A control panel is an internet based application that a web host provides to you in order to allow you to be able to manage your web
site content. There are generally three kinds of control panels.
1. Physical control panel
A physical control panel is used for initial program loading and related purposes.
2. Remote control panel
The remote control panel is what you are most likely to be using. A remote control panel is a control panel that enables remote access and allows a user to make changes to his or her web content from his or her PC, sitting at home or work.
3. Virtual control panel
A virtual control panel is a kind of control panel that usually serves as an alternative to remote control panel.
Control panels help you to be able to carry out a set of functions on the site data without having to personally meddle with them.
They let you access the server log(s ) to be able to monitor the traffic to your web site.
It helps you manage your FTP accounts to be able to handle the file transfers.
It helps you manage the remote database that you have established in order to run your site.
It also comes with configuration tools for your email accounts in case you want to set one up.
Some of the popular web-hosting control panels are listed below.
cPanel
cPanel happens to be the most popular web hosting control panel that is currently in use. It allows you to manage email accounts, databases, check web site statistics. It runs best on Linux and this doesn’t come even slightly as a surprise.
H-Sphere
H-sphere is another control panel that was released by Positive software. It features all the common features and is flexible as it can run on both Linux and Windows.
Plesk
The main advantage of Plesk is that its’ interface does not make you feel like a total computer nerd. The interface is a familiar windows interface. However, the feature set seems to be stolen from cPanel.
Ensim
The main advantage of Enism is that it can handle any type of website which makes it a big hit with people unsure about the nature of their website.
Direct Admin
Direct Admin handles the site data by running on Linux. The feature set is again similar to that of cPanel’s.
Of the many control panels than crawl all over the internet, cPanel is the most popular one as it proves best in terms of flexibility and performance. Neat and predictable, it is the obvious choice for anyone looking for a control panel to manage their web hosting requirements.
