A control panel is a tool with which you manage your web host's files, email, databases and installations in the browser. Many people look for web hosting with the search term "web hosting cPanel", because cPanel has been the industry's best-known panel for decades. Nordweb's hosting, however, uses the modern Enhance control panel. In this article we explain how the panels differ and why we ended up with this choice.
What is cPanel?
cPanel is a control panel released in 1996 that became the standard for shared web hosting for a long time. Its strength is familiarity. If you have used web hosting before, you have most likely seen cPanel, and there is a huge amount of guidance online. cPanel is still a fully functional and widely used tool.
Why have many providers moved to other panels?
- Licence costs. cPanel moved to account-based pricing in 2019, and the licence fees have risen several times since then. The price of the licence eventually always ends up in the customer's monthly fee.
- The age of the architecture. cPanel was designed at a time when a single server hosted all sites in the same environment. Isolating sites from one another is something that was built into it after the fact.
- A heavy interface. The hundreds of functions accumulated over the years make the panel confusing for a beginner, even though everyday use only needs a handful of them.
What is Enhance?
Enhance is a modern, container-based control panel. The biggest difference from cPanel is in the architecture. Every site is run in its own isolated container. In practice this means two things:
- Security. If one site gets malware, it cannot reach the other sites on the same server.
- Stability. A resource spike on one site does not crash or slow down the neighbours the way it does in a traditional shared environment.
In addition, Enhance is designed from the ground up for today's needs. Automatic SSL, server-level caching, WordPress installation and management, email, backups and changing the PHP version per site are all found in the same clear view.
What does this mean for the web hosting user?
The everyday functions are the same in both panels: file management, mailboxes, databases, domain redirects and installations. The differences show up elsewhere:
- WordPress installs in Enhance with a single click and updates can be automated from the panel.
- The SSL certificate installs and renews automatically for every site without any separate action.
- The PHP version can be changed per site and you can test a new version before putting it into use.
- The Premium and Max plans also include SSH access for developer use.
- Because the licence cost does not weigh on the pricing, the benefit shows up in the price of the plan and in what is included in that price.
What if I am used to cPanel?
The transition is smaller than you might think. The same things are found in Enhance, most often with fewer clicks. If, on the other hand, you specifically need cPanel, for example because of a particular integration, we will tell you straight. Our web hosting does not include cPanel, and in that case our service is not the right choice for you. For most users, though, the brand of the panel is not an end in itself, but rather that the site and email work quickly and securely.
Migration from cPanel web hosting to Nordweb
We migrate your site, database and email from your current cPanel-based (or any other) web host free of charge to all paid plans, without any interruption to the site's operation. Read more about the free migration or explore our hosting plans. For a WordPress site, see also WordPress web hosting.