Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Web Hosting Control Panels

If you’ve been looking around for web hosts, chances are you’ve seen advertised what control panel a web host uses. What are control panels, really? What can you do with them? Which type should you use? And which ones are best? If you want answers to all these questions, then you should keep reading to find out…

OK, so you decide to sign up for a web host. When you’re looking around, figuring out what each feature does, you end up finding what control panel they provide. Every web host provides a control panel. So, the first thing that comes to your mind is something similar to the Control Panel on Windows operating systems. It’s the same concept, but on a whole different level. A web host control panel is software installed on the web host server. The point of it is to give you control over your web host features and settings. Almost all features you see advertised are accessed through the control panel.


So what can you do with control panels? Well, like mentioned above, control panels allow you to control the features and settings that come with your web host. Some things you can do are setting up email accounts, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) accounts, add databases (such as MySQL databases), add sub domain names, and manage the files on your web server. However, these are only the most basic options. Depending on the features your web host offers, you can do everything from keeping an eye on your website stats, to installing and modifying applications such as publishing systems like Wordpress and Joomla. It all depends on what your web host offers you.

Now let’s move on to what types of control panels there are, and which one is better for you. Essentially, there are two types of control panels: intuitive and functional control panels. Intuitive control panels are perfect for beginners, as they are easier to use. The only problem with this type of control panels is that they are less functional, since you only have access to the most basic features. There are more functional control panels, which are extremely capable, but you will need more computer experience if you want to use them to their full potential. Choosing between one of them really depends on your level of expertise.

Now, after reading and understanding what control panels are, what they do, and what types there are, maybe you want to find out what options are available. To put it simple, there’s two big ones: cPanel and Plesk. Plesk falls under the intuitive category, and cPanel under the functionality category. Other control panels are Ensim, Hostopia, vDeck, and Sphera. vDeck in particular is referred to as the best of both worlds, as it combines functionality with ease of use (keep in mind that few web hosts offer vDeck as their control panel. One of them is BlueFish Web hosting).

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