Is there a performance difference between running elasticsearch on Linux or Windows? [closed]

Question

elasticsearch can be started as a Windows or Linux service. Is there is any better performance in running it in one environment versus the other in production?

Answer 1

The answer to this question is going to be a big fat "it depends." I have to respond to whole-heartedly disagree with the other answer. I have Elasticsearch deployed to production on Amazon Web Services as a Windows service for an enterprise-level application and have never had any problem tuning it or finding help in that regard. The other answer has a point to the extent that the official Elasticsearch documentation apparently assumes you're going to be using Linux, but that's their problem. It does not mean you're going to be on your own.

I suppose that it would be possible to get some comparable hardware and run benchmarks if you really want to find out which one you can make faster, but who has time for that? I doubt that such an experiment would make a difference to anyone but the largest websites on the Internet anyway.

That said, Elasticsearch is built for clustering. You scale by throwing more hardware at it. Linux is necessarily going to be cheaper if for no other reason than that you won't have to pay licensing costs. Unless you already have the hardware or virtual machines, you are most likely going to get more bang for your buck with Linux.