I'll chime in on this one. :-) I've setup and maintained NCSA, Cern, WN,
and Netscape httpd systems running under SunOS, Solaris, Linux (Slackware),
and MacHTTP under the MacOS. By far, the easiest server to get up and
running was the MacOS with MacHTTP (now called WebStar). MacHTTP can do
just about everything the other httpds can do, but it is a piece of cake to
manage (uses forms just like the commercial Netscape daemon) and its a heck
of a lot cheaper than a UNIX box.
The UNIX-variants were/are more involved and really require someone with
good UNIX knowledge to be able to run the systems. It's harder to find (and
costs more to keep) someone with UNIX skills than Mac skills. And frankly,
until you're dishing out well over a million hits a week, it really doesn't
pay for most folks to futz with the UNIX-based systems -- especially if
they don't already have in-house UNIX experience. If there's a feature with
a particular UNIX daemon that the Mac version doesn't have, and you're
willing to pay the premium, go ahead and go UNIX. But if you just want to
get some pages up cheaply, the Mac is hard to beat (and I'm not even going
to bring in arguments about RAICs (redundant arrays of inexpensive
computers) :-).
--
Blake Sobiloff <bsobilof@inet.ed.gov>
Internet Systems Analyst/Webmaster (speaking only for myself)
Decision Systems Technologies, Inc. Voice: 301/441-3377
Greenbelt, MD 20770 USA Fax: 301/441-4571
http://inet.ed.gov/~bsobilof/