IIS Reviews

We use IIS for anything from the digital front doors to web-based applications for health care.

The most valuable feature of IIS is that it's free, and it works.

I have used it for so long, I don't think that I would improve anything about it.

It would be beneficial if you could automate security certificate monitoring with IIS.

I have been working with IIS for 20 years.

We are using the most recent version.

It's a solid product. There are alternatives, but they are all equal.

I would rate IIS an eight out of ten.

The primary use case is mainly using the IIS service to host web applications so that these applications can be accessed from outside through a web server. 

I think that the IIS includes most features that are required by web applications so that they can run smoothly on Windows operating system. And since it is a native service from Microsoft that is part of the Windows Server ecosystem, so performance is good, and compatibility with the operating system also is excellent. The integration also is great with the operating system, and the integration with other Windows Server roles and applications.

When you are working with Microsoft solutions, you will see that the integration with the operating system, and implementing some security features, are easier in IIS than when using another solution. For example, if you want to use single authentication, SSO, or single sign-on, by authenticating yourself with your Windows username and password, when you are logging in to your computer, the IIS can use these credentials to automatically authenticate you in the application without the need to write or to type again your username or password. This is the SSO, the single sign-on, you can implement it quickly and easily in IIS since it is natively developed to work with Windows operating system. You only need to implement the SSO in your application. And once you develop this module and integrate it into your application, you can easily use it with the IIS within Windows.

Sometimes if you are using IIS in large-scale scenarios, meaning that if you are deploying an application within IIS service and you are expecting a large number of users to use this application, you can sometimes find some problems, meaning that the service can shut down by itself unexpectedly if you don't configure your IIS with the correct configuration that can handle this number of users.

Some configurations are not that easy to configure, there are a lot of details that you need to specify to tweak your applications. Sometimes, you can find problems, especially with applications that are not developed with .NET languages. If you want your application to perform well and can handle a large number of users, you need to use .NET languages like ASP.NET or other .NET technology. But if you are using for example PHP application, sometimes you can find some performance issues.

I encountered that type of problem, especially when you are using, for example, applications that are not developed in the Windows environment and you want to deploy this application with the IIS, sometimes you will find problems, especially performance-related problems.

Frankly, I have been using the solution since 2010. And am still using it when we want to deploy web applications and you want to use a web server. So the IIS is a role within the Windows Server operating system that you can activate to use the web service in the operating system.

It's not about stability, but it's more about compatibility. Meaning that, if you are using Microsoft technology, you won't find better than IIS. But if you are using other programming language technologies that aren't Microsoft technologies, you can find yourself facing these kinds of issues. Especially if your application wasn't developed to fully work with IIS. So sometimes you can find this problem, this problem can be caused by the development process of this application. But sometimes even though you will take into consideration the compatibility problem, the IIS won't perform well with other technologies that are not Microsoft.

The solution is scalable. You can have as many servers that host IIS so that they can handle the connections from users. And this is where the Failover Cluster service is used, it is used to create a cluster of services so that you can make your service scalable and available.

For Microsoft, if you subscribe for example, to the premium subscription plan, and it depends on the level or the urgency of the ticket or the incident, they will contact you sometimes within the hour if it's a critical problem. But if it's just a simple support ticket, sometimes within 24. It's less than 48 hours before they will call you. It depends on if you want them to assist you by phone or by email. And their support is really great, sometimes they can find the problem within minutes. Yeah, I think it's great.

Frankly, we are using other web server applications like the Apache web server. It depends on the application, and how or what web service application it was developed. If it was developed to be used with the IIS, then we use IIS for that application. If this application was developed for Apache or another web service, then we will install this webserver to run the application. Most of the time when it is a PHP web application, then we will use the Apache web server rather than the IIS. But if it's ASP.NET or another .NET technology, then we will use IIS. Or if we are using, for example, another solution from Microsoft, such as SharePoint or Microsoft Exchange mail servers, et cetera, then we will be forced to use the IIS service. Sometimes, you don't have a choice to choose. If it's a Microsoft solution you want to deploy, you will be forced to use IIS. If it's in-house developed application or you buy a product that needs a web server, then you can choose, but it depends also on the compatibility list of the application.

The initial setup is straightforward. It doesn't take much time. It's Windows, it's Microsoft stuff, and with Microsoft, it's about making the installation process easier, you cannot find an easier installation than Microsoft products. It's a role within the Windows Server, so with a number of clicks, you will find yourself ready to use the IIS service.

The implementation was completed in-house. 

Sometimes, I deploy it by myself, and sometimes when another department needs visual machines with Windows Server and the IIS service, I can either install everything by myself or provide them with the virtual machines and the access information credential, et cetera. And the company that will deploy the application for them, it'll be the one that will install the role and configure it.

I think it's part of the Windows Server, so you won't have any other costs to add in order to use the IIS service. Meaning that, if you have a license for Windows Server, then automatically you will have also the IIS service available.

