In an earlier post, “Best web hosting control panel? cPanel“, we discussed reasons we like to use cPanel and offer it free in all of the UltimateWB web hosting packages available. CPanel is the web hosting control panel where you can get your website traffic statistics, configure email accounts, check your website email online, and create and restore backups. There is also one more reason we choose cPanel for our web hosting control panel – an especially very important reason, having to do with creating backups.
In order to enjoy the most flexibility in web hosting choice, you need to be able to download a full backup of your website – files, database, email, settings – and be able to import it into another web hosting account to transfer your website to another web server. If you use a web hosting company that uses their own custom web hosting control panel instead of the popularly used cPanel, that will be very hard to do. With custom, or proprietary, web hosting control panels, you can’t just create a full backup and then install the full backup into your new web hosting account. You will have to create a file system backup and a database backup on your old server, and then manually upload the files, create the database, and then import the database on your new server. What this also means is that you cannot just create a backup of your emails on your old server to import into your new server. But you might be able to download/transfer your old emails, one by one, into your new email account created on your new server by using cPanel’s Horde FetchMail feature. You can also just download your email onto your computer with a program such as Outlook, Windows Live Mail.
Which companies use their own custom/proprietary web hosting control panel and do not use cPanel? Here is a list of some:
- 1&1
- DreamHost
- Hostinger
- iPage
- IXwebhosting
- MediaTemple
- Network Solutions,
- NetFirms
- Rackspace
Difficulty to transfer content is something to consider when choosing a web host. It is also a very good reason to not choose a hosted web solution, or software as a service (SaaS) – you cannot transfer your content from hosts that do not allow access to download your website files (for example through a file manager in your web hosting control panel or through FTP) , and, if applicable, access to download your databases/data in those databases.
It’s easy to switch web hosting companies and accounts with cPanel, web hosting control panel.
Are you ready to design & build your own website? Learn more about UltimateWB! We also offer web design packages if you would like your website designed and built for you.
Got a techy/website question? Whether it’s about UltimateWB or another website builder, web hosting, or other aspects of websites, just send in your question in the “Ask David!” form. We will email you when the answer is posted on the UltimateWB “Ask David!” section.
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