Hosting Control Panels of 2024 – The Definitive Guide

• By Elvis Plesky
• December 1, 2023
• Business and industry, Guides, Product and technology, Various

4

Minutes

If you’re involved in managing servers for web hosting then you’ll appreciate the importance of having a simple, yet highly effective method of monitoring and looking after your hosting infrastructure. The most effective way of managing all the processes related to routine tasks of hosting infrastructure is to use a web hosting control panel.

Fortunately, this issue has been addressed by many hosting companies as they include their own hosting control panel or Graphical User Interface (GUI).

The web hosting control panel approach will allow you to monitor and adjust your server services from virtually anywhere with a stable internet connection. We’ve made this detailed guide to help you understand the most popular options available on the market and decide which one’s the best choice for you.

Common Hosting Control Panel Features

Most server control panels provide you with a massive set of tools. The overall list of features may vary slightly from product to product. However, here we’re going to focus our attention on the most typical categories of tools:

• Domain Name System (DNS) management.
• Control over DBMS. The most typical options are MySQL/MariaDB and PostgreSQL.
• Server account management (user accounts setup/configuration, quotas, access rights).
• Backups (full server backup, backups of separate accounts, backup automation/ scheduling).
• Mailing infrastructure management (Exim/Dovecot/Postfix mail servers management, DKIM/SPF/DMARC configuration, IMAP/POP3/SMTP protocols support, e-mail accounts management, mail queue supervision).
• SSL certificates management and automation.
• Log files access and reporting.
• Ongoing monitoring of all system services via a web-based interface.
• Ability to install additional services and apps.
• Support of Linux and Windows operating systems
• Dedicated support of WordPress ( as the most popular cms worldwide )

As any other software on the market, hosting control panels have regular updates and various add-on packages. Top control panels have special enterprise versions with specific features:

• Multiple servers management via one interface
• Multiple VPS management
• Support of IPv6 protocol
• Firewall and security policies management

Other valuable features of  hosting panels

Managing Your Domains

Addon Domains – Many web panels come with a domain name management section. Giving you some control over the ones that you’ve bought. Any additional domains that you pick up are known (rather helpfully) as Addon Domains, and you can link a different website or (email etc.) with each one of them.

Parked domains – a Parked Domain is like a vacant lot. The land maybe yours, but you don’t have a house on it yet. A Parked Domain doesn’t have a website of its own. It may look as if something is there but that’s probably only because it’s been pointed somewhere else. This is how that works. Let’s imagine you’ve bought three domains called forinstance.com, forinstances.com, and thisforinstance.com. If the first one is the main one then you could have the other two point to it instead of just leaving an empty.

Subdomains – your primary domain (or root domain) is a bit like the trunk of a tree. You can have lots of branches coming off it, and these are called Subdomains. You create each branch by taking the root domain and putting a word in front of it. You separate the two with a dot. Subdomains often have their own website with a might be used for some kind of unique purpose. An example of this could be: help.forinstance.com, which would link to help material for forinstance.com.

File Management

File management tools help you keep everything on your web server under control. If you’re lacking Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress, then they can come in really useful for managing files. Setting up File Transfer Protocol (FTP) software is another way to make sure that your website gets updated regularly. This protocol is a well-known way of transferring files, and you can set it to keep your site up to date and then leave it to do its thing.

Hotlink protection

Hotlink protection stops other web servers accessing your image files. HotLinking is when an unscrupulous individual puts images and videos on their site that belong to you. They don’t host them on their own website, they just link to where they are on yours. So not only did they pirate your content, they had to your bandwidth burden too. The Index Manager lets you control how the contents of the index directory are shown. Usually, you wouldn’t let anybody access a web server directory without there being something like an indexhtml file present to tell the web server that there’s a file that needs loading. Leaving your directory access open leaves your server open to security threats.

Custom error pages

Your control panel will let you create bespoke error pages that appear if somebody tries to visit a page on your site that doesn’t exist. So, you could tell it to show something hip like, “404 – Sorry, we’ve looked everywhere, even behind the sofa, but we’re just not seeing that page.” (Or you could just do a standard message.)

Custom Cron jobs

Cron is a scheduler. You can tell it to run scripts that certain times on certain days. It’s great for automating routine tasks like updating database views, scouring your site for broken links, or making backups. You can essentially just set it and forget it.

The World Of Hosting Panels

What are the major industry players? What each hosting control panel has to offer? What makes them different from each other? Here we go with the answers.