I give the solution eight out of ten.

The IIS service version also depends on the version of the Windows Server. So for example, if you are using the Windows Server 2012, it may have an old version compared to the 2022 Windows Server version. It is the last one since we are also using the 2022 Windows Server operating system, so we are using the latest version 6.0.

Most of the time, if it's me who deployed or installed IIS in the first place, I am the one who will maintain it. But if it's another person or another company or its part of the maintenance program, then we will call the other company to do their maintenance tasks.

In my experience, I think that if you want to use IIS, you need to develop your application to be fully compatible with IIS. Meaning that, you need to use Microsoft technologies rather than other languages, for example, Java or PHP or other, Python or anything else. Rather than that them, you need to choose .NET technologies so that you will take advantage of the performance and compatibility of the system with your application. This is what I can recommend people to do in order to use IIS. Because when for example, you acquire an application or a solution that wasn't developed initially for IIS, you need to do many tweaks in the applications and the IIS in order to make it run. And sometimes these types of tweaks can cause you problems in the production environment.

IIS's most valuable feature is user-friendliness. 

The tool needs to improve its performance. 

I have been using the product for five to ten years. 

IIS is stable. 

The tool's technical support is good. 

IIS's deployment is straightforward. It can completed in an hour. 

IIS's deployment can be completed in-house. 

IIS's pricing is not expensive. 

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. 

We use IIS to deploy some of Opentext applications that we need to deploy.

The most valuable feature of IIS is it does not consume a lot of resources. It does not consume a lot of resources, such as memory.

IIS could improve by having some features related to URL rewrite, ARR (Application Request Routing) and HTTPS certificate generation.

I have been using IIS for approximately five years.

IIS is highly stable.

The scalability of IIS is good. It can be scaled easily using Cluster.

We have less than five people using the solution in my company.

I did not use the support from IIS.

We purchased a Microsoft Windows license and the license for IIS came in the package.

We are using this solution because it was recommended for us to use. It is a stable solution.

My advice to others is this is a simple-to-use solution and you can find items with ease. Microsoft has good support for its solutions. You can find the information you need from around the world because Microsoft solutions are widely used. If there are problems you can fix them easily from the support online, such as in forums.

I rate IIS a nine out of ten.

I use Windows Server IIS to publish our site for my Citrix applications.

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.

I have used Windows Server IIS for approximately three years.

Windows Server IIS is stable.

We have over 100 people using this solution in my organization.

I have contacted the support from Microsoft a few times. Depending on the issue we are having, the support in some cases takes a bit longer to get our point across for them to understand and then to receive a resolution that day.

I rate the support from Microsoft a four out of five.

I have not used another solution previously.

The initial setup of Windows Server IIS is complex. If you already have some experience it can be simple.

We have an external service provider that helps with the maintenance and monitoring of Windows Server IIS. We have internal personnel, but for anything that we can't figure out by ourselves, then we contact the service provider and external help desk.

The price of Windows Server IIS is expensive. They have a large user base, and they charge a little bit too much.

I rate Windows Server IIS an eight out of ten.

If I was using the newer version of Windows Server IIS I would rate it higher.

We use the solution for our customer's web applications. 

IIS needs to improve its security. Its support needs to be faster and clear. The tool's licensing could be cheaper as well. 

I have been using the IIS for 15-20 years. 

My company has 200 users for IIS. 

The tool's setup is simple. 

We did not use a consultant for the product's setup. 

IIS is expensive. 

I would rate IIS a seven out of ten. 

We primarily use the solution for application infrastructure.

The solution is easy to use.

The solution integrates well with most Microsoft products.

The solution doesn't integrate well with all Microsoft products. There are a few that actually don't integrate well with IIS.

If Microsoft IIS could work well with AppOptics or things like PHP, Python, and other custom languages that run on the webserver, it would be ideal. I think there are cases where people need to use Apache instead of IIS when IIS doesn't work well with other web languages.

I've been using the solution for ten years.

The solution is stable.

It's a good solution, but we don't use it on a large scale, so I'm not sure how well it scales. Currently, we have 250 users on it. Most are end-users, but we do have five admins on the solution as well.

We've never reached out to technical support. Mostly if we have issues, we look to community support for answers.

We also use Apache Web Server side by side with IIS.

The initial setup is very straightforward.

We handled the implementation ourselves.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I'd recommend IIS for almost everything. I would suggest using use case scenarios.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use IIS for hosting service, user authentication, and Active Directory integration.

The product could be more compatible with Linux and macOS, particularly when applying user configuration policies. We have to download and configure other player controllers for the same.

The product is stable. We do not encounter any issues from IIS after configuration.

We have 80-90 IIS users in our organization. We might increase the usage in the future.

The product is straightforward to configure. However, there could be a component to add a feature for third-party system integration.

I recommend IIS to others and rate it a ten out of ten. I cannot apply any policies from Windows server to Linux and Mac machines.