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[Tiberius]

If you aren't a programmer, then you'll have to assemble whatever programs and resources you can and configure them.

What are you talking about? Linux based operating systems invented the App Store:



Package management is a thing on Linux, you don't need to compile anything. Sounds like you tried Gentoo as your first Linux OS. Go give Ubuntu or Linux Mint a try, you won't have to compile a thing unless you absolutely want to.

 If you want to keep things free, for example for a non-commercial site, I think Linux is easily the best platform.  But in my case, I need to be able to cobble together custom apps fast (in some cases an hour or two), be able to easily port them, and know that everything is going to just work well, whether it's on my dev computer, the server, or on a client's computer.

The best thing about Microsoft is how deeply everything is connected.  For example, from Excel macros, to Windows apps, to online code, I'm using mostly the same C# libraries.  I have access to every level of Microsoft service: Azure billing, hotmail account, One Drive storage, and so on.

I mean, if you're using C# and .NET code, then sure. However nothing you said above is any different on Linux using another programming language. Stuff like Ruby on Rails, Python (e.g. Django), or PHP frameworks all work just fine, in exactly the manner you've described.