I'm looking for a host, and one of the things that's important to me is a control panel that will allow me to administer my site without having to contact support to do most things.

I have a little experience with cpanel3, but that's about it.

What should I be looking for? Any suggestions?

Well, if you're going to be using CPanel then you'll be in contact with support alot and might even become their best friend. :D

I prefer PLESK.;)

Cobalt RaQ all the way ;)

Hello Pablo! I have had experience with a few control panels in my time- so I hope this helps a lil. ;)

I like Cpanel. I think it may be the most user friendly. Its easy to setup email accounts, autoresponders, mailing lists, subdomains, view stats- ftp/analog/webalizer, back up your files.. etc. etc.

Plesk is also nice- its simple, protected by https, and gets most of the important things done. My first ever website was admin with a Plesk control panel. However- my webhost at the time had disabled alot of the things I could do with it- but I could create subdomains, email accounts, and view my bandwidth usage.

HSphere- Takes a while to get used to. But support & billing is integrated into this control panel-- not something you see too often. And you can pretty much do everything you need to do with it- subdomains, mail configuration- the usual..

Thanks for the responses.

I know that the control panel shouldn't be a deal maker/breaker, but it's pretty important to me.

I'll take a look at those suggested.

Don't forget Ensim :)

PLESK

I prefer Plesk and Ensim, Cpanel is probably the easiest but it is also the buggiest (if that is even a word :eek: )

I love Plesk 2.0. Cobalt interface is alright. It's really good for your first server.

You might be interested in reading this article (http://www.hostingtech.com/hs/01_11_panel.html) by HostingTech Magazine. It goes over various aspects of the Plesk, Cpanel and Ensim Control Panels. ;)

Originally posted by Total RaQ
Cobalt RaQ all the way ;)

cant belive people still use or even remember that.