There’s a lot of technical jargon used in website hosting and for beginners, it can be a little confusing. One term that many people come across when looking for basic, shared hosting solutions is cPanel hosting. In this post, we’ll explain what cPanel hosting is as well as giving an overview of its features and benefits.
What is cPanel hosting?
In a nutshell, cPanel hosting is shared hosting that comes with the use of a particular brand of control panel, called cPanel.
Shared hosting is the most common form of hosting and is aimed primarily at those with small websites and low volumes of traffic. The term ‘shared’ relates to the fact that the user leases space on a server, along with other users. While each user has their own, dedicated section of the hard drive to store their files, they share the server’s CPU and RAM resources with all the other users.
In order to manage your hosting account and your website, web hosts provide users with a control panel. This enables you to undertake a range of different administrative tasks and provides you with the tools to carry them out. This lets you add new email addresses, install software, create additional websites and a wide range of other, helpful things. cPanel is a specific type of control panel.
Why use cPanel?
There are lots of different control panels in use, many of them created by web hosts for their own customers. Not all of them, however, offer the same features and nor are they all so easy to use. For beginners who have little experience in administering a website, being able to navigate easily around a control panel simplifies what can seem a complex and overwhelming process. At the same time, having a control panel with fewer features limits the potential of users to manage their hosting in the way that they need.
The advantage for cPanel users is that it is the global leader. Its easy to use dashboard and comprehensive suite of tools make managing your website very easy. What’s more, as the leading brand, it is continually being developed, adding new features that enable you to do even more, while keeping abreast with developments in website technology. Web hosts that produce their own-brand control panels simply don’t have the in-house capacity to make improvements of the same quality or at the same pace.
There is also a big gap when it comes to technical support. cPanel’s wide adoption means that there are lots of online tutorials and how-to posts available to help you with any technical matters you may need to address. Indeed, cPanel even has its own courses that web host employees can take so they can offer customers specialised, technical support – something many members of the WHUK support team are already certified to do.
Features and benefits of cPanel
One of the key features of cPanel is its ease of use. Users are provided with a screen divided into sections, each one of which relates to a different area of website management. Inside each section, you’ll find icons for tools which can help you carry out a wide range of tasks.
The different sections include: files, databases, domains, email, metrics (visitor stats, etc.), security, software, advanced, preferences and applications. These can be found simply by scrolling down or if you’re are looking for a particular tool, you can find it by using the search bar at the top.
The other advantage of cPanel is its incredibly wide range of tools and the things these enable you to do. It’s impossible in a regular blog post to give a comprehensive overview of all the tools available, however, some of the highlights include:
- Scheduling website backups
- Restoring files and directories from a backup – essential if you ever get hacked
- Creating and managing other users of your website
- One-click installation of applications like WordPress.
- Installing SSL certificates to encrypt credit card data – you’ll need SSL to sell products from your site
- Set up and manage email accounts, mailing lists, autoresponders and email filters
- Add new websites and publish them to the internet
- Create and manage databases (needed for most CRM sites, such as those built with WordPress)
- Secure your site against hackers and malware infection
- Find important metrics, such as the number of visitors or bandwidth usage
Even the tools are designed for simplicity and ease of use. Here’s how simple it is to create a new email address for your organisation:
Conclusion
Hopefully, from reading this post, you now have a better understanding of what cPanel hosting is and how it differs from standard shared hosting. You should also be aware of why cPanel is such a user-friendly control panel and the comprehensive range of tools it provides.
If you are looking for shared cPanel hosting, check out our high-performance, cloud based cPanel packages.
