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Microsoft IIS

Score8.5 out of 10

88 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Microsoft IIS?

Microsoft IIS is an application server and infrastructure.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features Microsoft IIS has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 88 ratings of Microsoft IIS's features
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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: 7.4

  • 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

Reviews

What users are saying about Microsoft IIS.
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Microsoft IIS - Native Windows Web Server

Incentivized
Verified User
Team Lead in Engineering (501-1000 employees employees)

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.

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

Incentivized
Sandro Silva
IT Consultant in Customer Service at dormakaba (51-200 employees employees)

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.

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

Incentivized
Gordon LoView profile
Digital Solutions Architect in Information Technology at Dynacare (1001-5000 employees employees)

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

Incentivized
Scott KennedyView profile
Director, eCommerce Analytics and Digital Marketing in Marketing at Franklin Sports (201-500 employees employees)

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

Incentivized
Ben WilliamsView profile
Automation Developer (RPA and OCR Datacap) in Information Technology at Admiral Group plc (5001-10,000 employees employees)

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.