Plesk cPanel DirectAdmin Webmin ISPconfig Zpanel Ajenti ISPmanager Core-Admin Websitepanel VirtualMin AlternC Storm ServerPilot Atomia

Baifox Hosting Control Panel Interworx Zomos VestaCP CentOS Web Panel Sentora Kloxo-MR Froxlor Vdeck 4 i-MSCP ServerSuit Pantheon Webuzo ZesleCP

Plesk

Is ease of use and simplicity your primary goal? If you’re not a web hosting expert you might like Plesk, a hosting panel aimed at making it really easy to build, secure and to run your website and its applications. While cPanel first came out in 1996, Plesk has been around since 2001.

Interestingly, if you use a Windows hosting rig you will like Plesk – while cPanel is strictly Linux-only, Plesk offers a Windows edition too. Plesk platform works with Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Red Hat Linux, Cloud Linux and Windows operating systems.

Also worth noting about Plesk, users get both client-facing functionality and admin functionality which makes it particularly flexible, overall a powerful control panel that offers its users a high level of control. It’s no wonder that a range of leading web hosts such as Go Daddy, Docker and even Google make use of Plesk.

The key features you want to keep in mind about Plesk include:

• Wide compatibility: you can use Plesk to manage both Linux and Windows servers, while it also offers installers for most popular CMS platforms.
  
• Management flexibility: whether you need server management features or account management features you can count on Plesk to offer these functions right out of the box.
• User-friendly UI: While cPanel’s UI is perfectly useable, you might find Plesk offers a cleaner experience more like you’re used to with popular web applications. The features are the same, however.

In turn, Plesk is focusing on everyone from individual website hosts, to small business owners through to serious developers managing a lot of sites – all with the aim to make managing a server as efficient and easy as possible.

This commercial control panel gives you framework ready environment for Node.js, PHP, Python and Ruby On Rails. Is WordPress your favorite content management system? Plesk’s WP Toolkit is the ultimate solution to automate cloning/staging, ensure high-security standards and utilize mass-management features.

Plesk and WebOps

One special point worth mentioning about Plesk is its thorough support for WebOps – Plesk says it is proud to be a web hosting control panel that’s built for WebOps. In other words, you can expect solid server and indeed website security measures alongside the ability to take control of multiple servers – all from one hosting control panel.

All-in-all Plesk really offers a high level of server control alongside a unique level of flexibility and scalability to its users.

Plesk Features

What makes Plesk unique, and why would you want to choose Plesk over another control panel solution? Let’s take a look.

SSL-security with just one click: SSL is key to good website security, everyone knows that – even if you’ve never hosted or owned a website. But website owners often find that setting up and updating SSL configurations can be a real difficulty. However, the SSL scene has changed and new services now make it easier. So, Plesk can automatically retrieve and set up your SSL certificates while also ensuring your web server is configured to only make use of HTTPS, not the insecure HTTP layer. Plesk also automatically renews your SSL certificates. With Plesk you won’t need to worry about manually securing your websites any longer. Furthermore, using Plesk you also get all the detail you need to know when your server is getting attacked.

Effortless WordPress security: Security is, without doubt, an important theme for website owners – and securing WordPress is just as important. But, like SSL certificates, WordPress security can be a tricky and time-consuming affair. Again, Plesk makes matters easier by allowing you to secure your WordPress instances with just one click. Plesk automatically ensures security patches are installed, alongside all bug fixes – it monitors WordPress updates around the clock.

Integrations: Cross-platform integration makes life easier for website owners and for developers. Plesk has two very useful integrations. First, many developers are highly dependent on Git. Plesk has offered support for Git integration from version 12.5 and up thanks to its Gitman extension, and it is relatively unique amongst hosting control panels, in this respect. Another key integration offered by Plesk is Docker – offered since 2016. In fact, you can access more than 200,000 Docker images from Plesk and you can launch Docker from Plesk without resorting to a CLI. In fact, log in to Plesk, and you will see a big range of Plesk extensions – all there to help making manage your website a lot easier.

Plesk Summary

• Plesk is one of the most popular hosting control panels known for its intuitive interface available in 31 languages.
• Plesk is commonly bundled with VPS dedicated hosting, providing a user-friendly panel for individuals or web agencies to efficiently manage servers and websites.
• Plesk supports Windows hosting, suitable for .NET websites.
• It is compatible with ARM servers, which can reduce carbon emissions and potentially lower server resource costs by up to 40%, without compromising performance.
• The panel integrates with tools like Git, Docker, and cloud services, offering staging environments and free domain names, aiming to streamline the workflow for web studios and developers. Plesk supports various technologies including WordPress, Joomla!, Laravel, .NET, Ruby, and Node.js.
• For security, Plesk includes a firewall with country blocking, fail2ban, ModSecurity, and allows integration with external monitoring systems.