Found a great Hostinger plan but wondering if hPanel is right for you? Well, you are at the right place!
This is a complete hPanel vs cPanel comparison where we will take every single factor into consideration before the final verdict.
As cPanel (the most popular panel) keeps increasing its license fees, many hosts have built their custom panels. Hostinger offers hPanel which allows you to manage Hostigner’s servers.
Let’s start with a basic overview of hPanel and cPanel where we will also see pros and cons.
What is cPanel?
cPanel is one of the most popular web hosting control panels with graphical user interface for server management. Typically, cPanel is offered by most of the hosting providers when you order shared hosting.
Want to have cPanel with your VPS? Purchase your license.
Pros & Cons of cPanel
There are several pros and cons of cPanel. We will see the popular ones here.
Pros of cPanel
- Most popular control panel with a tested user base.
- A vast knowledge base and tutorials are available.
- A traditional design that is used by most hosting providers.
Cons of cPanel
- The panel is not directly associated with the hosting provider (more on it later).
- Expensive (the cost is added to the hosting package).
- Outdated technology and fewer updates.
What is hPanel?
hPanel is a custom control panel offered by Hostinger. It’s a free control panel offered only on Hostinger where you can manage your web server with ease. It’s available for most of the Hostinger packages.
Pros & Cons of hPanel
Let’s have a look at Pros of the hPanel that can help you in making your decision while selecting panels.
Pros of hPanel
- Easy to use and graphical user interface.
- Integrated with hosting (features like support, renewal, etc.).
- Free (decreases the overall cost of hosting).
Cons of hPanel
- The panel comes only with Hostinger.
- You’re pretty much dependent on Hostinger for updates and support.
- Fewer tutorials and knowledgebase when you consider hPanel vs cPanel.
What are the Differences between cPanel and hPanel?
The pros and cons of cPanel and hPanel give quite a competition to each other. So, you will have to see all the factors that affect the hosting panel.
Let’s dive into each of the sections which you need to consider.
Hosting Control
cPanel and hPanel are the panels that allow you to manage the server. However, you also need hosting control i.e. you need to have the capabilities to add, renew, or contact the support.
cPanel: When you order a hosting service from a provider, their software creates an account in cPanel and gives you access to the cPanel.
With cPanel, you can only manage the server. You don’t have access to the hosting provider’s options such as hosting plan details, support, renewal, etc. To do all these, you will have to head over to the hosting account panel.
Apart from this, you can manage your server with file manager, FTP, MySQL databases, and even manage databases using PHPMyAdmin.
hPanel: hPanel is the panel only for Hostinger. Therefore, you can also get access to the Hostinger options. When you buy a plan from Hostinger, you can see the details of the same plan from hPanel.
Not just limited to seeing the details of the plan, you can also renew or upgrade your plan. They also have a domain segment where you can get details of all the domains registered in hPanel.
The same facility is not provided in cPanel.
The other features are common such as file manager, PHPMyAdmin, database management, FTP, etc.
Verdict: We can say hPanel is better here as you not only have access to the server but you can also manage your hosting packages directly from the panel. You will not have to log in from another panel.
The home page is of utmost importance for newbies. For advanced users, it’s quite easier to navigate as they know where a particular option is located.
cPanel: If you have been using cPanel, you will have an idea about the new update where you can see the “Tools” option in cPanel. On the left panel, you can see the two menus and the middle column consists of all the tools.
On the right side, you can see the server stats such as IP address, CPU usage, RAM, processes, inode usage, etc. If you want to get certain details such as CPU usage, you just need to open the panel and look there.
A search bar on top allows for quickly searching any options where you want to navigate.
There are more options to choose from and there are fewer hierarchies. In simple terms, if you want to view the resource usage, you can look for the “Resource usage” option. It makes the entire view a bit overcrowded but their section breaks make it bearable to navigate.
hPanel: Its home page includes the website details instead of all the options. You can see the website details such as HTTPS security, LiteSpeed, WordPress updates, database details, etc as shown in the picture below.
On the left side, you can see the complete menu to navigate.
The navigation is hierarchy based. So, if you want to view the resource usage, you will have to head over to Hosting > Resource usage. It’s an AJAX based menu. So, the entire page won’t reload when you click on hosting.
It will simply open the rest of the options when you click.
Other than that, the panel looks smooth. They use more graphical elements which make the page look filled.
Verdict: It depends on the home screen you love. So, it’s a draw. Let’s talk more about it in the next section.
Looks, Appearance, & UI/UX
The next thing that matters is the overall looks and appearance. We will talk about user interface and user experience here.
cPanel: It offers a text-based approach in terms of looks. Some of the inner options look outdated and quite old. For instance, if you open their resource manager, the view inside it looks years older.
Although It shows the data perfectly well and even beginners can understand it.
Most hosting offer cPanel as default panel so you will have a quick idea of how it works and the interface is pretty common for all the hosting providers that use cPanel.
Therefore, despite being outdated in appearance, the interface looks quite familiar.
hPanel: It offers a graphical approach rather than text-based i.e. more charts, graphs, and other visual elements to understand your server. So, if you are a complete beginner, it’s visually appealing.
However, if you like minimalism, you won’t particularly like the panel.
hPanel is only for Hostinger users so you won’t see the same panel anywhere else. Therefore, if you are a user of a different hosting provider, it will be a completely new interface for you.
Even if you plan to migrate to another hosting, you will not see the same panel anywhere.
Verdict: Their user experience is easy. However, the interface is different for both of them. It depends on what you like the most. If you are a fan of minimalism, you will love cPanel whereas if you like visual content, the hPanel interface is suitable.
Technology and Performance of Panels
It is worth considering the performance and technology. It decides the regular updates and how fast a certain process is done. For instance, a virus scan needs more resources and performance.
