Do You Need a Control Panel for Web Hosting?
Tags: Control Panel, CPanel, H-Sphere, Hosting, Plesk, Reseller Hosting, Shared Hosting
First of all, what is a control panel? In web hosting, it’s a software acting like an interface between a user and the server, resides on the server and lets you manage various administration related tasks as listed below (but not limited to only these):
- Creating email accounts.
- Creating FTP accounts.
- Upload files to your hosting account.
- Create new hosting accounts.
- View log files, display visitor statistics.
- Setup custom error pages, cron jobs.
You may not need a control panel, if you
- Understand Unix/Windows administration.
- Are familiar with most common system administration related tasks.
- Are required to manage only few websites.
If you an individual having a dedicated server and are familiar with system administration, control panel is optional. But if your will site run on a shared hosting account then almost every hosting provider will provide you with a control panel along with the account.
For resellers, using a control panel helps you and your end users to manage many aspects of the hosting account without having to know system administration. The simple to use GUI (Graphical User Interface) will let you and your end users manage most of the common and simple administration related tasks without much difficulty. Also, since many end users are not tech savvy, simple to use GUI based control panel system will help them manage their hosting accounts themselves and relieve you from the burden of supporting them for every single issue.
Some popular hosting control panels are CPanel, Plesk and H-Sphere.
