Planning a rich functional website, should I use ASP.net or Linux based solutions?

[lu408]

Hi folks,

I am planning to build a website for some personal purpose, which might grow bigger in future, just wondering whether I should use windows based solution, e.g. ASP.net + SQL express or should I use MySQL + Python? Which is more suitable for a small scale website to start with?

I personally doing ASP.net job and also do some Python coding at home, have no experience hosting/doing own website, which makes me a bit worried about M$ license fees. Linux based solution might be harder to maintain in terms of my knowledge...

Any suggestion would be appreciated...

[TheAnimus]

you running the server yourself?

generally speaking the cost of the hosting of the microsoft solution can be offset by the cost of the development. However it is getting better, MySQL is almost a suitable substitute for a real relational database! But document store and column store databases are now often a better fit.

If its your day job and you want to specialise rather than diversify then going with ASP.Net but using the new MVC framework or trying the RX for javascript maybe even monorail might be an idea.

Otherwise using something like Ruby on Rails might be a good idea.

So how much is your time worth!

[aidanjt]

Whichever you're comfortable with, really. If you're already familiar with PHP/MySQL, and have a stack of pre-written and well tested code then you're wasting your time with ASP.net/MSSQL, and vice-versa. If you're just starting out and you're more pressed for cash than time, then LAMP is a very good way to go, and is more or less the standard. Either choice will give you good experience and there's *lots* of documentation for web app programming available online.

[Spud1]

If it's for personal use then you don't have to worry too much about Microsoft licence fees - you can host the websites with Windows 7 if you want to (depending on your version), and if you need a server version then home server is only about £50. If you are hosting with someone else then the costs are generally equivalent to good linux hosting these days, with database support.

In my opinion it comes down to what you are most comfortable with - personally I would opt for ASP.NET every time, but thats because i'm a .net developer by trade, I like working with Visual Studio (still yet to find a better IDE, regardless of the language/platform involved) and I find it very quick and easy to develop on this platform.

There are so many options..it may help to know a bit more about what you plan to do in the future, as certain things can definitely be easier with say Ruby, or with a lamp setup.

For a small scale website though you probably don't need to consider either - just write your XHTML and get up and running. You can worry about which "web app" system to implement when you need it and know what you want to do with it.

[lu408]

Thank you all for your information, I can understand that you generally suggest using the technology which is more familiar to me. And I do agree that Visual Studio 2010 is the best IDE I have used so far; ASP.net MVC 3 RC is pretty cool itself.

I might use ASP.net MVC 3 and try integrating IronPython to get some dynamic scripting like Umbraco does. As I do not wish to be bind to certain technology nor one company (M$), thus I try to use some real open source thing like Python if possible.

Thank you very much for your suggestion and time, do appreciate them.