Item: Microsoft IIS
Rating: 10
Author: Gordon Lo

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use IIS to host web applications for both internal and external use. Years ago we made the switch from traditional desktop apps to web applications. When the decision was made to do so, we leaned on the Microsoft .Net platform and IIS as our choice for web technology. We have a plethora of custom web apps, and IIS is currently hosting our home grown ESB.

Pros and Cons

Easy to setup
Easy to maintain
Works well with build/release pipelines in Azure devops

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.

Most Important Features

Integration to Azure devops for CICD
Reliability
Performance
Scalability

Return on Investment

Since IIS is relatively easy to setup and maintain it reduces operational costs.
Security patches come down as part of routine Microsoft updates, so keeping up to date is easy.
Integration with Azure devops means deploying applications is rolled out via CICD very easy to manage.

Alternatives Considered

Apache HTTP Server and NGINX

It's difficult to compare Apache HTTP Server, nginx, and IIS - they really serve a similar purpose on a different stack. IIS is well suited to the Microsoft stack. Apache HTTP Server works well for Java web applications. nginx is a multipurpose tool that we sometimes deploy as a reverse proxy or to host our angular and node applications. When it comes to hosting .net, .net core, wcf, asp.net, aspnet core... IIS is the only choice.

Key Insights

Do you think Microsoft IIS delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft IIS's feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft IIS live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Microsoft IIS go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Microsoft IIS again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Visual Studio IDE, Azure DevOps Services (formerly VSTS), Azure SQL Database, Microsoft Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Power Automate (formerly microsoft flow), Azure Blob Storage, Azure App Service, Azure API Management

Likelihood to Recommend

IIS as a web application server is perfectly suited for .net, .net core, asp.net applications. Our core ESB runs on IIS and has hundreds of gigabytes of data moved through it every day spread across millions of transactions. We have other mission critical applications that deliver our results to patients and doctors relying on IIS web application servers. If you stay in the Microsoft development stack, IIS is a top tier, efficient, and reliable web server.

Usability

The IIS UI hasn't changed in ages, but it's functional and works well for it's purpose. There's no quirkiness in configuration if you know what you're doing. Since it's so popular, odds are there's decent community help available too. It's reliable and stable, and makes efficient use of CPU/memory resources. Overall a good product...

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar	None

The only choice to host Microsoft platform web apps

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft IIS