cPanel is a control panel that allows management of web hosting with internet browser over the world wide web. Currently is number one hosting panel with hundreds of thousands installations. It is very easy to manage for both customers and administrators, and it is directly integrated into the web server. Only linux version is available with windows version currently in development.

cPanel Features

cPanel automates administration of databases, domains, files/folders, FTP accounts, som DNS settings, provides easy access to logs, configurations etc. FTP accounts can be setup (permissions based) with access restrictions. Databases can be created/deleted, and databases users can be added to databaseses. Currently  MySQL and postgresql are supported. Domains can be directly added in cpanel as a addon domains or parked domains. Subdomains are also supported.  Logs and statistics are available (server load, number of files, data usage) and other.

Most of the hosting providers offer cPanel as control panel to their customers.

There are several things you should look up to when you choose your next web hosting provider.

1. Audience

If most of your traffic comes from USA then you should choose USA provider, otherwise you should choose provider in the country that most traffic will come from. This is because the website will load faster if the server is closer to the visitor. If there is reliable provider in the target country then go for USA provider.

2. Hosting provider

Once you determine the location you should choose the hosting provider. Do not go for the cheapest one because you will end up with horrible service. Compile a list of the top 5 hosting companies. Start by investigating how long they have been in business, what types of hosting services they sell, look up datacenter/network information such as connectivity and internet speed, server hardware, how much customers they have and other related information etc.

3. Reviews and Rating

After you narrow the top 3 then you should start by looking for customer reviews. Just do a google search for “companyname review” or “companyname rating” and look for reviews and rating. Large hosting companies with thousands of customers may have bad reviews (because there are many customers) but this should influence on your decision, because people tend to write negative reviews more often than positive (3:1 ratio!).

After you choose the best provider you should look for discounts and coupons.

Justhost

Justhost is web hosting company with offices in United States of America, United Kingdom and Australia. Created in 2002, it have become popular in recent years. Offers shared and reseller hosting. Shared hosting plan comes with unlimited space, bandwidth, free domain name, PHP, MySQL, cPanel control panel, host unlimited domains on single account, FTP and many other features. This plan is good for personal website/blog hosting. Regular price is $6.95 monthly, currently on promotion – $3.45 monthly. The reseller hosting also comes with tons of features (all the features shared offers), plus free whm control panel, but depending on the chosen plan you get allocated disk space. Only platinum plan comes with unlimited disk space and bandwidth.

Justhost Support

Justhost offers live chat, tickets (e-mail) and phone support.

Overall Rating

Justhost is top rated host. My personal rating is 5/5. They have fast servers, offer tons of features and have lots of customers.

Bluehost is USA based company headquartered in Utah. It is one of the oldest web hosting companies, created in 1996. Bluehost have only one hosting plan and it is great for personal websites/blogs and small companies. On a Bluehost you can host unlimited sites, blogs or galleries, shopping carts and lots of other scripts. Account is perfectly setup so you can run wordpress, drupal, joomla or other cms – type script without any problems because PHP, MySQL and Apache web server is included. One-click installer for popular applications like the above mentioned is available, and you can access it via your account’s cPanel control panel. There are lots of other features including: FTP, Ruby On Rails, .htaccess support, streaming audio/video and others. If you do not have a domain, you can register one for free after you signup with Blue Host.

Rating

Bluehost is top hosting provider hosting more than 1000000 websites on their servers. Have received number of rewards and good reviews from users and hosting sites. They are recommended provider for your next web site online.

Hostgator is well known company in the hosting industry hosting more than 2,500,000 domains (at the time of writing this) with more than 200,000 clients. Founded in 2002 by Brent Oxley, based out of Houston, Texas, USA. Offers shared, reseller, virtual private servers and dedicated server hosting. Shared web hosting have three hosting plans: hatchling, baby and business. Shared plans have the following features: unlimited space, bandwidth, cPanel control panel, PHP, MySQL,  FTP,With Hatchling you can host only one domain and this is the cheapest plan – $4.95 (three years annual payment), while with baby and business you can host unlimited domains. The baby plan is the most popular on hostgator because the price not expensive ($7.95 monthly), and you can host as much as sites you need/want. For companies there is the business plan which includes free 1-800 toll-free number, free SSL certificate and a dedicated IP address. This plan is also the best for e-commerce websites. Prices for business plan start at $12.95 monthly. 5/5 for features, hosting plans and prices.

HostGator Support

Support gets 5/5. They respond fast, are nice and are very technically knowledgeable. In my 3 years hosting with them I have had minor probles (3-4) which all have been resolved within 30  minutes.

Overall Rating

Hostgator gets 5 out 5. They are really great company. I am happy with Hostgator and recommend them to anyone. You would not mistake if you choose Host Gator.