A panel utilizing the latest tech can get the process faster and done easily.
cPanel: It offers regular updates but still runs on legacy outdated software. Along with this, it’s also up to the hosting providers to apply certain updates and customize the panel accordingly.
Due to this, there are slight differences in different panels from different hosting providers.
hPanel: It uses the latest technology in their panel helping in regular updates and the transition from one menu to another is smooth. A beginner will love such transitions.
Along with this, Hostinger incorporates changes after customer feedback for best features and performance.
Verdict: When it comes to tech and overall performance, hPanel is far better than cPanel.
Free Emails
You can create free domain emails using their control panels. It’s necessary as you will have to send cold emails, invite emails, or simply user registration emails which are also known as transactional emails.
So, let’s see which is the best panel when it comes to free emails.
cPanel: There is no limit to the number of email addresses and forwarders you can set. Moreover, you can also assign as much space as you want for a particular email.
For instance, if you have a newsletter email where you receive more emails, you can set the limit to unlimited to keep all the emails as it is.
The total allowed space will depend on your hosting company’s storage space. Most shared hosting services have unlimited storage which is only limited by inodes. So, there won’t be any issues.
hPanel: It allows up to a 100 email addresses and forwarders limit. You can create up to 100 email addresses for their web hosting plans. Moreover, each mailbox can also have up to 1 GB of storage.
Other email features provided are similar in both panels. With hPanel, you can also see when your domain name expires. So, if you are purchasing domains just to send cold emails, this small detail is quite useful.
Verdict: cPanel is better for free emails. However, in our opinion, 1 GB is surely big enough for email address space and you will hardly exhaust the 100 email addresses limit. So, you can choose any panel you want.
Features and Scripts
Features are an important part of your panel. A small missing feature will take you into a lot of trouble and will waste a lot of your time.
For instance, there are multiple one-click install scripts that you can install. Now, if a panel isn’t providing such scripts, you will have to manually install these scripts.
Let’s see if they provide it or not.
cPanel: As you already know, cPanel provides a Softaculous installer where you can install more than 300 scripts with just a few clicks. Along with the scripts, you will get more features like a virus scanner, resource manager, backups, SEO tools, performance tools, etc.
The features are almost similar for all the hosting providers. In some cases, the hosting provider adds an extra couple of features to the panel.
hPanel: While hPanel doesn’t have Softaculous, they have an auto-installer feature where you can install all the popular scripts with just a few clicks.
Talking about features, it offers more as compared to cPanel. Here, you will also get various cache management, DNS flushing with one-click, auto-migration, SEO, performance, emails, etc.
In cPanel, some of these features are manual whereas some are not available at all.
Verdict: hPanel is a bit better as compared to cPanel when it comes to features. However, there are several limitations to both of them.
Customer Support and Knowledge Base
You will need help from support or proper documentation for the panel. For example, if you are installing Python, you need a tutorial to follow and install it. So, you will either need a complete knowledge base or you will need great customer support.
cPanel: It has various tutorials and a knowledge base where almost all the articles and videos are given. As cPanel is used by most companies, you can even find tutorials from other hosting websites.
Apart from a few changes, the tutorials are pretty much the same.
Coming to customer support, cPanel doesn’t have retail customer support. However, you can contact your hosting provider who will help you with the support. So, the support will depend on the hosting company you are working with.
To contact support, you will have to log in to your hosting panel and contact support from there.
hPanel: It comes with built-in support menus where you can create tickets and chat with the support. As hPanel is offered by Hostinger, the support is the same for the panel as well as for the hosting.
The good part is that you won’t have to log in from a different panel to contact support. You can create and manage tickets directly from the panel.
The knowledge base is properly curated by Hostinger. However, as Hostinger is the only company using hPanel, you are pretty much dependent on Hostinger only.
Unlike cPanel, there aren’t other hosting providers who are sharing tutorials for this panel. They cover most of the tutorials. However, there will be a few which are left out.
For that, you will have to contact the support.
Verdict: It’s a draw as both of them have their pros and cons. We would prefer cPanel as they have more articles and tutorials on the internet.
hPanel vs cPanel: Which one to choose?
After all these differences, many of you are still wondering which one to choose. Well, we are here for your savior. Here are the exact reasons when to choose which panel.
You should choose hPanel when:
- A graphical interface with charts, graphs, etc. impresses you.
- You want an easy-to-use platform with a smooth interface.
- Your thoughts are to use Hostinger for a long time.
You should choose cPanel when:
- You’re a user who wants to test different hosting providers and doesn’t have time to learn all the panels.
- You don’t want to depend on a single company for knowledge base and support of the panel (even Hostinger offers cPanel along with many others).
- You love text-based interfaces with minimalism.
Conclusion
In our opinion, both of them are quite similar and it won’t take more time to figure out each.
The major difference is in hosting control, support, and navigation. So, if one of Hostinger’s plans suits you, hPanel is a pretty decent panel and even better than cPanel in some cases.
You don’t have options to choose from cPanel vs hPanel as hPanel comes with Hostinger only and other companies don’t offer hPanel. Hostinger does have cPanel hosting.
However, it’s not necessary to go with Hostinger cPanel hosting. Instead, you can go with regular hPanel hosting.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Which is better hPanel or cPanel?
hPanel is slightly better when it comes to performance, navigation, and support while cPanel has more tutorials and more hosting companies use it.
How do I change from hPanel to cPanel?
Hostinger also offers cPanel hosting. You can contact their support if you wish to change from hPanel to cPanel.
Is cPanel hackable?
It’s up to the hosting provider to secure the cPanel by updating to the latest version and turning on security measures. So, as long as you are hosting with popular companies, you are pretty much safe.
