Should I use Ubuntu Server or a TurnKey virtual appliance?

Ubuntu Server is a general purpose platform which a system administrator can use to integrate his or her own custom Linux server. If that is what you want then we recommend Ubuntu Server highly.

By contrast, a TurnKey Linux virtual appliance is designed to fill a specific niche role as efficiently and easily as possible. If that is what you want you could save yourself or your organization valuable time and energy by using an existing TurnKey virtual  appliance (I.e., assuming one exists for that role).

There are also a few secondary advantages you might find attractive:

• Leaner footprint: A TurnKey virtual appliance is only as large as it has to be, so instead of downloading 600MB installation ISO full of packages you will never use, a typical TurnKey virtual appliance would be around 160MB.

• Faster, easier install: Installing a TurnKey virtual appliance usually takes around one minute and is typically much easier than installing a comparable system (e.g., LAMP stack) via Ubuntu Server's standard installer.