Likelihood to Recommend I personally use it for any website hosting I do for me and others. There are a few others but I have stuck with the old tried and true and it always works for me and I know how to get around it so it has become a breeze for me. For those who are extremely new to websites and hosting or to those with very little technical know how cPanel could be very overwhelming and they might want to do like a managed WordPress hosting where they don't really have to see or deal with cPanel. I also probably wouldn't use it for straight email hosting. If you have thousands of cPanel accounts it may get very expensive and that could be a factor.
Read full review The SMP suite is great at what it does, but it can be very complicated to learn how to get it to do what you want. It's a beast! However, when you learn how to the things you want to do, it comes as second nature and you complete them like they're supposed to be done that way. A lot of these things are done to be able to be completed a number of different ways. Take Patch Management, you can deploy patches automatically, via Jobs, or via the "Start Software Update Cycle Now" link in the SMP Agent!
Read full review Pros The dashboard is very intuitive. Even beginners can figure out how to do things without very much help. The online community is very helpful and the online documentation makes administering any tasks a lot easier. User creation and administration for FTP access is also very simple. Read full review Software deployment through policy Engage with customers for feedback Understands the future needs of customers Read full review Cons The costs can be a limiting factor for some businesses if you are not using a web hosting company that uses it. I have been experimenting with Cloud hosting, which can be very daunting for the novice. There is an option to install it on the cloud but it is expensive. Read full review The SMP solution is a beast. Each piece is complicated in itself let alone how everything ties together! There is plenty of documentation online on how to perform a specific task, but you need to pay attention to what VERSION the article is written for. I've been halfway through implementing something only to hit a roadblock since I'm running a newer version and the option the article says to click on doesn't exist anymore... Read full review Usability Although it can be a little bit bloated with a lot of options and configurations, it's very straightforward to use and maintain. So it's a great option even if you don't have large experience in hosting configuration. The WHM tool is more suited to heavy users since it requires more expertise, so it has a steep learning curve to better understand how to use it.
Read full review Support Rating The support comes in the form of an extensive library of how to articles and community input. For most situations this will give you plenty of information and resources to trouble shoot. Live support really then would need to default to the hosting provider who provides the cPanel for your use.
Read full review Alternatives Considered The direct server management tool access provided by cPanel hosting accounts is far superior to any shared or "standard" web site hosting packaged offered by any of the numerous web host providers I have used and or evaluated over the 20+ years of my experience working in the internet industry.
Read full review The decision to use Symantec was not my own but I believe it competes well against other products such as SCCM offering more features.
Read full review Return on Investment cPanel makes back end server administration easy. This saves time and overall effort. cPanel is readily available with most hosting packages. It integrates with both Apache and Nginx. cPanel allows you to perform some of the same functions as WHM, but with an easier interface. Read full review Being able to report on the majority of things you want all from one interface, makes it really easy to get the results you want. Because my employer didn't provide training, it took working with support, reading technical documentation, and just playing around on my own to learn how to do certain things. I've had a lot of help from the SMP Support staff and they're great people and very helpful! Read full review ScreenShots