Web hosting control panels allow users to manage many aspects of their hosting account. Control panels do not require technical knowledge of setting up servers, configuring, or linux administration. Some of the features available at most of the panels are: create new databases, setup users and permissions, FTP accounts, access to statistics/logs, file managers, addon domains and much more. The most popular control panels are: cpanel, hsphere, directadmin, plesk, cortex, webmin and others. Most of them are commercial and propriety (except webmin is free and open-source). Most of the hosts offer cPanel to their customers, mostly because cPanel is simple to use, have a great interface with lots of features, it is one of the oldest panels and it is the most popular in the industry. Usually hosts do not charge their clients for cPanel. I personally have used cPanel numerous times and I can say that I got used to it and I really like it. Have tried other panels like Hsphere, they are good but cPanel is much better. To make it even more simple for their clients hosts offer Fantastico Cpanel addon tool for fast, simple one-click installation of popular web applications: wordpress (blogs), Joomla (Content Management System -CMS), Drupal – CMS, zencart – shopping cart, galleries and many other scripts. Fantastico sets up everything for you including databases, users/permissions and initial settings, however does not provide any help/support for the script installed.

Online Shopping cart software allows webmaster to build oline stores. Shopping carts software categorize products and/or services offered, allow the customer to collect products virtually in a cart and perform a checkout. Usually the checkout is done via special secure payment gateway (paypal or other), so customer financial data is not stored on shared hosting servers. Mostly because of this many online web stores were created. Other reason would be the free shopping carts. Magento for example is the best shopping cart, with many features including gateway for many credit cart payment processors (on the official site there are more than 300 payment modules available). Other popular shopping carts are Zencart and Oscommerce. All have many features and great community of users and developers. They are all written in PHP and require MySQL or other database system for storing data and customer information. Nowadays almost every hosts have PHP and MySQL support in their big list of features, but a good e-commerce host is one that offers great support, excellent uptime, dedicated IP address and SSL certificate. The best host and the best plans is the business plan from Hostgator. It also comes with cPanel to easily manage your websites. Other good hosts that offer these features are Ixwebhosting, Bluehost, Hostmonster, Dreamhost, Webhostingpad, Justhost and Hostnine.

MySQL Community Edition is free open-source relational database management system. It is the most popular in the hosting industry and it often comes in bundle with PHP, Apache web server in Linux hosting environment (LAMP setup). It is powerful database system, uses Structured Query Language for managing databases, insert data, selecting, updating records. Many popular web applications including Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal use it for storing data and settings. Popular websites like Facebook, Wikipedia, Google use it too, so it is pretty much popular. As for mysql hosting I have not met a web hosting company that do not offer MySQL support on their servers. Most of the hosts support remote MySQL so you can access your databases remotely from other server or even from your home PC. Usually mysql management panel is integrated in the control panel (cpanel, hsphere, directadmin or others), with database tool and phpmyadmin. If you are not familiar with creating and seting databases to install some web software, you can use the one-click installers offered. Most top hosting providers have Fantastico or some other one-click installer tool.

Web hosting companies allow reselling of hosting resources (disc space, bandwidth and others) to users and companies. Usually web developers have reseller account so they can easily setup hosting accounts for their clients to easily manage websites. If you are planning to start a web hosting company then reseller account is something you should begin with. You do not need to have any technical knowledge of setting up web servers, configuring software or linux administration whatsoever, but you will need to know how to setup accounts using control panel, manage billing, and provide support to the end users. Most resellers are able to establish branding of the services they resell. Most of the hosts offer integrated billing solutions like WHMCS or WHM.AutoPilot for free for resellers, cPanel control panel and other hosting tools to you to make it easier to sell even more.  HostGator even gives you free ENOM domain reseller account so you can sell domains to your clients. Reseller hosting is more expensive than shared hosting, with prices from $15 and up depending on the host and reseller features. Here are couple of web hosts that offer reseller hosting: HostGator (currently the biggest reseller company), Hostnine, Lunarpages, Justhost and others.

Virtual private servers are between shared hosting and dedicated server hosting. They exists as virtual machines, created by a software, on a dedicated server. These servers are limited by resources (CPU speed, RAM memory and/or disc space), and depending on the type there are VPS that do not interact directly with the hardware (fully virtualized environment), VPS that directly interact with the hardware (where the parent software maintains resource allocation (paravirtualized) – there need to be CPU support for these type of servers, or VPS that can be combination of both. With a VPS you have all the benefits of a dedicated server, for a lot cheaper price. Root access where you can install programs like ffmpeg or special software that you need for your web services or high traffic sites. Some hosts offer managed VPS hosting solutions: they update software for you, configure specific tasks, setup firewall and other, but this is a little more expensive than the standard unmanaged hosting. There are VPS hosting solutions that come with Virtuozzo power panel for simpler administration, and cPanel for web hosting administration. I think that combination of Virtouzzo, cPanel and managed hosting is the best because you get the latest software updates installed, and panels for easy administration of the server and web hosting aspects. The most popular VPS hosting providers are: Inmotion, HostGator, Lunarpages, Ixwebhosting. If you are up to VPS hosting you should check them out.