Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review If you have one user or 1000's of users (especially using Windows), Windows Server is a no-brainer! The only reason I would suggest going with a Linux server is if you have old hardware (Windows Server is more process intensive than Linux). But, Linux is open-source, so anyone can publish updates/security updates, but on the flip side, malicious people also have full access to Linux's codebase allowing for much easier writing of exploitations/viruses/malware/ransomware.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Easy to use due to its intuitive graphical user interface. Very popular and makes integration easier. Lots of software drivers available. Has many functionalities such as Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, VPN, RDP, VDI server, etc. Many patches and updates available. Maybe abit too much too often. Cost effective and with budget. Remote desktop feature simplifies remote access to this server. It has a built in VPN and ssl certificate feature. Event viewer is available for alerts, although it seems too cumbersome to go through the logs. If you got too many Windows systems to manage, then SCCM is an option. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review DHCP Server could be better - we use the router for DHCP Routing Print Server - not a fan of using the server as a print server since you have to license it. Direct access to printers via IP addresses is a much more efficient way to go Better backup program - we utilize a third-party program that gives us more flexibility when restoring individual files. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review I've carefully reviewed the servers and services currently running on Windows Server 2012, and given the opportunity would renew them as is going forward. There are two systems I currently have in place, one is a very large Linux implementation for a large ecommerce site, and one is a very large backup solution front ended by FTP servers running Linux. Neither are well suited for Windows, but the overall network infrastructure is and will be Windows Server for the foreseeable future.
Read full review Usability 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.
Read full review There are simply too many different parts of Windows Server to make it a cohesive piece of software. While some of the newer features found in Windows Server 2012 and 2016 have nice UIs that are logically laid out, there are enough parts of the system that is still based on old code with clunky UIs and confusing options to make Windows Server a particularly user-friendly experience.
Read full review Reliability and Availability 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.
Read full review Performance 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.
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Microsoft's support is hugely wide-ranging from articles online to having to contact them directly for the more serious issues. In recent years when I have contacted them directly, I have found the support o be excellent as I have found myself connected to very knowledgeable people in the field in which I needed the support. The online support available is vast and I tend to find most of the time that there is always someone out there who has had the same issue as me in the past and knows something about how to resolve it! This is the advantage of using industry standard and long-established systems such as Windows Server.
Read full review Implementation Rating Make sure that you have detailed processes in place for every server instance you plan to install/upgrade, if possible get the base OS loaded and Windows Updates applied ahead of time, and if using a VM take a snapshot prior to installing each role, as well as along the way.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review I didn't use any other system which gives the same functionality and I am not aware of any. The full integration between all components and especially the ability to integrate mail via Exchange or even via a hybrid setup with the Ofice365 cloud, including the ability to directly manage the cloud from the server, using Power Shell, is something I didn't see anywhere else.
Read full review Scalability 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.
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review Because of our Microsoft Campus Agreement, Windows products are fairly affordable for us and that has been a huge blessing. We are considering some Azure cloud options and some of that is covered under our Campus Agreement, making it a nice incentive to start migrating certain apps and functionality to the cloud I don't have access to our budgets so I cannot give a good answer as far as the impact of ROI on our institution, but if your company can afford it, you cannot go wrong with Windows server. Not having to send your sys admins to Linux or Unix school alone is a big savings as well as not having to train your staff on using a Linux desktop instead of a Windows-based one. The compatibility with end users of all varieties and platforms will definitely impact your ROI in a positive way. We have Apple users, Android, Windows, and even a few Linux end users on our campus and Windows server works quite well with all of them. Read full review ScreenShots