrosoft IIS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (11 ratings)
    6.0
    (29 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    6.0
    (10 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.8
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    9.4
    (6 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM AIXMicrosoft IIS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    IBM AIX is well suited for mission-critical applications, especially the ones that need to run on well-performing hardware and need less downtime. It is also perfect for applications that need a lot of CPU, because AIX scales well on the IBM POWER hardware, so adding additional CPU almost always generates higher performance/throughput. IBM AIX runs unmodified from the smallest IBM POWER machine (S1022, with 12 Power10 cores) to the biggest machine (E1080, with 240 Power10 cores). Because IBM POWER systems have very fast CPU’s, you typically need a lower number of CPU’s when compared to alternatives. This may bring a reduction in cost for software licensed per core. Unfortunately, not all software vendors port their software to IBM AIX, so sometimes you may have to run Linux on POWER, or skip the POWER platform altogether. But many vendors happily support AIX and POWER.
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    Microsoft
    Publishing applications or websites is easy with Microsoft IIS. You don't need external software or complicated tutorials involving command lines and editing configuration files. On other hand, sometimes the troubleshooter needs a high knowledge of Windows Server, Registry, and tools to debug the application. If you need to host non-Microsoft technology as PHP pages or have a low budget, I recommend IIS equivalent software as Apache.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    IBM
    • Stability. In the 14 years that I have used the product, I cannot think of a single time that we had an OS level failure. It is rock solid. We have had systems that have been booted and run for literally years without interruption.
    • Virtualization. We run IBM AIX as LPARS on Power infrastructure. All of our AIX infrastructure is virtualized making it easy to scale as needed.
    • Their logical volume manager makes the task of managing storage very simple. It is feature complete and they have mitigated much of the complexity that usually is inherent in LVM implementations.
    • I have a love/hate relationship with Smit. It is their administrative interface. It is very powerful and very complete which is why I marked it as a pro. It is also a bit clunky and somewhat arcane in its interface but still usable.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • A big advantage that we use all the time is reviewing the logs that automatically get generated in IIS. It has helped us troubleshoot various problems in our applications over the years.
    • IIS integrates really well with Visual Studio and TFS. We are able to quickly deploy new applications and changes to applications when requested by the business.
    • IIS has proven that it is easy to configure and maintain with minimal effort.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    IBM
    • A lot of the built-in commands have not been updated in years. If you're used to some fancy CLI options in Linux, you may be out of luck with AIX.
    • Out of the box, you cannot run open-source Linux utilities on AIX. There is a toolbox you can install, however, it's not the same versions as you would get in different Linux flavors.
    • Tab completion for files and Up arrow to re-run previous commands don't work out of the box without running a Korn shell. A small annoyance, but one that catches me every time!
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • Angular/node apps don't run on IIS, or at least we never figured out how. Rather we ended up using nginx.
    • There are still occasional memory leaks - check your recycle settings!
    • If you have very heavy usage for web APIs, IIS requires regular restarts for reasons unknown.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    We have no intention to replace all applications running on top of the IIS platform. Not all applications support other platforms and not all support staff are skilled in Linux/Apache platform support. Whereas IIS may not be the best performing or most secure web platform available, for the aforementioned reasons, it is impossible not to continue use of this product.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    IBM
    AIX is robust, helps the systems administrator, is built to prevent easily made mistakes. If you are used to other variants of Unix (in particularly Linux) there is no steep learning curve to get started with AIX. You need to learn the intricacies of the operating system, but that is true for any new operating system. AIX has built-in tools for almost anything you want and has the AIX Toolbox (on the web) for tools that are not included with AIX by default, but can be installed. Installation of AIX is modular, you can select with components and features you want to have installed. Installation of additional components (and usually also removal of installed components) is easy and straight-forward.
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    Microsoft
    As I've mentioned earlier, Microsoft IIS is very simple and easy to use. The user interface is a little bit overloaded with a huge number of different options, but once you have a little clue of what you are doing and what you need - no issues at all.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    ARR (application request routing) in Microsoft IIS Server enables the web-admins to increase the web app reliability and availability through the rule based routing and load balancing of HTTP requests which in turn provides highly available server. IIS 7.0 Manager also provides kernel as well as user mode caching for faster performance and in case if the server fails, the IIS server has good amount of details logged in its log files which help understand and debug the cause quickly. Load balancing facilitates IIS server to fight against availability issues.
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    In my experience, I have never had significant issues with IIS performance. Sometimes I've experienced issues with loading time, but it is mostly related to the web site code. However Amazon, Microsoft and Google providing free cloud services with very limited resources, and in that scenario, "heavy" websites on IIS could be the issue. In other situations - performance is good.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    IBM
    There is lots of documentation out there for AIX. On the times I've had to address a hardware issue, IBM's support has been great.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    As mentioned earlier there is so much documentation or guides or stack overflow questions out there that someone will have faced the same or very similar scenario to what you are going through that you will almost certainly find a solution to what you are after.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    IBM AIX operating system is advanced with most features and also it's more reliable unlike Redhat Linux, Sun solaris, HP-UX and also we will have well support from the vendor if we run into any issues. IBM AIX is more user-friendly when compared to linux and easy to use so i would prefer the customers to have their operating system as IBM AIX for companies who has more customers.
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    Microsoft
    Apache is java. Java is unnecessary complex. No developer wants to invest in learning all the hundreds of text based configuration files to get something done. Also, apache gives you the most evil and un-usable user interface possible. [Microsoft] IIS makes [life] after development easy, which is already complex enough to be bothered by something as mundane as exposing your work over the internet.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Microsoft IIS Server is scalable if the underlying server configuration is done correctly. Use x64 edition v/s 32bit and using 32bit mode application pools are some of the tweaks to be done to make the IIS server scalable. There are too many small configurations need to be carried out in order to make a highly scalable IIS server hence not giving full score in this area.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • IBM AIX on Power hardware has been the backbone of our most critical applications.
    • The versatility of IBM AIX virtualization has been extremely useful, scalable, and provided configuration with redundant dual VIO servers.
    • IBM AIX is not Linux so special skill sets are needed to actually manage the systems. Finding qualified engineers can often be a challenge
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • Allowing us to internally host our monitoring websites allows quick access to data that can be quite hidden, saving developer time.
    • It was inexpensive compared to more bulky solutions saving upfront cost.
    • It’s easy to install and enable allowing more developer savings.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots