Saturday, February 18, 2023

Compare The Best cPanel Web Hosting Plans

Want to jump straight to the answer? The best cPanel web hosting for most people is A2 Hosting or HostGator.

While there are multiple control panels for interacting with your web hosting account, the cPanel has consistently proved to be a top choice for web admins. From the easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) to the extensive support documentation, it’s easy to see why the cPanel is so popular.

However, not all cPanels are created equal. Tasks like creating site backups, setting up email, or managing your CMS database can be either seamless or frustrating, depending on your cPanel host.

With this in mind, I set out to find the best cPanel web hosting plans for various users. 

Top 7 Best cPanel Web Hosting Companies for 2023

How to choose the best cPanel web hosting company. Quicksprout.com's methodology for reviewing cPanel web hosting companies.

Read on to find in-depth reviews of each of the seven top options for cPanel hosting, as well as a valuable guide to help you find the best deal.

A2 Hosting — Fastest cPanel Web Hosting

  • Normally $7.99 per month
  • Month-to-month pricing at $9.99
  • Free domain and SSL certificate
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
Get a 63% discount

A2 Hosting offers the fastest speeds on the market today, making it a great option for those looking for cPanel web hosting.

Every A2 plan comes with cPanel for free. This is a big deal when some competitors don’t offer cPanel with their cheapest plans—like iPage.

A2 Hosting cPanel hosting
Because A2 Hosting offers such impressive speeds, it is a strong candidate for those who need cPanel hosting.

Getting a free cPanel account and a great price on web hosting are only two of the many reasons to consider hosting your site on A2. Speed, reliability, green hosting, and excellent customer support make it a top option for anyone.

It also has a wide range of hosting plans and prices.

  • Shared Hosting — Starting at $2.99 per month
  • Unmanaged VPS Hosting — Starting at $2.99 per month
  • Managed VPS Hosting — Starting at $39.99 per month
  • Reseller Hosting — Starting at $18.99 per month
  • Unmanaged Dedicated Hosting — Starting at $105.99 per month
  • Managed Dedicated Hosting — Starting at $155.99 per month
  • Shared cPanel Hosting — Starting at $2.99 per month
  • Managed WordPress cPanel Hosting — Starting at $11.99 per month
  • Managed VPS cPanel Hosting — Starting at $39.99 per month
  • Managed Dedicated cPanel Hosting — Starting at $155.99 per month

With A2 Hosting, cPanel allows you to do things like:

  • Manage email usage
  • Configure SSH keys
  • Create a Node.js app
  • Install an SSL certificate from a third party
  • Manage your files
  • Manage databases
  • Manage domains

A2 also uses Softaculous, which allows you to install add-on software with a single click. You can add CMS applications, forums, image galleries, social networking platforms, blog applications, and portals with Softaculous. It supports hundreds of add-on products. Take care of all Softaculous installations and auto-updates directly from your cPanel dashboard.

Read more about A2’s features in my complete A2 hosting review, or sign up at A2 Hosting right now.

HostGator — Best for Scaling Resources On-Demand

  • Normally $6.95 per month
  • Month-to-month at $10.95
  • Free domain and SSL certificate
  • 45-day money-back guarantee
Get a 61% discount

HostGator is one of the most popular names in web hosting. That’s because it offers affordable plans loaded with features. It doesn’t cut corners–and lets you try its service for more than six weeks risk-free.

I like that you can log into any cPanel account directly from the HostGator portal. Of course, you can log in via cPanel, but if you’re managing a lot of different sites, this small feature will help you stay organized.

And once you’re in cPanel, it’s easy to accomplish tasks quickly in the intuitive dashboard.

HostGator cPanel hosting
HostGator gives you the ability to access any cPanel account from the Hostgator portal.

HostGator offers a variety of different plans depending on the type of hosting service you need

  • Shared Hosting — Starting at $2.75 per month
  • VPS Hosting — Starting at $23.95 per month
  • Reseller Hosting — Starting at $19.95 per month
  • WordPress Hosting — Starting at $5.95 per month
  • Dedicated Servers — Starting at $89.98 per month

Altogether, there are 12 different web hosting plans to choose from—all of which come with cPanel.

With HostGator, you’ll always get the latest version of cPanel with your hosting plan, as well as additional incentives like:

  • Free website builder
  • Free site transfer
  • Free domain transfer
  • Google Ads credits
  • Bing Ads credits
  • Free SSL

All shared hosting plans come with a 99.9% uptime promise and a 45-day money-back guarantee. HostGator is compatible with the most popular CMS platforms including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Magento.

HostGator is one of the best web hosting providers for websites that need to scale their resources. Having access to cPanel for managing all of this makes everything easier.

If you’re interested in cloud hosting, be sure to check out my HostGator Cloud hosting review or click here to visit HostGator to compare their plans.

InMotion — Best for Small Businesses

  • Normally $7.99 per month
  • Free domain and SSL certificate
  • Free and unlimited email
  • 90-day money-back guarantee
Get a 57% discount

InMotion is a perfect option for small business users who want a little more flexibility with their web hosting service.

If you prefer a hands-on approach, InMotion offers cPanel web hosting with every plan. This makes it easy to manage your Linux-based service, set up domains, manage resources, automate your site, and more.

This web host also supports one-click installations with over 400+ apps directly from cPanel.

InMotion cPanel hosting
You can make use of cPanel web hosting wtih any InMotion plan.

Whether you’re using WordPress, Drupal, or other CMS systems and shopping carts, InMotion is an ideal solution for your website. The one-click installer also allows for easy upgrades, convenient maintenance, as well as rollbacks to previous versions.

Here’s a look at the introductory pricing rates for InMotion web hosting:

  • Shared Business Hosting — $2.49 per month with a three-year contract
  • WordPress Hosting — $3.99 per month with a two-year contract
  • VPS Hosting — $19.99 per month with a two-year contract
  • Dedicated Hosting — $139.99 per month with an annual contract

All of these plans include cPanel for free. 

You’ll also get data backups, free SSD drives, SSH access, secure email, and other great freebies.

InMotion has been providing cPanel with its hosting plans for more than a decade. This has allowed its IT team to customize the backend specs to speed up responsiveness and ultimately allow for a more seamless user experience.

My InMotion hosting review also found that plans are backed by a 90-day money-back guarantee, which is an industry-leading offer. So if you’re looking for a reliable web host with a feature-rich cPanel, look no further than InMotion. Sign up today.

Bluehost — Easiest to Use

  • Normally $7.99 per month
  • Free domain and SSL certificate
  • Recommended by WordPress
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
Get a 63% discount

Bluehost offers a fantastic user experience. So it should be no surprise that it ranks high on my list of cPanel web hosts.

Here’s how its pricing breaks down:

  • Shared Hosting — Starting at $2.75 per month
  • VPS Hosting — Starting at $18.99 per month
  • Dedicated Hosting — Starting at $79.99 per month

As you can see, it’s incredibly affordable–even for dedicated hosting.

Bluehost cPanel hosting
Bluehost provides plenty of versatility through its cPanel dashboard.

Bluehost provides you with all access control from your cPanel dashboard, which is great for all business owners, but especially those that run small businesses. As a small business owner, you may be hesitant to give your freelance blogger access to key things in your account, such as billing or other server resources. 

With Bluehost, you can pick and choose who to provide different areas of access to, which is the ideal scenario if you plan to have multiple users logging into your hosting. 

If you’re in the market for a VPS plan or a dedicated server, then you’ll find that root access from your Bluehost cPanel as well. This provides you with complete control over your server so that you can make any custom changes you want without needing additional software or hardware. 

Bluehost’s dedicated plans give you the power to increase your storage on-demand from your cPanel without having to go through a server administrator. 

If that’s not enough to win you over, all Bluehost plans also come with:

  • Free SSL certificate
  • 24/7 customer support
  • 30-day money-back guarantee

Check out my full BlueHost hosting review to learn more about the company, or click here to signup now.

SiteGround — Best for Cloud Hosting

  • Starting at $2.99 per month
  • Free SSL, email, CDN, & backups
  • Recommended by WordPress
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
Get an 80% discount

SiteGround is a great option if you’re interested in cloud hosting. It’s one of the best and most scalable options for cloud hosting out there.

Its hosting is fully managed, too—allowing you to focus less on the little things like maintenance and more on growing your business.

Screen shot of SiteGround's managed cloud hosting page
As a fully managed cloud hosting platform, siteground is built to scale.

Its cPanel features include:

  • Install your CMS (like WordPress)
  • Backup your website content
  • Make changes to the server
  • Set up your email accounts
  • Manage domains
  • Manage your security features
  • Manage your databases
  • View and manage your resources

It’s extremely easy for webmasters to manage files too. All you have to do is upload files and add new folders to keep everything neat and organized.

This will ultimately make things easier for you whenever your site needs maintenance.

