Control Panels:

 

 

Many webhosting consumers can accomplish all of the steps necessary to bring their site online without ever talking to a tech at their hosting company.  This is because of the control panel.  Control Panels are probably the most important piece of software in any hosts inventory and are the single greatest reason why hosting a website can now be done so cheaply.  A Control Panel takes all of the complicated steps involved in setting up websites, email, and dns and reduces them to a few button clicked and some text entries.  This means less time on the phones for customers and more time for the techs to keep your servers running 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

 

There are three main brands of Control Panels in the web hosting world: CPanel, Plesk, and Helm.  In addition to these, large hosting providers, such as GoDaddy and 1and1.com, offer their own custom control panels.  Even though each of these panels offers a different look and feel, the set of tasks that they accomplish are pretty much the same.  Once you’ve taken the time to learn to use a certain control panel it’s usually easier to stick with that type of panel but don’t let the fact that another hosting provider doesn’t have the panel that you are used to keep you from switching.  If you know how to use one control panel, you should be able to figure out the others. 

 

If you want to compare Cpanel, Plesk, and Helm you here are some links to Demo Sites that will let you try them out before you purchase them.

 

Plesk:

            http://www.swsoft.com/en/products/plesk/demo/

Cpanel:

            http://www.cpanel.net/products/cPanelandWHM/linux/try_cp_whm.htm

Helm (requires registration):

            http://www.webhostautomation.com/helm4/tryhelm/onlinedemo/registerfordemo.aspx

 

If you would rather just see a demonstration check out the flash tutorials below:

 

Plesk:  

            http://www.swsoft.com/en/products/plesk/tutorials/

Cpanel:

            http://www.demodemo.com/tutorials_cpanel_x3.html

 Helm:

            http://www.demodemo.com/tutorials_helm.html