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.

What control panels are suitable for Windows Platform

The Windows Platform has a number of dedicated web hosting Control Panels that only work for them. Two examples of these include Helm and Hosting Accelerator. If an easy to use and customer friendly interface is required, Helm is generally held in the highest regard. A major reason that Helm stands apart from its competitors is due to the way it operates its billing information. More often than not, Control Panels do not contain information about the billing process so this is one area where Helm can be differentiated from other firms although H-Sphere also offers this advantage. In addition to this benefit, Helm is easy to operate and many users are able to interface with the system very comfortably.

Benefits of using Helm:

* Server Management: It can manage unlimited servers, domains and users and can also promptly add or remove servers. The Helm has integration with MailEnable, SmarterMail, Merak, IMail, MDaemon, Mail Servers and hMailServer as well as with Serv-U FTP, Microsoft FTP, Gene6 FTP Server, MySQL Server, and Microsoft SQL Server etc. It also supports Perl, PHP ASP, ASP.NET, and ColdFusion.

* The ability to manage billing: A hosting company will have the choice of using the internal billing system provided by Helm or any billing system offered by an external partner. the customer can have their bill created in the currency the like and they have the option to provide these invoices in plain text format and HTML format.

* Customer Management: This web hosting control panel also creates hosting plans for resellers as well as specifies the various resource limits including the amount of data transfer, domains, email accounts and disk-space.

What control panels are suitable for Linux Platform:

There are some web hosting control panels that only operate on the Linux platform and these would include DirectAdmin, cPanel and Interworks. Many people like the services offered by DirectAdmin as they are availale for a low cost and is an extremely easy and convenient control panel to use. Similarly, many people choose Interworx as they find it a simple interface and it too offers a variety of additional features. However, these control panels cannot match the popularity of the cPanel service, which is by far the most coveted Linux based control panel. The cPanel service serves in excess of ten styles of Linux. One of the reasons why many of the companies who provide a web hosting facility like cPanel is due to the low cost of its hosting. There are also other benefits of this brand of software package which provides a great number of other services. These services include deploy applications, provide the ability for customer accounts, offer an account transferring service between servers, provides a secure server and many other key features.

Benefits of using Helm:

* Statistical analysis of a website: If a user would like to know how much traffic they receive, cPanel can provide them with a full range of statistical facilities to obtain these figures. Many web host providers do not offer this facility as statistical programs take up a whole host of resources. If having statistical information is vital for your site, be sure to ask any potential web host that they provide 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.

* Providing File Manager and FTP facilities: Having FTP access is useful to upload files and cPanel provides this service and this facility is incredibly important when trying to manage a website. There is also the provision for a website owner to use the cPanel to give other people access to newly created FTP accounts. There is still the opportunity for the website owner to dictate the access rights of other users, a power shared by them and the host firm. Using a FTP package may not be for everyone and for those uncomfortable with using this process can have access to a File Manager in cPanel to control their files. The beauty of the File Manager is that it offers users the opportunity to load up files, unzip files and manage the copying and deletion processes of the 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.

Key benefits of using Plesk:

* Having shared hosting: Plesk is able to provide an identical various-platform design that allows any user to take control of their shared hosting landscape. This facility can also be undertaken on a self-administration basis. No matter the technical level of the website owner, they will find they are able to take full control of setting up, creating and fully managing their accounts.

* The ability to have dedicated hosting: A good number of technically proficient clients would like to undertake their own dedicated hosting and Plesk and its control panel facilitates this by means of its RPM installation and its modular design. There are a whole host of tools on offer to the client and these include XML-API and other unique 3rd party applications.