For advanced users, you’ll also be able to manage complex settings, like “Chron Jobs,” in cPanel. This allows you to run specific commands to optimize your disk space.

SiteGround offers shared hosting plans starting at just $2.99 per month. They also offer cloud web hosting, which starts at $100 per month. And for a limited time, QuickSprout readers can get a free domain and 80% off by using this link.

Regardless of which option you choose, you’ll be able to manage everything with ease through the platform’s responsive interface and dashboard. Read more about their different plans and services in my complete SiteGround review, or click here to visit SiteGround.

iPage — Best Cheap Hosting for VPS plans

  • Normally $7.99 permonth
  • Free domain and SSL certificate
  • Free drag-and-drop site builder
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
Get a 75% discount

iPage offers a great rate on VPS hosting with cPanel. It’s too bad they don’t offer cPanel with their shared hosting plans (those are on my list for best cheap web hosting), but if you need the control and private resources of a VPS, then iPage is a great choice.

I appreciate that iPage doesn’t skimp on its features when it comes to its VPS hosting. iPage VPS hosting comes with a surprising number of benefits, including:

  • Between 1 and 4 core CPUS
  • 1 GB to 8 GB of RAM
  • 40 GB to 120 GB of disk space
  • 1 TB to 4 TB of bandwidth

It provides three different pricing tiers, giving you plenty of options for matching your budget with your needs.

iPage landing page for VPS hosting with free cPanel

With other hosting options from iPage, you receive things like unlimited disk space, scalable bandwidth, unlimited domains, 99.9% uptime, and a free SSL certificate. You can take advantage of a free domain for the first year after you sign up for an account as well.

What I like most about it, though, is its unlimited email addresses feature. You can create as many addresses as you want that direct to your domain. It even comes with autoresponders and email forwarding. This is great for those of you looking to add a little professionalism to your email address.

iPage VPS hosting plans start at $19.99 per month. This includes cPanel with optional root access. Within its cPanel interface, iPage provides access to its Server Control Center, which provides key information about your server.

You can find out more about each plan in my iPage hosting review. As I noted, its shared hosting plans do not come with cPanel. Instead, iPage uses something called vDeck Control Panel as an alternative, which is fine but definitely lacking compared to cPanel in terms of its capabilities and interface.

That said, the iPage VPS plans are cost-effective compared to other providers out there. So it won’t cost you too much for an upgrade to get cPanel included with your hosting. Learn more at sign up at iPage.

Scala Hosting — Best for Managing Backups

  • Unlimited backups on self-managed plan
  • Customizable VPS hosting
  • Dedicated email IP address
  • Clean user interface
Create Your Plan

If you like to tinker with your website in order to extract maximum performance from your server, you lean hard on backups and restore points. Nothing’s worse than making changes without the reassurance that you can just rewind if they break your site.

Scala Hosting automatically backs up your site for the last seven days. Other web hosts offer this service, too, though you usually have to pay extra, buy a premium hosting plan, or rely on a backup plugin.

Scala includes automated backups with every plan they offer. And it’s just better. You actually get seven different backups for the last week–one for each day.

Scala Hosting homepage
Scala Hosting Makes it easy to manage your backups and keep your site data safe.

It’s a cinch to have restore points, so you’re not adjusting and optimizing your site without a safety net. If anything goes awry, just go into Scala’s SPanel look for “Restore Backup” under “Files”, and then find the restore point you want to rewind back to.

SPanel is completely compatible with cPanel, so don’t worry if you are thinking about migrating to Scala. SPanel is completely free with all Scala accounts (no need to buy a cPanel subscription), and it’s running on Scala’s servers (not yours), so it will never slow your site down.

You can also create your own backups under the same “Files” section on SPanel and even request that Scala hold one of their automated backups or one of your own for 30 days if you’re doing some long-term adjustments to your site (like implementing a custom theme).

While juggling backups is a huge plus to Scala Hosting’s SPanel, there are many more benefits to using it, including one that you may not have thought about.

Scala Hosting promises 100% email deliverability from your email accounts on their hosting plans. That’s because you get a dedicated IP for your email exclusive to you, meaning that your worries about blacklisting or getting caught in spam filters can be left in the past.

Never worry about being able to rewind from site issues again. Get great, customizable VPS at a solid price point with SPanel control by going with Scala Hosting.

How to Find the Best cPanel Web Host For You

As you can see, every cPanel web hosting provider is unique. Whether it be the price, type of hosting, or other features, some hosts will serve the needs of your website better than others.

