Windows Server 2016 vs. FreeBSD 11.2 vs. 8 Linux Distributions Performance

[otapamo]

On servers? Really?

I see Windows everywhere, literally... on desktops.

...never once seen a server with Windows on it.

Not doubting you but yeah.

At the university where I work, almost all servers are running Winblows

[starshipeleven]

On servers? Really?

I see Windows everywhere, literally... on desktops.

...never once seen a server with Windows on it.

Not doubting you but yeah.

Here the main users of windows servers are small companies and such, that only ever knew how to use Windows on desktops and need a GUI on the server to do anything.
In many small companies I work with (clients of my employer), the physical server is running VMWare Esxi hypervisor and they have a bunch of Windows Server VMs running in there. With GUI and everything. Fun and games.

Even to host websites, it's fucking hilarious as their crappy Joomla-based shit website is auto-pwned within days of going online and the Windows Server VM it runs on is stuck on 100% CPU because someone is using it to mine cryptocurrencies.

In many cases I've seen normal PCs used as "servers" too, at varying degrees of "not giving a fuck about downtime if anything breaks".

Also, for Active Directory (you know, the standard "company PC" that is part of a domain and managed by IT admins) with shared folders and such, you need a Windows server.

[starshipeleven]

I understand that, but considering the extra money they get selling Windows Server licenses, and the higher cost of using Windows on all of the cloud providers including Windows Azure, I think they would want to compete better.

As I said, if the main reason they sell Windows server licenses is because they cultivate their pre-existing ecosystem of vendor-locked customers (which is what I strongly suspect), then the only thing they need to compete with is their older Windows Server releases, not Linux.

In my answer to Weasel I cited that many windows servers exist because the company is small and they only know how to use Windows, and with a GUI. This type of customers will NEVER EVER even try out a Linux server (even with a GUI) as they would not know how to use it (and are not bothered enough to learn this as the windows server is good enough).

You know, if vendor-lock wasn't a great tool then none would try to use it.

[Danielsan]

Debian performed better than Ubuntu in almost all the test...

[sireangelus]

Here the main users of windows servers are small companies and such, that only ever knew how to use Windows on desktops and need a GUI on the server to do anything.
In many small companies I work with (clients of my employer), the physical server is running VMWare Esxi hypervisor and they have a bunch of Windows Server VMs running in there. With GUI and everything. Fun and games.

Even to host websites, it's fucking hilarious as their crappy Joomla-based shit website is auto-pwned within days of going online and the Windows Server VM it runs on is stuck on 100% CPU because someone is using it to mine cryptocurrencies.

In many cases I've seen normal PCs used as "servers" too, at varying degrees of "not giving a fuck about downtime if anything breaks".

Also, for Active Directory (you know, the standard "company PC" that is part of a domain and managed by IT admins) with shared folders and such, you need a Windows server.

honestly dont understand how to set up active directory and make it work... but i can do crazy stuff wity a linux server.

[Grinch]

FreeBSD's performance in these tests is very likely caused by ZFS

Doesn't hold true for the tests that are entirely CPU bound, in particular the Go http benchmark result is crazy (some regression in the FreeBSD Go port?).

Overall Clear Linux looks very impressive.

[creative]

Clear Linux obliterates, everytime he benches it against other stuff. In some areas it is so lopsided it is not even funny.

[Michael_S]

In my answer to Weasel I cited that many windows servers exist because the company is small and they only know how to use Windows, and with a GUI. This type of customers will NEVER EVER even try out a Linux server (even with a GUI) as they would not know how to use it (and are not bothered enough to learn this as the windows server is good enough).

For what it's worth, that was my exact experience at the tiny company I worked at from 2005 to 2013. I talked them into running a few Linux servers while I was there, and they didn't have any problems. But I kept in touch with the staff, and by 2015 they were a 100% Windows Server shop again.

Edit: But I'm still surprised Microsoft would abandon improvements to Windows Server performance. I presume they run Bing and Cortana from Windows Server, so being sloppy with efficiency is costing Microsoft itself a lot of money. Even if Bing and Cortana are more throughput limited by something like network, disk, or memory IO than CPU efficiency, if Windows is substantially slower than Linux at the same task then they're spending more on electricity and server cooling. ....although it's possible Bing and Cortana are hosted on Linux. That would be awesome if it was ever confirmed.

[edwaleni]

I just don't think its realistic to expect a general purpose operating system to be top shelf at everything. If that was the case, why do we have so many flippin distros of Linux?

Windows is a Toyota Camry. It gets its people from Point A to Point B with a relative level of ease. If you want high perf Windows, get the V6 XSE. If you want to be coddled by your OS and have it do everything for you, get an Avalon (which is based on the Camry). If you want Windows to manage more data, get a Highlander (again based on a Camry).

[aht0]

When company/organization is using specialized hardware, it might happen that only software possible is specific version of Windows. For example system handling massive amount of security cameras, document scanners (can't even really use open source there, control numbers for machine-readable portion in documents are calculated by formula, which isn't public domain AFAIK - to make counterfeiting documents harder). It might happen that only Linux server in organization is it's web server, rest of it's server park is running Windows - which might not even have outside access to internet (pure intranet workstations behind these servers).

You also all ignore the fact that performance is not usually even priority, stability is. What use of small performance advantage when you get down times costing million bucks a hour? Tuning for performance often means cutting some corners somewhere. Can't have that when time literally means money.