Web Hosting Control Panels

Web hosting is a highly competitive field and this drives the many players to offer feature rich hosting plans at an affordable rate.It also compels the various providers to try to outshine each other. Almost all of the top companies are offering highly efficient technical support. Extra features, such as free domain names, site builder and pricing vary widely, but the control panel makes a difference and you have to pick the service which suits your requirements.

The control panel is an application designed to control and manage your Web site hosting. Through the control panel you can manage activities such as email creation, opening of your FTP accounts, statistics reports, etc. Though the control panel alone cannot be used as a yardstick to judge the quality of a Web hosting service, it is a vital aspect.

Control panels for Windows Only platform

Helm is a Windows only Web hosting control panel. The Helm control panel has many customer friendly features and the most striking feature is the billing information. Except the H-sphere, all most all the commonly used control panels don’t provide billing information inside the control panel. Helm is easy to operate and has a good standard interface.

Hosting Accelerator is another Windows only Web hosting control panel. It offers a lot of features, but the interface isn’tt properly though out and it lacks in extra feature. It suits the seasoned users.

Control Panels For Linux Only Platform’s

cPanel occupies the number one place among the control panels, because of its many features with easy operation and inexpensive aspect. It’s based on the Linux platform and serves ten flavors of Linux. Many hosting companies prefer it, as it costs only $20.00/month/server.

Interworx has many features and deserves to be ranked at the top of Linux only platform Web hosting control panels. Inteworx is dedicated to the Linux platform and has a clean interface

DirectAdmin is another control panel serving Linux platform. DirectAdmin provides low hosting at a fee of $10.00/month. It’s the easiest control panel to use. Though it claims to have more features, it needs a lot of improvements to match the other Linux only control panels.

The disadvantage of both Linux only and Windows only control panels is that they lose the hosting customers of the other platform.

Control Panels For Both Linux And Windows

Plesk is available for both Linux and Windows platforms. Many Web hosting providers who serve both Linux and Windows hosting customers prefer Plesk. The Plesk interface looks like Windows XP, but it’s expensive, due to serving both platforms. The Website builder tool and other features integrate well with Plesk.

H-Sphere is another control panel for both Linux and Windows. Through H-Sphere is widely used by the Web hosting sites, it lacks some features when compared to Plesk and cPanel, but it offers many features from key functionality to complete automation.

Ensim, another control panel for both Windows and Linux, has to cover more ground when compared to other Web hosting control panels serving both Linux and Windows.

As per the ratings, cPanel is preferred for Linux platform and Helm control panel is preferred for Windows platforms.

After deciding on the control panel, choose the Web hosting service which offers extra features, apart from good technical support, at a reasonable price. The extra features to look for are: free domain names, website builder, unlimited sub domains, and more.

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This article originally appeared on WebReference.com.