What is a Web Hosting Control Panel?

There is an increasing number of people who are hosting the web today, from individuals to huge multinational companies. Web hosting is an industry which is very competitive and allows the web hosts to provide the clients with great features at an affo9rdable price. A webmaster requires a web host more than any other thing in order to make his online presence felt.

Most of the web host providers offer rich features to their clients to make them quit thinking of competitors even for a while. A good technical support is what the webmasters look for, and thats what the providers are providing. The prices are based on features, and they differ from company to company. Ditto for the add-on features like free domain names, etc. However, control panel is the most important aspect and only the best can provide a good Control Panel. A new webmaster may find it difficult to finance the huge expenses required for starting up a website, since he is restricted by his budget. CPanel allows them to go ahead with web hosting easily. It makes addition of extra features like blog, message boards, etc. to the site easy as well.

Having a web hosting facility online is a major benefit of CPanel. You just need to establish your computer to the net to access the web hosting services of the control panel. Then the computer can have access to the files that are stored in the web hosting control panel. It also gives the users an option to modify or delete files easily, as CPanel is very user friendly. The CGI scripts can also be modified and statistical information can be located on your website, like the frequency of hits to your site. It can also permit the users to create anonymous FTP user profiles, and even manage FTP data and information.

In the event of a computer crash or freeze, a backup of the files is always created by CPanel, so data loss can be done away with. Such files can be restored to the website as well as the FTP, and important information like mailing lists and other information relating to the customers can be retrieved easily. Statistical data can be monitored as well, and CPanel also permits you to receive error logs where there is a connection dropout.

Security should always be a primary concern for a website owner, and CPanel has several security features. Protection of password and hot link blocking are important web hosting programs and they ensure that hackers and outsiders cannot intrude into the website server. In the case of errors, the users are redirected to a different part of the website and until the problem is solved, their access to the FTP server will be controlled.

The users are allowed to run the CGI scripts very smoothly by the CPanel, by virtue of access to the editing program. It means that its a cakewalk for the webmaster to install additional features on the website like blogs, chats, discussion boards, etc. Besides, they can also have an online shopping mall where the customers would immensely benefit as they would be able to make purchases without having to move out of their house.

Overall, the control panel is essentially a software which the web hosting company gives to the clients for them to be able to manage hosting of their website in the best possible way. The control panel can manage the website activities such as opening FTP accounts, creating mails, etc. The control panel can never be taken as a gauge of how good or bad the web hosting company is, but as it is a very important aspect, it needs to be looked into also.

Control panel for Windows platform

A Windows-only control panel is Helm, which has a lot of beneficial features for the customers and the billing information is the most attractive feature offered by it. Barring the H-sphere, almost all of the frequently used control panels fail to give billing information inside the panel. Helm has a user-friendly interface, and it is very easy to use.

Another web hosting control panel set only for Windows is the Hosting Accelerator. It shows more information to create a positive impression, but the fact remains that quality is always given precedence over looks. Just a glance at it and you would feel that not much planning has gone into the interface and it doesnt have many features which it can boast about.

Control Panel for Linux platforms

The CPanel holds the most important spot among all the control panels, especially because of its attractive features, affordable pricing and ease of operation. It is a Linux-based web hosting control panel and can serve more than ten Linux flavors. The price is just $20 every month per server, so most of the web hosting companies prefer it over other.

Interworx is another web hosting control panel, and undoubtedly, one of the best. Interworx has dedicated Linux platform, and it boasts of a very neat interface, which is also very easy to operate.

DirectAdmin is another Linux-based web hosting control panel. The DirectAdmin feature which is most attractive is its cost, which is only $10 a month, and is undoubtedly, the most easy to use control panel. The downside is that it does have the great features which other Linux-based control panels can boast of.

There is a major disadvantage of web hosting control panels which are based only on Windows and Linux. They lose the other platforms hosting customers.

Control panels for both Windows and Linux

A web hosting control panel which can serve on both Linux and Windows is Plesk. There are many webmasters who want to serve both the platforms of Windows and Linux and they always use Plesk for this reason. The Plesk interface is similar to that of Windows XP and as it serves both platforms, it is quite expensive. However, the website builder tool can integrate with Plesk very well.

H-Sphere is another control panel which works on both the platforms. Though many webmasters use it, Plesk and CPanel have much more features than it. Still, it offers some functions enabling full automation.

There is another web hosting control panel, Ensim, but it has a long way to go to match the standards of Plesk and CPanel.

If one has to go by the ratings, the findings are conclusive that CPanel is the best control panel for Linux, and Helm for Windows.

Apart from the benefits already talked about, CPanel is very popular with the script Fantastico. This script has been designed for making installation of some commonly used scripts automatic. Fantastico can handle more than fifty scripts. Besides, other aspects about this script are involved as well, which gives the webmasters a huge benefit. Also, CPanel comes with many icons which reveal information on the accessible sections as well.