cPanel is a control panel for your website and allows you to set up and manage your web account through a graphical interface instead of having to use command line. This means that you can make changes to your website without having to learn to use a command line environment. There are a variety of control panels out there, most offering a graphical interface and granting access to email management, FTP, subdomain administration, website statistics, etc. With a control panel, you can add/remove email accounts or view disk usage and statistics for your site by clicking on a shortcut and entering the appropriate information.

cPanel is the leading control panel on the market today. The two other big players in the control panel arena are Plesk and Ensim.

Ensim offers a variety of features and four levels of administration: appliance owner, reseller, site owner and user account owner. Ensim is the second most used control panel and compares well with cPanel, but its interface can sometimes be difficult to navigate and can be confusing to the users.

Plesk is reputed to be very stable, which is a desirable feature if you have important information which requires extreme stability. Plesk also provides more support for automation and has a large variety of plug-ins to increase its available features. On the down side, like Ensim, Plesk’s user interface is harder to use than that of cPanel. It also does not contain as many features as cPanel.

With its stylish design, user-friendly interface and rich features, cPanel remains one of the most popular control panels on the market. It’s easy to navigate with the icon-based menu and it provides all the tools necessary to manage your website.

Below is a selection of the features available in cPanel:

Mail