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The environment of web hosting is extremely competitive at the moment and these conditions have created an environment where firms are aggressively competing on price to offer numerous hosting plans at an attractive cost. If firms can’t compete on price they are forced to stand out in other ways. There are a number of different ways a firm can make a strong offering to consumers and these include building the site, providing a domain name at no extra charge and the overall fee. However, the major element for many consumers is the Control Panel. Therefore, the website that you have and what you want for it will play a huge role in determining which web host is best for you. The way that a web host maintains control to organize a customers site is through the software they provide and this comes in the shape of the Control Panel. Every single action and activity that is undertaken on a website is maintained through the Control Panel. These actions can include anything ranging from creating FTP accounts, operating the email server for the client or compiling statistical data. No matter what operating platform you use, be it Windows or Linux there will be a Control Panel for your specific platform or one that can cater for both.

Control panels for websites based on Windows Platform

There are certain web hosting control panels that work only for Windows platform. Hosting Accelerator and Helm are the typical examples of Windows only web hosting control panel. However, Helm is one of the most popular Windows only web hosting control panel due to its several customer friendly features. One of the most outstanding features of Helm is the billing information as most all the normally used control panels do not posses billing information within the control panel. The only exception is the H-sphere. Moreover, Helm is also very convenient to operate as well as has a very good standard interface.

Benefits of using Helm:

* Managing your server needs: Helm has the ability to facilitate an unlimited amount of servers, users and domains whilst being able to swiftly increase or decrease the number of servers. Helm has a high level if integration and can be used alongside SmarterMail, MailEnable, Merak and Mdaemon. Amongst the other programs it can be used aside include Imail, Mail Servers, hMailServer, Serv-U FTP, Microsoft FT, MySQL Server, Gene6 FTP Server andMicrosoft SQL Server, amongst others. If that was not enough, Helm is able to support Perl,ASP.Net, ColdFusion and PHP ASP.

* Cost of the service: Helm offer a great deal of freedom with regards their billing process as customers can either use the Helm one or take advantage of the billing system from any other external party. This freedom is also extended to allowing the customer to operate in the currency of their choosing and how they want to distribute or view the invoices. Customers are able to choose between HTML and plain text format.

* Managing customers: An additional feature of the control panel provided via web hosting is that it allows hosting plans to be created for resellers. In addition to this, there is the ability to quantify how different resource limits are being filled with respect to transferring data, the use of domains, emails and the amount of disk-space that is on offer.

Control panels for websites based on Linux platform:

A client has a choice of a few web hosting control panels when it comes to the Linux platform and these include DirectAdmin, cPanel and Interworx. There is no doubt that the low cost of hosting and the convenience of its control panel are factors in people choosing DirectAdmin. Another choice for many consumers is Interworx as they provide many additional features including a simple to use interface. Yet cPanel is the most popular control panel for the Linux control panels and it has the ability to serve over ten different styles of Linux. This consumer preference is also shared by companies who provide a web hosting service and this is mainly down to the low cost of its service. There are also a number of other services provided by cPanel that are attractive to customers and these include deploy applications, customer account provisions, having the ability to transfer a number of accounts between servers and many other useful services including secure servers.

Key benefits of using cPanel:

* Statistics of how the website is performing: With the amount of statistical tools and facilities offered by cPanel it is possible for any website owner to correctly analyze and calculate the traffic that is on their site. Not every hosting provider offers this service as many view it as a drain in their resources and would prefer not to offer the service to customers. If this an important aspect for a website owner, it is in their interest to ensure their choice of web host actually offers the service.

* Email Management: This particular web hosting control panel provides an email management facility that allows the website owner to create as well as delete email accounts. They provide Webmail facility that enables their clients to read mail online. The cPanel further offers other email related facilities such as setting up forwarders in order to forward one email account to another, setting up simple auto-responders in order to send a computerized reply back to the sender in case there is an enquiry email.

* FTP and File Manager: The cPanel offers FTP access to a website so as to upload files. It is an extremely essential feature for managing a website. Moreover, if the website owner needs the cPanel also allows to register new FTP accounts in order to enable other people to access the website. However, it is the website owner and the hosting company that have the right to restrict and specify others access to specific folders. The one who are the not that comfortable with FTP package to upload files can use the File Manager available in the cPanel. The File Manager allows the user to unzip files, upload files on the server, as well as copy and delete files.

Control panels for websites based on both Linux and Windows:

As well as the dedicated control panels for each platform, there are some control panels that will work on both. Some of the more common web hosts that operate this facility are Ensim, H-Sphere and Plesk. H-Sphere is able to offer its client many different features that run the full spectrum from complete automation to providing key functionalities. Plesk has turned out to be the control panel for Linux and Windows that has turned out to be the most popular. This means that the majority of companies who offer a web hosting service for Windows and Linux will provide Plesk. Many people have remarked that the Plesk interface looks similar to Windows XP and as you might expect, as it serves both platforms, it can be an expensive service.

Features and advantages of Plesk:

* The ability to have shared hosting: A huge benefit of Plesk is that offers facilities like self administration and a design that is identical for multi-platforms which makes it an ideal service to manage an environment of shared hosting. This can be undertaken even by people with no technical skills at all as Plesk aids the setup, creation and managing accounts process.

* Dedicated Hosting: The RPM installation and modular design of the Plesk control panel enables the Dedicated Hosting providers to satisfy the various requirements of tech savvy clients. It offers a number of unique tools such as XML-API and other 3rd party applications.