Most web hosting services include a control panel to make it easy for you to manage websites. One of the more popular options, other than Plesk, is cPanel. It’s a great choice for anyone with any skill level because it offers a simple graphical user interface (GUI).
Unless you require a Windows-based server to host your websites, cPanel is the standard among most web hosts. So, we compared some of the giants of the industry to find the best cPanel hosting services with a focus on pricing, storage, bandwidth and specific features to help your small business website.
Methodology
To choose the best cPanel hosting services, Forbes Advisor considered a variety of factors, from monthly pricing to storage and bandwidth allowances. We also looked at key features, uptime guarantees and refund policies.
As we researched and tested these web hosts, we focused on entry-level plans to give each web host a fair playing field. We listed regular monthly costs, along with the discounted pricing, to give you a real look at how much you’ll pay for renewals and how much you can save with long-term contracts.
Here’s a better look at the factors that went into our rating system.
Pricing
We gave more credit to cPanel hosting companies that offer low starting prices for shared hosting. Also important is how much that price jumps upon renewal, so this is factored into our scoring. If a money-back guarantee was included in the plan, that also helped a provider as did the number of sites that were allowed per plan. This accounted for 15% of our weighted scoring.
Features
We focused on the features less common or unique among similar web hosts. For example, automatic backups, free business email and free or discounted domain name privacy are great features that set some web hosts apart from others. Every web host offers a different amount of storage and bandwidth or unlimited or unmetered allowances. We also looked at the limitations of databases, websites, email accounts, 24/7 customer support, free SSL certificates and one-click WordPress installation options.
For the most part, we wanted to make sure there is an uptime guarantee, but we also considered what each company guarantees. If your site is ever down outside of scheduled maintenance or other reason outside of the web host’s control, you could get a partial refund. For nice-to-have options, we looked for features that included content delivery networks, automatic backups and free domain name privacy protection. We weighted features at 50% of our total score.
Third-party Reviews
We researched reviews from real users to gauge their opinion of each hosting service. This entailed ranking both the number of reviews provided by reviewers and the overall score from those customers to give a complete picture of reality and reduce bias. These reviews accounted for 10% of the total score.
Expert Analysis
Based on a scoring system of excellent, good and fair, our panel of experts scrutinized those same customer reviews to get their overall opinion around for key metrics: ease of use, stand-out features, popularity and value for the money. This formed the basis for the final analysis of these hosting services and made up 25% of the total score.
How To Choose a cPanel Hosting Service
When choosing a cPanel hosting company, you should consider what your small business website needs are. Consider cost (including renewal), resource allotment and key features.
It’s tempting to choose the lowest discounted price you see from a web host, but it’s also important to know what the regular monthly cost is. If for some reason you can’t afford to opt for a long-term plan, you need to ensure a month-to-month option is available and cost-effective. Plus, introductory pricing doesn’t usually carry over to renewal pricing, so you could be stuck paying double or more of your initial contract.
Many cPanel hosting services offer what they call “unmetered” storage and bandwidth, which is a bit misleading. Even if there are no strict limits on how much you can upload to your sites or how much traffic you get, web hosts can and will throttle resources if your sites take up too much on a shared server (and may require you to upgrade). Be sure you know what your sites need before you sign on the dotted line.
Keep in mind what key features are most important to you and compare what each web host offers. If you need free business email, that can be an easy way to weed out cPanel hosting services that are right for you. The same goes for free-forever SSL certificates or lifetime discounts. Automatic backups can be a lifesaver, too—especially if you don’t do manual backups yourself. It’s a good idea to look at how often a web host performs backups, too—some perform daily, weekly or monthly backups.
Gentry