When it comes to setting up a Linux VPS hosting account, the most popular option is to us a cPanel VPS license. Despite not being free, cPanel is the most popular piece of software for managing your websites as it is relatively easy to install and use compared to some of the other options which are available.

Benefits of cPanel

One of the biggest benefits of using cPanel hosting is its very simple and intuitive interface. The interface is designed for users of all IT capabilities. Because VPS cPanel is so easy and so well coded, it is extremely reliable. cPanel not only makes tasks easy through its graphical interface, it also allows you to use third party services quickly and easily. For example, if you want to allow “one click” setup of the most popular pieces of software, you can install Softaculous or Installatron. Rather than spending hours upon hours configuring anti-spam rules, you can use SpamAssassin instead and let that take care of the spam. If you want to see how busy your website is, you can use AWStats to instantly tell how busy your site is and who is visiting it without the need of third party scripts such as Google Analytics.

Control Panel Options

Obviously there are alternatives available to cPanel, such as Kloxo, which is open source and free to use. While it may be tempting to use this and save yourself the license fee for cPanel, it not only lacks a lot of the features which have made cPanel so popular, but it also lacks the support which is available for cPanel. In order to understand the difference in popularity, all you need to do is Google both options. Google finds just 688,000 results when searching for “Kloxo”, but finds almost 28 million results for the term “cPanel”. You may wonder why this would matter. Well let’s say you are having an issue with setting up a cron job. If you search for “cPanel setup cron job” there are 231,000 results, compared to 22,100 for the same search for Kloxo. With over 10 times the number of pages found, it is far more likely that you will find a solution to the problem that you are having.

Let’s Talk Servers

While most Linux virtual dedicated server plans will run cPanel without any issues, if you’re going to be utilizing hosting for important sites, you need to look at cPanel VPS optimized hosting rather than just taking the first cheap cPanel VPS host that you find. Even though cPanel is extremely reliable and robust, the software is only as good as the server it is running on. Almost everyone who has had a bad experience with cPanel has installed it onto a low quality, unreliable server. Setting up any sort of hosting, including cPanel VPS hosting, is like building a house. If the foundations are not stable, anything you build on that foundation is bound to crumble.

VPS Reviews

If you are seriously looking into getting your own cPanel VPS hosting there are a few things that you should check first. The first place to start is by looking for Linux VPS reviews. Make sure that you check plenty of reviews as well as comments on web hosting forums, as some companies post fake reviews of their own service. You can usually find people complaining if they are having problems, however do not assume that if you are unable to find any reviews that there are not any problems. Once you have read enough reviews, you need to look into the service a little more. Checking the uptime of sites which are hosting on the same server is a good place to start. You will also want to check if they have a service level agreement. If so, have any other users had any issues with getting them to honor the agreement?

The Final Word

The best piece of advice we can give you? Do not use the cheapest VPS cPanel host you can find. Do your research and your due diligence. It will save you time and many IT headaches.