When you’re evaluating a cPanel web hosting provider, there are a few key elements to consider.

Performance metrics like uptime and speed are a given. So rather than focusing on those, I’ve identified some other factors that you should look out for when evaluating prospective web hosts.

Free cPanel License

First and foremost, if you want to use cPanel then you need to find a provider that offers a free cPanel license. There are plenty of hosts out there that offer cPanel for an upcharge, but there’s no reason to go with them if you can get it for free elsewhere.

With the exception of the iPage shared hosting plan, every provider on my list offers cPanel for free.

One-Click App Installations

A major cPanel benefit is its user-friendly dashboard. So for those of you who plan to install third-party apps, it will be easy for you to manage everything in one place.

Look for a web hosting provider that advertises one-click app installs. In my experience, this is much easier than complex downloads and installations. Whether it be CMS integration, ecommerce functionality, or anything else, a simple app installation will make your life much easier. Once installed, cPanel usually will allow for one-click or auto-updates as well.

Site Builder Tools

This shouldn’t be a deal-breaker, but it’s a nice feature for those of you who are building a new website from scratch. If your web hosting provider has an adequate site builder, you can essentially benefit from a one-stop shop for your website needs.

Normally, I would not recommend bundling a hosting provider and website builder. I think it’s best to stick with providers specializing in web hosting and platforms specializing in website builders. Usually, there isn’t any overlap between the two.

That said, if you’re just building a simple website like a small personal site or blog, then you can get away with this for sure.

Freebies

Price always needs to be taken into consideration when you’re looking at different web hosting options. Some hosts appear cheap but then upcharge you for basic features. So it’s in your best interest to identify the features you need and then look for a host that offers them for free.

  • SSL certificate
  • Site migrations
  • Domain name
  • Advertising credits
  • Developer tools
  • WordPress installation

These are some common freebies offered by hosting providers. I’d also keep an eye on their money-back guarantees. 30 days seems to be the industry standard. But I’ve seen 45 days, 60 days, and even as high as 90 days.

Resources

It doesn’t make sense to choose a cPanel hosting plan that doesn’t accommodate the needs of your website. While cPanel is a great tool, it doesn’t make up for poor performance.

  • RAM
  • Storage
  • Bandwidth
  • CPUs

You need to make sure that these types of resources accommodate your website traffic. For new or growing sites, it’s in your best interest to find a cPanel hosting provider that gives you the opportunity to scale.

Alternatives to cPanel Hosting

Not every web hosting provider offers cPanel, so you’re not forced to use it.

In most cases, people think cPanel is easier to use. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference.

For example, earlier, I talked about iPage’s hosting plans. For less than $2 per month, you can sign up for shared hosting, a free website builder, and plenty of other freebies. This comes with vDeck Control Panel. So if you prioritize price over convenience, you might decide to go with this option instead.

Alternatively, DreamHost is a popular web host on the market today. But instead of using cPanel, they have their own custom control panel. I know plenty of webmasters who love it.

Hostinger is another great hosting provider that does not offer cPanel. Even so, I would still strongly recommend them.

So don’t let cPanel availability be the determining factor in your web hosting decision. While I personally think it’s a great feature, you can still explore alternative solutions.

What Is cPanel and Why Do You Need It?

cPanel is one of the most popular control panels in the web hosting industry. The interface and dashboard make it easy for webmasters to manage things like domain names, backups, email addresses, files, account preferences, and more.

In my experience, once you’ve used cPanel, there is really no looking back. I’ve experimented with other dashboards, but cPanel is the best for beginners and experts alike.

One of the reasons why cPanel is so popular is because it’s a web-based control panel, meaning you can manage your website from anywhere with an Internet connection, as opposed to needing software on a specific piece of hardware.

Anyone with a website can benefit from cPanel hosting. Whether you’re looking for a shared hosting plan, virtual private server (VPS hosting), or dedicated server, a user-friendly hosting interface will make your life much easier.

Top cPanel Web Hosts in Summary

It’s easy to get tunnel vision when looking for the ideal cPanel web host. However, rather than focus only on the cPanel capabilities, it’s better to consider the hosting package as a whole.

For example, you want a host that provides sufficient resources for your website’s needs. You also want multiple add-ons like a free domain name, SSL certificate, and WordPress Installation.

Though you can do well with any web hosting providers featured on my list, I highly recommend A2 Hosting or HostGator as your top choice. These platforms tick all the boxes while offering excellent cPanel functionality at no extra charge.

https://www.quicksprout.com/best-cpanel-web-hosting/

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