In most cases, you'll want to have one cPanel account per website you manage. Each cPanel account can have its own username and password, as well as its own resources and security.
While it's possible to host multiple domains through a single account (using "Addon Domains"), these will share the resources and security of the account. WHC does not recommend hosting multiple domains on the same account, unless they are closely related in content and purpose.
WHC recommends cPanel, the industry-leading Control Panel. DirectAdmin is available as a budget option if you wish to host a large quantity of smaller accounts.
When selecting a server operating system, it's essential to balance factors such as security, cost (whether commercial or free), support options, and your comfort with the operating system.
CloudLinux, WHC’s recommended Operating System, is a commercial Enterprise Linux distribution designed specifically for web hosting. It enhances server security, stability, and performance by isolating individual accounts and allocating dedicated resources to each. CloudLinux also provides advanced features such as Node.JS, Python, and advanced PHP/MySQL options such as individual adjustment of PHP settings for different sites on the server, for maximum security and flexibility. Learn more about CloudLinux
AlmaLinux, the free and open-source successor to CentOS, is known for its reliability. An excellent choice for hosting PHP/MySQL websites, AlmaLinux is compatible with Red Hat, offering binary compatibility with RHEL/CentOS.
Ubuntu is one of the most popular free and open-source Linux distributions. Based on Debian, Ubuntu offers extensive software compatibility, and benefits from an active community to help with troubleshooting.
A system gets hacked every 39 seconds and 43% of attacks target small businesses. When it comes to online security, it pays to be proactive.
Standard configurations include automatic system updates, a managed firewall, and SSL certificates for all your domains.
For best-in-class proactive security, WHC recommends Imunify360. Imunify360 is an automated security solution, powered by AI and Proactive Defense, that will protect your web servers from the latest infections, maintain secure kernels, and help keep you one step ahead of hackers.
A single second delay in the load time of your website can lead to 11% fewer page views, 16% decrease in customer satisfaction and 7% loss in conversions.
LiteSpeed web server is a commercial server software that doubles the amount of simultaneous visitors your site can receive, and dramatically improves the response time for both static and dynamic pages with powerful caching. It also includes plugins for popular apps like WordPress.
LiteSpeed is a drop-in replacement of Apache, so switching between the two is simple. Our team handles the installation and configuration for you, making the process painless.
The version of LiteSpeed you’ll need will depend on the number of cPanel accounts you have and the quantity of memory (RAM) available on your server.
When picking the storage type on your server, it’s all about size and speed.
SATA disks are mechanical drives that are larger, but slower. They’re a good choice if you plan on storing a large amount of data, but don’t necessarily require the fastest seek times.
SSD (Solid State Drives) storage can be up to 5 times faster than its SATA counterparts, but are also smaller and generally more expensive.
WHC recommends opting for SSD storage unless you require more space for very large amounts of data. Certain servers propose hybrid SATA + SSD configurations for maximum flexibility.
All WHC storage solutions come configured by default in redundancy (RAID-1) mode, so that the 2nd drive always mirrors the first one. If one of the drives were to fail, our team would replace it while the 2nd drive picked up the workfload without service interruption.
What are dedicated IPs and what are their benefit?
IP addresses are a series of numbers (like 192.233.57.182) used to identify resources on the Internet. When a website is assigned a Dedicated IP instead of a Shared IP, it becomes the only website that uses that IP address.
WHC recommends Dedicated IPs for a better SSL support, performance and access for your important sites. Without dedicated IPs, sites use shared IPs and must rely on a technology called SNI to function. Since SNI technology is not available on some older browsers, your site may be inaccessible for up to 3% of all your users. WHC recommends you add a dedicated IP for each important website (more than 10,000 visitors per month) on your server.
By default, servers are delivered with a single IP address that is shared across all websites that you host on that server. WHC recommends 5 IP addresses for most common configurations, which will include: 2 dedicated IPs for your nameservers, 1 dedicated IP for the server itself, 1 dedicated IP for your main website, and 1 shared IP for all your other websites.
Automatic daily backups help you quickly recover from mistakes or security incidents. They are a critical component of any company’s disaster recovery process.
External Backups are stored in separate physical drives for extra security, and are powered by JetBackup, which store optimized incremental backups accessible directly from your control panel.
By default, we’ll save 14 days worth of backups, but you can increase or decrease retention as needed, so long as you don’t exceed your total allocated disk space.
We recommend you add 20% more backup storage than actual disk space you plan on using, to ensure you can store multiple retention points. For example, if you plan on using 60GB of disk space, you’ll want to have at least 72GB of backups, so consider adding the 100GB External Backup option.
Server management defines the level of service our team will provide you with your server.
With Standard Management, we ensure your server is powered, has network connectivity, and responds to ping. We pre-install & configure cPanel along with Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP for you. In case of problems, our support team can provide assistance 24/7. We also include free migration assistance if you’re transferring in from other providers.
With ProActive Management, our team also monitors the health of your server, and intervenes automatically when an issue is detected by our monitoring system (up to 2 interventions included per month) without you needing to contact us first. We’ll carefully monitor your database and web server availability along with your CPU, memory and disk space usage.
With Advanced Management, in addition to proactively monitoring your server and intervening when needed (without monthly intervention limits), our team will also provide up to 2 hours of system administration services per month to help you deal with issues such as performance, redundancy, and reliability.
Advanced Management includes:
Everything you get with Standard Management, but also:
Focus on using apps rather than spending time on installing them!
Softaculous is a powerful apps installer that lets you and your users install, manage, and upgrade over 400 different open-source applications in just a few clicks straight from your control panel. Apps include WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, PrestaShop, Moodle, and many more, conveniently sorted by category.