If you’re new to web design, the large amount of options in terms of hostings can be so overwhelming. Also if you’re new to this, you need to actually choose a hosting that works with a control panel that is intuitive for you as a “newbie” to this. Thankfully, nowadays there are so many hostings with also so many panels that surely there is something perfect for you and your projects.
To guide you further, we will talk about the features some of most popular hostings and control panels and their advantages. We cannot say which hosting or which panel is the best since each and every one of them have their pros and cons, but we can describe them and you’ll decide which one is the best.
Common features of most hosting panels
If the panel of the hosting you’re choosing doesn’t have these features, perhaps its not the panel for you:
- Domain name system management (to get / manage your website domain)
- Email system management (to create and manage email boxes)
- FTP (to upload / download files)
- SSH management
- Database management (if you use WordPress on any other tool to create a website, you’ll need to create a database)
While the next features aren’t mandatory, they surely come in handy:
- Web file system management (alternative to FTP)
- Backup management (to eliminate the hassle of downloading all your files)
- Logfile access (to check for errors, if you have no experience you won’t need this)
- Plugin system to add more feature (most hostings offer more options with free / paid panel plugins, this is not mandatory if you’re only looking to create and host a website)
There are other features that the most common hostings normally have, such as ticket support to report any problems, server monitoring, etc. Its always important to understand which panel you’ll be working it and its features. Its terribly common for new web designers to purchase a hosting service just to find out later that the said hosting doesn’t offer all the required tools.
Most popular hosting control panels
These panels are the ones you find the most on the most popular hostings in the world, and thus they usually offer all the tools you need to create your website.
cPanel / WHM
Arguably the most popular of them all, this panel is widely known to be the most user-friendly and intuitive panel. Hosting cPanel actually offers 2 panels instead of one: the user-level interface that is the one called cPanel, and the server management interface with is WHM. They’re both very intuitive and you can find easy-to-read manuals and instructions. The control panel cPanel offers every feature we mentioned plus also several others, such as free SSL or the ability to upgrade the PHP version in order to offer more speed and stability with less resources.
Plesk
Another widely known control panel, its features compared to cPanel do not differ much. Plesk offers a cleaner interface but not as intuitive. Supports both Windows and Linux hosting, Plesk is very popular in the USA and its popularity is also growing in Europe.
Vesta
This growing control panel doesn’t have many of the features cPanel and Plesk offer, by far, but it offers a super clean and easy-to-use interface. For people that don’t need too many features on their hosting service, Vesta is a great option to easily manage your websites.
Other hosting control panels worth mentioning
- DirectAdmin
- STORM
- Core-Admin
- InterWorx
- ISPmanager
- Froxlor
- Zpanel (no longer updated since 2014)
- CentOS Web Panel
