When it comes to considering website hosting, one of the most important factors outside of the server hardware specification itself is the software, most importantly, the operating system.
For the most part, the most popular hosting platform is Linux hosting, coupled with the Apache web server and one of the many Linux based control panels such as the WHM/cPanel combination. With that said however, Windows hosting is becoming increasingly popular. This isn’t usually because people prefer basing their server on Windows, it’s more so because of the applications that are available on a Windows platform.
The Windows DotNetPanel is extremely popular these days as are the .net, MsSQL and ASP development platforms. ASP and .net are extremely popular when it comes to web development with lots of software developers opting to code in such languages as an alternative to PHP etc.
As far as reliability goes, I’d personally choose a Linux / Apache based system but Windows hosting is more than reliable if you’re in need of the solutions above. The control panels and applications available for windows based systems are also quite extensive so you should have no trouble finding applications to suit your day to day hosting requirements.