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IIS vs IIS PHP Windows comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IIS
Ranking in Application Server
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (1st)
IIS PHP Windows
Ranking in Application Server
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Application Server category, the mindshare of IIS is 8.0%, up from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IIS PHP Windows is 0.9%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Server Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IIS8.0%
IIS PHP Windows0.9%
Other91.1%
Application Server
 

Featured Reviews

Frederic Hautecoeur - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Integrations Architect at bs-team
Integrated web hosting has simplified secure services and has supported long-term growth
To be honest, I do not see any major areas for improvement. Perhaps something simple and minor. It should not go more complex than it is at the moment. The only disadvantage I see is that the documentation is a bit difficult to find. There is a lot of configuration that is very hard to get information about.
Gaurav-Bansal - PeerSpot reviewer
Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Hosting client blogs has become straightforward but resource usage still needs improvement
IIS PHP Windows has positively impacted my organization by helping to deploy customer websites that have very small budgets, allowing the organization to assist those clients, which builds trust with them. It enables the organization to help them run their small websites, and while some clients had bigger projects, they also wanted their small websites to run, such as a personal blog. Client satisfaction was high because a Windows server can be monitored, and the customer's websites could remain up and running all the time. If something happens and the application crashes, we could simply grab the logs from the event viewer to check memory limits and investigate what is happening. Additionally, the client could perform some of the management using the GUI management interface in IIS.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It was crucial and it definitely paid off."
"IIS is useful for the deployment of web applications...Its stability is good."
"The solution is very stable. The solution is very simple and easy to use."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"The solution has been reliable."
"IIS's best features are its management console and stability."
"I have tried other tools (such as Apache), and found that IIS is more stable and easier on the memory for low resource systems."
"What I like most about this program is the fact that it's built into Windows, and then I also like the interface and the support."
"If you want to host your PHP or Laravel-based application in Windows, you can definitely use this extension, and using this extension you can host your PHP or Laravel application in IIS and it will have super speed."
"IIS PHP Windows impacts my organization positively because my applications perform very well here when compared with XAMPP."
"In my experience, the best features IIS PHP Windows offers include allowing us to host the PHP application with better performance compared to XAMPP, which we were previously using because XAMPP was giving slow performance."
"IIS PHP Windows has positively impacted my organization by helping to deploy customer websites that have very small budgets, allowing the organization to assist those clients, which builds trust with them."
 

Cons

"The platform's stability could be better."
"If Microsoft IIS could work well with AppOptics or things like PHP, Python, and other custom languages that run on the webserver, it would be ideal. I think there are cases where people need to use Apache instead of IIS when IIS doesn't work well with other web languages."
"We've never had any issues with the solution, but it's still nice to have overall improvements on it. It could be easier and faster to use, for example."
"I am using an older version of Windows Server IIS and the general management and navigation to get something done is not as straightforward as I hope it to be. The interface could be improved."
"The areas of this solution that need improvement are monitoring, debugging, and troubleshooting."
"At the moment, we have big problems with stability, and I'm not very happy at the moment. So, the stability could be improved."
"The cost is a bit too high."
"IIS needs immediate improvements, especially in the area of security management."
"I chose a rating of seven out of ten because IIS PHP Windows is good for small enterprises with manageable aspects, but it has very high resource usage and requires a Windows server license, contributing to the overall cost."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's price is not high."
"There is no license needed to use the solution."
"IIS's pricing is reasonable."
"The price of the cloud system is a bit high."
"IIS's pricing is not expensive."
"IIS is expensive."
"The yearly licensing cost is very high. The solution is very expensive."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution."
Information not available
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915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
9%
Construction Company
44%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - IIS or NGINX Plus?
IIS is a flexible, secure, and manageable web server to host anything on the web. IIS’s scalable and open architecture can handle the most demanding tasks. From media streaming to web applications,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IIS?
For the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for IIS, as a Microsoft product, I didn't think much about separately purchasing an IIS product as it is part of Microsoft Windows. We bought a developmen...
What needs improvement with IIS?
I see that IIS has maintained the same interface for a long time, so they could potentially use more automation or integrate Copilot into it to make it easier to use. I have not accessed or checked...
What needs improvement with IIS PHP Windows?
IIS PHP Windows can be improved regarding its higher resource usage. Unlike a Linux web server that is very lightweight, the resource usage is higher on Windows. I chose a rating of seven out of te...
What is your primary use case for IIS PHP Windows?
My main use case for IIS PHP Windows is to deploy it for WordPress websites and Laravel custom applications so they can run on IIS using the PHP provider and PHP version. I used IIS PHP Windows for...
What advice do you have for others considering IIS PHP Windows?
Regarding IIS PHP Windows' security, I think its governance and security are solid as long as you configure Windows Active Directory correctly and all Windows authentication so that no other users ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Windows Server IIS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Erste Bank Group, NJVC, Samsung Electronics, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe, Urban Software Institute
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IIS vs. IIS PHP Windows and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.