Web Hosting Control Panels

There are several hosting platforms for these and other website builders, and the prominent ones include Plesk by SWSoft, CPanel, DirectAdmin, InterWorx, Helm and H-Sphere. The platforms maybe shared, virtual or dedicated.

SWsoft / Paralells

Plesk, which can also refer to a site builder by the same name, is perhaps a bit more prominent than the rest. It boasts a user-friendly interface that allows the user to choose skins in the browser based interface. Plesk is offered landside a powerful Anti-Virus called Dr. Web which has been praised for frequently publishing updates and already has a database of over a 100,000 known viruses which should be instantly recognized once they attempt to infect a file in the server. Plesk also has an intelligent error-handling and trouble-shooting which ensures minimal time wastage.  The control panel for the platform is designed to simplify the administration and management of the sites. Plesk, as discussed earlier in connection to intelligent troubleshooting, has automated many processes which allow users and service providers to reduce operating costs and concentrate on increasing profitability and making customers happy while at the same time being efficient. The downside is that it may seem pricier than its competitors with same or even better features.

Psoft (now bought by SWsoft/Paralells)

H-Sphere is a multi-server web hosting platform with an array of features. These features would include complete automation. This refers to the integrated billing and provisioning automation from signup to service delivery. This includes domain registration and credit card processing. Also the billing system takes care of many fee set up such as recurring fees, taxes and so on. Mail support defines the number of mailboxes, mail forwarding and web based mails. On the payments front, H-Sphere enables one to set up merchant accounts to accept credit card payments as well as online payment solutions. It also boasts a control panel which is regarded as user friendly and which helps out in repetitive tasks including adding email users and collecting payments. H-Sphere provides complete hosting automation for Windows 2003 as well as BSD and Linux.

Cpanel.net

Another platform for web hosting is cPanel, which is often touted as Plesk natural rival. Certainly it is regarded as one of the industries' leader. It features a web control panel that helps a user manage his/her hosting account this time around through a web interface. A cPanel hosting package would include things like free domain name, 750 GB of web space. Interestingly, some reseller hosting agents even offer refunds for unused months. cPanel is content rich and according to some punters, it’s more developed than Plesk. The downside for cPanel is that even if its control panel has been hailed as user friendly, sometimes one might get into trouble upon updating it.  It might be prudent if one keeps the updates to the minimum. Another vice associated with cPanel is that is seems a little vulnerable to bugs, but overall this does not seem to affect its popularity with users, especially administrators.

To see more of these types of control panels and the hosting companies that use them, you should do your homework and go to our web hosting reviews.