PHP factor 30 performance difference from Linux to Windows

Question

Our team is working is developing WordPress plugins and provides hosted instances on a couple of independent servers. Our WordPress installation is managed by Git, all serve

Answer 1

Windows has lots of services/policies that restrict, prevent, protect, control and etc usage of the computer in every situation.

A good Microsoft certified specialist will be able to solve your question within minutes, because they will have the experience to tell exactly which settings/services/policies to check and disable/enable/change settings, so that the PHP scripts are executed faster.

Out of my memory, I can only suggest you to check everything that deals with RAM, Hard Drive access, Environmental variables, Limits and Security (like Firewall). Everything that can affect the execution of php script, starting with some Remote Procedue Call policies and ending with the operating stack memory.

The logic is that is php.exe calls some external .dll file to execute some operation, there might be checks on the way done by OS, that will slow both sending request via such .dll, and receiving the response from it. If the .dll uses hard drive to access something - hard drive access policies enter into the scene. Also, how everything is situated in the memory - in RAM or hard-drive cache of RAM. Application policies. Threads policies. Limits on max percentage available for use for applications.

I am not saying that Windows-based hosts are bad, just that they are much more difficult to setup properly for a general admin. If you have Microsoft specialist on hands, he can tune your server to be as fast as Linux-based server.