Posted on March 24th, 2010The backbone of every web hosting solution is it’s control panel. Therefore ever good web hosting company knows that it is imperative to provide a solution that their customers will be satisfied and comfortable with. In fact, web hosts know that many customers base their decision based on the control panel alone. To expand the popularity of their business, and provide supreme satisfaction to their customers, these web hosts have decided upon a certain control panel that will give them and their end users excellent administrative control. The goal is to provide a control panel that any customer, even the most novice can become comfortable with in a short amount of time.
Although every control panel has the basic capabilities that one would expect, not all of them can provide the consistency, compatibility and simplicity that the top web hosts are looking for. Instead there are only a handful that would be considered industry standard control panels. These control panels are briefly summarized below.
cPanel
cPanel is by far the most popular control panel in the web hosting industry. Although cPanel does have somewhat of a learning curve, it is a very easy one, as there are unlimited video tutorials available online, teaching you how to use virtually every feature of the software. If web host’s had to choose one control panel, it would most likely be cPanel based on it’s sheer popularity alone! The web hosting providers have one primary focus in mind, and that is customer satisfaction. As long as customers continue to demand cPanel, then you can bet that the top web hosts will continue to offer it as a primary control panel solution. Cpanel’s ease of use combined with its feature-rich interface make it by far the web’s most dominating control panel.
Plesk
Plesk is right behind cPanel as a top contender in the control panel industry. Many web hosts choose Plesk based solely on it’s compatibility. Plesk is one of the only control panels that support both Windows and Linux, which is definitely a selling point for web hosts. Many web hosting providers choose to offer Plesk exclusively, in order to target the large group of webmasters that operate their website on a Linux server.
ServerCP
One of the most popular control panels offered in dedicated and virtual private hosting packages is ServerCP. This solution is a Linux solution that supports the hosting of unlimited domains, which it makes it perfect for a webmaster hosting multiple domains on a Linux server. Similar to the above control panels, this control panel is also extremely easy to use, and includes a one step installation process that even the most novice user can perform.