If you're creating hosting for the first time it can be confusing as to which package/server type to choose. The first thing to bear in mind here is that this would not be influenced by your local machine, the operating system on the server will define how the web server interacts directly with your site files, so just because you may have a Windows machine this doesn't mean you need Windows hosting.
Whereas a lot of software/scripting languages will run on both operating systems there are a few that are specific to each server type, the main ones are listed below although please bear in mind this is not an exhaustive list:
Windows
- ASP Classic
- ASP.NET
- MSSQL (Microsoft SQL Server)
Linux - SSH access
- Python
If you're still not sure which server type you need it may be easier to pick a Linux server when starting out unless you specifically need Windows hosting. The Linux environment allows for a little more configurability in terms of server environment and options in terms of getting a more verbose error message should anything not work as expected with your website.
