#1 most frequent
United States of America
31.9%132,289 installations of 414,709
What is Microsoft IIS?
Microsoft IIS is an application server and infrastructure.
Categories & Use Cases
Product Demos
Top Performing Features
Installation
Ease of download and installation
Category average: 8.5
IDE support
Support for a number of different programming environments or IDEs
Category average: 7.3
Administration and management
Ease of management via administration console
Category average: 7.6
Areas for Improvement
Application server performance
Speed of deploy time, initialization time and other performance metrics
Category average: 8.3
Security management
Integrated security management for applications
Category average: 8.3
Open-source standards compliance
Support for open-source standards like J2EE
Category average: 7.9
Who Buys & Uses Microsoft IIS
#2 most frequent
India
7.6%31,619 installations of 414,709
#3 most frequent
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
7.1%29,439 installations of 414,709
Microsoft IIS - Native Windows Web Server
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We have a couple of legacy applications that have backend written in .NET Core & frontend in Angular. Due to the .NET Core part, as well as some other reasons, it was decided that the applications would be hosted on Windows Server VMs, both frontend & backend.
It means we use Microsoft IIS to host the frontend, with redirect routes for backend API calls.
It means we use Microsoft IIS to host the frontend, with redirect routes for backend API calls.
Pros
- Native integration with Windows Server
- Intuitive enough for static web pages hosting
- Good enough URL rewrite rules to support hosting both frontend & backend on the same VM, while avoiding CORS issue at the same time
Cons
- Virtually no infra-as-code support
- Powershell API to automate CI/CD is quite limited
- Troubleshooting is quite cumbersome, with lots of guesswork
Return on Investment
- Virtually zero effort required to setup on Windows Server
- Dev env can get up & running very quickly
- Windows GUI makes things much easier for beginners
Usability
Alternatives Considered
Apache Tomcat and Apache HTTP Server
Other Software Used
Apache HTTP Server, Apache Tomcat, Amazon CloudFront
For Microsoft environment the best option of WebServices
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Hosting websites on-premises or in the cloud, Microsoft IIS is the best choice for deploying websites using Microsoft technology such as asp.net pages. In our company, we have developed some systems for our customers, such as access control, timesheet, and hotel checkin/out, among others; the simplicity to automatically create and configure a website is a differential of the solution, because the end user is not always an IT technician with the necessary knowledge to install and configure a web application, that's why the "NNF" configuration (Next-Next- Finish) is a big differentiator. However, Microsoft IIS has great features for advanced users, allowing for example, to host several sites on the same server and segregate them for internal publication such as on an intranet, as well as for external publication on the Internet.
With constant evolution, security requirements and compatibility with new technologies are implemented in each version; and the availability of extensions allows hosting of non-Microsoft content such as PHP pages and Node.
With constant evolution, security requirements and compatibility with new technologies are implemented in each version; and the availability of extensions allows hosting of non-Microsoft content such as PHP pages and Node.
Pros
- Host native Microsoft technology as ASPNET
- Extension to expand technology support as SFTP, Node JS and PHP content
- Easy to install and maintenance, including Farm center configuration
- Scalable
- Compatible with Cloud services and containers
- Rich documentation and lots of community interaction
Cons
- Integrated to Windows version. It is not possible to upgrade the Microsoft IIS version without upgrading the Windows version
- Not easy to implement security recommendations as Top 10 OWASP, some times you need to edit the Windows registry, It sounds good for me.
- Need to keep Windows update "updated." Frequently security paths are released by the Windows update channel.
Most Important Features
- Native support to Microsoft technology as aspnet and framework content
- Licensing costs including as part of the operation system
- More easy to maintain and administer if compared to concurrency
- Application Setup provided by the team of developer,s does all the configuration and parameterization of the sites, with minimal user interaction
Return on Investment
- Positive: Easy installation
- Positive: Compatibility with many technologies (native or by add-on extensions)
- Positive: No software or license costs for Windows operation systems
- Negative: Complicated to use third-party authentication or open source patterns such as OPENID
- Negative: Use more hardware resources than competing systems
Alternatives Considered
Apache Ant and Apache Tomcat
Other Software Used
Microsoft SQL Server, ASP.NET, Oracle Database
The only choice to host Microsoft platform web apps
Pros
- Easy to setup
- Easy to maintain
- Works well with build/release pipelines in Azure devops
Cons
- Angular/node apps don't run on IIS, or at least we never figured out how. Rather we ended up using nginx.
- There are still occasional memory leaks - check your recycle settings!
- If you have very heavy usage for web APIs, IIS requires regular restarts for reasons unknown.
Most Important Features
- Integration to Azure devops for CICD
- Reliability
- Performance
- Scalability
Return on Investment
- Since IIS is relatively easy to setup and maintain it reduces operational costs.
- Security patches come down as part of routine Microsoft updates, so keeping up to date is easy.
- Integration with Azure devops means deploying applications is rolled out via CICD very easy to manage.
Alternatives Considered
Apache HTTP Server and NGINX
Other Software Used
Visual Studio IDE, Azure DevOps Services (formerly VSTS), Azure SQL Database, Microsoft Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow), Azure Blob Storage, Azure App Service, Azure API Management
Usability
Pretty solid value for the cost
Pros
- Delegated remote management.
- Admin tool center is great.
- Scalable web infrastructure when needed.
Cons
- The installation process had bugs.
- The pricing structure was confusing.
- The diagnostic tools could have a better UX.
Most Important Features
- Remote management.
- Scalable web infrastructure.
- Diagnostic tools.
Return on Investment
- It has reduced our cost a bit in terms of head count
- The scalability has been nice to keep up with user demand
- The access protection has been a nice benefit
Alternatives Considered
Apache HTTP Server
Other Software Used
Oracle WebLogic Application Server, Apache Kafka, Red Hat JBoss Data Virtualization
IIS is an effective and efficient tool that needs modernising
Pros
- Easily available on MS products.
- Lightweight with no frills application suitable for most machines.
- Works as it should 99.9% of the time.
Cons
- Application and UI are outdated.
- Convoluted to use for those not familiar.
- A set up wizard would be a nice touch.
Most Important Features
- Readily available.
- Works on our required machines.
- Does what it needs to with regards to hosting.
Return on Investment
- Allowing us to internally host our monitoring websites allows quick access to data that can be quite hidden, saving developer time.
- It was inexpensive compared to more bulky solutions saving upfront cost.
- It’s easy to install and enable allowing more developer savings.