Hosting websites and game servers on Windows

You can host websites and game servers on Windows. You do not need IIS, you do not need iisnode, and you do not need a Linux VM. Run each website and each game server as a Windows Service, and put a reverse proxy in front of the websites for the domain and the HTTPS certificate. That is the same architecture every Linux host uses - only the names of the parts differ.

These pages explain how to do that by hand, and how WinPanel - a free, self-hosted control panel for Windows Server 2022/2025 and Windows 11 Home or Pro - does it for you, per site, from a web page.

Download the installer · The repository · The wiki · Ask on Discord

The guides

How to host a Node.js app on Windows

For developers and sysadmins. Why the “it’s impossible” and “use iisnode” answers are wrong, the four ways to do it ranked, a by-hand walkthrough with WinSW and Caddy, and the eight Windows-specific failures that catch everybody - EADDRINUSE :443, the orphaned process that keeps a stopped service’s port, long paths, spawn EINVAL.

How to put a website on your own Windows PC or server

For everyone else. What hosting a website actually involves, what it costs, what each word means, and what goes wrong - with no jargon and no command line.

How to host WordPress on Windows

WordPress without IIS or a Linux VM. How WordPress actually runs on Windows - PHP behind a web server, MariaDB for its data - and the one-click install WinPanel does for you.

How to host a game server on Windows

Minecraft, Palworld, Project Zomboid and other Steam dedicated servers on Windows - each one a supervised Windows Service with its own ports, firewall rules, file manager and customer login, and a library you can extend with a config file.

How to host your own databases on Windows

MariaDB, PostgreSQL and MongoDB, each a one-click install bound to loopback. Creating databases, how one customer’s login is kept out of another’s data, per-account allowances, and the browser built into the panel.

Backups and recovery

Website ZIP downloads contain files and portable database exports for offsite storage. Owner-only panel snapshots contain the local WinPanel installation, websites, game servers and configuration, with scheduled creation and restore support.

What WinPanel is

A free control panel for Windows that manages websites, game servers, HTTPS, DNS, email and customer accounts from one interface. Static sites, Node.js apps, ASP.NET Core apps, PHP sites, WordPress and independently deployable subdomains are all first-class; each runs as a supervised Windows Service, with Caddy in front handling domains, certificates and traffic. WordPress is a one-click install backed by a bundled MariaDB database, with a database browser built in. It supports Windows Server 2022/2025 and Windows 11 Home or Pro - there is no Server-edition requirement.

Websites - from Git or managed by hand, with independently deployable subdomains and builds that swap in only if they start
Game servers - Minecraft Java and Bedrock, Palworld, Project Zomboid and other Steam titles, each a Windows Service with its own ports and firewall rules. Any game not in the list is a JSON file away - the library is a config folder, not a code path
WordPress & PHP - one-click WordPress, and PHP sites on a supervised worker pool
Databases - MariaDB, PostgreSQL and MongoDB, each a one-click install, with per-account limits and a browser and editor built in
HTTPS - free certificates, renewed automatically, over the DNS challenge
DNS - Cloudflare records per website, including a reviewed “point this domain here”
Email - self-hosted mailboxes with quotas, aliases, DKIM and webmail
People - owner, administrator and customer roles, each with site, disk, mail and game server limits
Server health - detects and fixes the Windows settings that quietly break Node hosting

The websites list

It is free and self-hosted, and it runs real commercial sites. Full detail, screenshots and installation instructions are in the README.

Official partner: OnyShare

We are proud to host OnyShare, a great, easy-to-use image and file-sharing service. OnyShare is an official WinPanel partner, and its servers are operated through WinPanel on Windows. It is a real service running on the platform described here, not a demo deployment.

Host websites and game servers on Windows - Node.js, PHP, WordPress and Minecraft

How to host Node.js apps, .NET apps, PHP sites, WordPress and game servers on Windows Server 2022/2025 or Windows 11 Home and Pro without IIS or iisnode - plus WinPanel, a free control panel that does it for you.