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IIS vs OpenLiteSpeed comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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)
OpenLiteSpeed
Ranking in Application Server
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
2
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 OpenLiteSpeed is 0.1%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Server Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IIS8.0%
OpenLiteSpeed0.1%
Other91.9%
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.
Tilak Rohitsingh - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at TEKsystems
Improved page loading speeds have attracted more visitors and support ongoing performance tuning
OpenLiteSpeed is the best performance I can get for free. It has helped us reduce the loading times of our web pages and increased the speed from 45% to 95%, which has led to more visitors. It has also made its basic implementation very easy It's an amazing open-source webserver. With the right…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very stable. The solution is very simple and easy to use."
"The product is easy to configure."
"It helps scan and mitigates our vulnerabilities using the best protocols to secure our environment."
"It has an intuitive user interface and provides a lot of options for building reports."
"The initial setup of this solution is very easy."
"The interface, simplicity, and ease of management are all good features that make this user-friendly."
"It was crucial and it definitely paid off."
"The solution is the easiest way to publish applications which have been designed by older development tools."
"OpenLiteSpeed is the best performance I can get for free."
"OpenLiteSpeed has positively impacted my organization by providing faster websites, resulting in more satisfied clients thanks to the caching."
 

Cons

"They need to improve their response time and first level support quality because the escalation process takes too long."
"We'd like future versions to be more stable."
"Finding the correct options are not more intuitive, and it should be."
"There are a lot of security issues with IIS, and this has become more of a concern, especially recently."
"The cost is a bit too high."
"The solution should improve the cluster environment and load balancing."
"The documentation is not very detailed."
"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."
"OpenLiteSpeed can be improved by addressing some minor misconfigurations in WordPress and caching, as something that is cached when it should not be is not always easy to pinpoint."
"Setup can be a bit complicated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Users can get a subscription-based license or a perpetual license for IIS."
"There is an annual license to use this solution and the price could be better."
"The tool is included with Windows."
"The price of Windows Server IIS is expensive. They have a large user base, and they charge a little bit too much."
"The solution provides multiple licensing options."
"I didn't need to get an additional license for the solution since it was included in my server."
"They offer a one-time payment model for the product license, and we pay annually for support."
"It is licensed with your Windows installation which makes it relatively cheap if you already have a Windows Server sitting around."
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
40%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Transportation Company
7%
 

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 Business1
Large Enterprise6
 

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 OpenLiteSpeed?
OpenLiteSpeed can be improved by addressing some minor misconfigurations in WordPress and caching, as something that is cached when it should not be is not always easy to pinpoint. Improvements cou...
What is your primary use case for OpenLiteSpeed?
My main use case for OpenLiteSpeed is hosting client websites, primarily WordPress sites with caching plugins connected to OpenLiteSpeed. I host many WordPress sites with medium traffic, and OpenLi...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

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. OpenLiteSpeed and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.