What Is cPanel Hosting and How It Can Benefit You?

cPanel is a popular control dashboard for your hosted website that simplifies your website and server management tasks without requiring technical know-how. Managing domain names, creating email accounts, installations and updates are made easy with cPanel’s intuitive graphical interface, where complex tasks are performed with one click. Used by over 1.6 million websites cPanel is provided with most hosting packages and seamlessly integrates with a wide range of plug-ins.

This article will help you get acquainted with cPanel by exploring what it is, what it can do and what you need to get started. Here’s what you need to know:

• What is cPanel and what is cPanel hosting?

• What is it good for? Key features, advantages and disadvantages

• What do I need to get started? Hosting types, cPanel tutorial and alternatives

• cPanel - cPanel is one of the most popular control panels in the web hosting industry. It’s an administration tool used to manage the applications that exist on the server where your website is hosted. Without it, you’d need advanced technical knowledge to carry out even basic tasks, like editing content or even launching your website.

• cPanel hosting - Under a cPanel hosting plan your data host will take care of the setup and maintenance of the server your website is hosted on. You’ll then be given the login to a cPanel account so you can take control of some of the day-to-day backend admin tasks

Find out what cPanel is good for by getting to know what cPanel can do. Here’s a list of some of the key features that could benefit you:

1. Upload files to your server

2. Set up preferences

3. Create databases

4. Install web applications

5. Connect domain names to your hosting

6. Change security settings

7. Set up email modules

8. Install WordPress (or another content management system)

9. User management

1. Upload files to your server

You can upload files directly to your server via a web-based application. You can use these files to make edits and changes to your website easily. In addition, you can change privacy settings for files as well as make backups of important material

2. Set up preferences

There’s an impressive number of customization options via the preferences setup module. For instance, you can change your preferred language, swap out different styles, and amend your contact information so your data host knows how to get in touch.

Plus, you can decide what sort of system notifications you’d like to receive too such as an alert when an email account is reaching its data quota

3. Create databases

Any site that uses a content management system (CMS), like WordPress, will need databases. This is where all your posts, data, and content will be stored. In many cases, these are created automatically, but you can create custom databases any time you’d like and set up a new area to store information and data

4. Install web applications

The cPanel interface allows you to easily install web applications and add-ons for your CMS. Most can be completed in just one click and offer some useful functionality for your site, like free shopping carts for your eCommerce store and website themes.

Most of this is done via the ‘Softaculous Apps Installer’ which comes bundled with cPanel and is compatible with thousands of apps across multiple content management systems

5. Connect domain names to your hosting

You can manage multiple domains from a single cPanel account, meaning you can operate different websites from the same administration tool. However, you’ll need a hosting package that allows for multiple domains first.

Then, it’s a simple case of using cPanel’s add-on domain feature to connect each one to the same account. You can then jump between each domain and edit your websites at your leisure

6. Change security settings

You’ll find a wealth of security options in your dashboard. You can set the encryption level on your emails, manage your user’s passwords, install firewalls, enable brute force protection, and install additional security plug-ins.

Plus, choosing a managed hosting package means you’ll benefit from a team of on-call security experts to help provide additional advice

7. Set up email modules

The cPanel interface offers pretty intuitive control over all of the email accounts linked to your site. Configuring your email modules allows you to access your business email from any desktop or mobile app, and you can interface with popular clients like Gmail and Outlook. What’s more, you can set an email quota which limits how much data each account can store

8. Install WordPress (or another content management system)

As one of the most popular control panels in the world, cPanel is compatible with a wide range of open-source and off-the-shelf content management systems like WordPress and Joomla. Most can be installed in just one click too, making it one of the most convenient control panels on the market

9. User management

The cPanel user manager is absolutely essential for larger organizations that require multiple staff members to access and make edits to a site. You can create and delete accounts, amend access levels so users can only use the modules they need to do their job, and amend user details. Plus, you can change user passwords to ensure everyone has safe and secure access to the backend of your site

What you need to get started with cPanel is a cPanel hosting package. cPanel is not licensed individually, rather it is provided to you with your cPanel hosting provider. The specific type of hosting package you choose should be based upon the needs of your website. Consider factors such as security, scalability and speed.

• Shared cPanel hosting - A very popular choice for new businesses, freelancers, and sites with low volumes of traffic. You’ll be sharing server space with multiple other websites and could face competition for resources. You’ll usually have a cPanel account for just one user, and site administration is incredibly straightforward

• Dedicated cPanel hosting - With this type of hosting your website will be housed on a private server. You won’t be sharing resources with other sites, and you’ll have significant computing power and storage space at your disposal. Best for large companies, you may have dozens of cPanel licenses available to assign to staff as admins

• VPS cPanel hosting - VPS stands for ‘virtual private server’ and works a little bit like shared hosting. Your website will still be on a server with other users, however, you’ll be segregated into your own private environment. It’s a good choice for medium-sized businesses that need a little extra processing power

• WordPress cPanel hosting - WordPress hosting can utilize any of the three hosting types mentioned above, but comes with the added benefit of being fully optimized to run websites built using the WordPress content management system. Users opting for a managed service will have access to a team of WordPress experts, plus, cPanel can be seamlessly integrated with the platform

Brief cPanel Tutorial

The compatibility of cPanel and WordPress allows for smooth integration. Most users of managed hosting services will have the installation process taken care of for them, however the process is still fairly straightforward for other users too:

1. Log into your cPanel dashboard
2. Click on the Softaculous App Installer
3. Type ‘WordPress’ into the search bar
4. Click on the WordPress icon that appears
5. Click ‘install’
6. You can now choose a quick or custom install. For newbies, we’d recommend the quick install
7. Enter your WordPress admin username, password, and email address
8. Your cPanel account should now be integrated with your WordPress account

With the second largest marketshare in hosting control panel software, cPanel should meet all of your web management needs easily. But there are several alternatives to consider.

• SPanel - Similar to cPanel but with a more modern user interface and a greater emphasis on security, coming bundled with a cybersecurity tool known as SShield

• Plesk - A very close competitor to cPanel, Plesk is actually the only web-based control panel that offers support for Windows servers

• ISPConfig - This is a free alternative to cPanel. It doesn’t have as many features but does allow you to manage multiple servers from the same account

cPanel is a great control dashboard for just about every kind of website. From humble freelancers using it to update their eCommerce stores, to multinational corporations that need thousands of licenses to run the company websites, cPanel has you covered. Without it, you’d find it incredibly difficult to run your site at all, and would need some extensive developer skills.

We’d recommend you opt for a managed service, this way you can draw on the knowledge and expertise of the customer service team to guide you through the ins and outs of the system.