7 Best cPanel Hosting Providers: Take Control of Your Hosting Today

Instead of you having to trawl the internet looking for details on each provider’s control panels, we decided to step up. We’ve tried, tested, compared, and cross-referenced each hosting provider to bring you the very best of the bunch.

Side-By-Side cPanel Hosting Comparison

*This shows the minimum time period – it can vary depending on which hosting type you choose.

These are the key features for each provider, so you can compare what’s on offer side by side. This can be easier than reading about them all separately, especially when it comes to techy features like uptime and disk space.

If you’re ready to jump feet-first into the ring with each provider, then go on ahead. Alternatively, if you need a little refresh on these key features, here’s a quick breakdown.

Features Explained

Disk space: Disk space, or storage space, is how much space you have to store your site’s content. Think files, images, pages, all the lovely stuff that makes up your website – they all need somewhere to go! If your storage is too small, it’s easy to imagine what trouble you’ll run into as you keep adding content to your site…

Uptime: Uptime is the percentage of time a server is running, meaning the sites it supports are also up and running. If your server is always down, how will anyone ever visit your website? Uptime is essential for keeping up with the competition, so make sure it’s as close to 100% as possible. HostGator, for example, has impressive uptime: 99.99%!

A note on pricing: The prices in the table above reflect the discounted prices being offered by these providers for new customers. If you want to sign up to the most basic shared hosting plan, that’s the lowest price you can expect to pay.

Both price and disk space will vary depending on the type of hosting you choose, and which plan you sign up for.

Best Overall Hosting Provider

Bluehost Pros and Cons

Are you looking for hosting for your WordPress site? Look no further! Bluehost can’t be beaten – not only did it come out as the best overall hosting provider in our research, it’s also the number one recommended provider by WordPress itself. 

We think that’s something worth shouting about, especially as our research supported Bluehost’s claim to WordPress fame. It caters for websites of all types and sizes, with shared, VPS, and dedicated plans, as well as specially tailored shared WordPress hosting, WooCommerce hosting, and managed WordPress hosting.

Bluehost goes above and beyond for its users. For example, Bluehost’s managed WordPress plans include:

• A free domain, to give your site a stronger identity
• Automatic software updates to keep your site up to date and secure
• Free backups for a stress-free experience
• Unlimited storage so your site can grow freely
• Unmetered bandwidth so you can enjoy high levels of traffic

Bluehost is at the top of its game when it comes to WordPress, but you don’t have to choose a WordPress specific plan. In our research, Bluehost also proved itself in VPS hosting and dedicated hosting, thanks to its range of reliable features and respectable uptime score of 99.98%.

For managed WordPress hosting, you’re looking at a starting price of $19.95 per month up to $49.95 per month with Bluehost’s promotional prices.

Bluehost’s cPanel is consistent with the rest of its brand – clean, simple, and reliable.

Best for Uptime

HostGator Pros and Cons

HostGator not only takes the prize for the best uptime score, it also steals the win for best dedicated hosting provider.

So just what makes it so good? For starters, it bursts onto the scene with an impressive 99.99% uptime. That’s the highest uptime score you can realistically expect from any provider, due to minor updates and malfunctions that will affect the server.

HostGator is a close second to Bluehost, combining its high uptime score with a full range of support options, tons of hosting types, and a full house of quality features (such as CodeGuard).

What’s more, HostGator has customized its cPanel to make it even easier to use – it’s very simple to navigate and find everything you need. There are plenty of videos, articles, and guides in the HostGator support portal too, in case you do get stuck!

HostGator performed especially well when it came to dedicated hosting. You get a solid range of features, including:

• Built-in SSL Security to keep visitors safe and Google happy
• 1TB disk space to store tons of content
• A choice of Linux or Windows hosting to suit your needs
• Unmetered bandwidth to handle high traffic
• 8GB RAM to keep everything running smoothly

… and that’s just on the cheapest dedicated plan!

HostGator’s cheapest dedicated plan is its aptly named Value Server plan, costing $119 per month for new users. If you’re not ready for dedicated hosting, you can host with HostGator for as little as $2.75 per month on its cheapest shared plan.

Best for Shared and VPS Hosting

InMotion Pros and Cons

InMotion can’t be beaten when it comes to shared hosting and VPS hosting. It came top of the league for both types of hosting, scoring impressively for features, disk space, and help and support.

Most people start out on shared hosting as it’s the most basic option, and InMotion includes a range of features to make sure your site gets the best start in life. The $2.49 per month Lite plan is a great starting point, with unlimited bandwidth, and a free SSL certificate. Website Builder Expert readers get additional InMotion discounts – just go to InMotion’s site and these will be automatically applied.

And, when it’s time to give your site a more robust hosting plan, you can count on InMotion to provide stellar VPS hosting as well. Plans start at $29.19 per month, and include features such as root access (for ultimate control and customization over your server), free backups (for peace of mind), and up to 260GB storage to give your site room to grow.

InMotion’s cPanel is uncluttered and clear, with everything laid out on a single page.

This makes it easy to manage different sections of your site, as well as track your statistics like bandwidth usage. You can scroll or use the menu links at the top to jump straight to the section you want, or, you can use the search bar to narrow down your results.

One of the extra bonuses of InMotion using cPanel is that you get a really tailored service, since cPanel can be specially optimized for VPS hosting. cPanel VPS Optimized makes sure resources are used minimally, improving performance and speed.

This version of cPanel is included in all of InMotion’s VPS plans – combine that specially optimized service with InMotion’s top notch features, and you’ve got a winning combination!

Best for Cloud Hosting

A2 Hosting Pros and Cons

Bad customer service is one of the most frustrating things around – you don’t want to be the last person to know when something goes wrong with your site! That’s something you don’t need to worry about with A2 Hosting. Lightning fast and happy to help, you can count on A2 Hosting for customer service!

In our research, A2 Hosting also stood out for its superb cloud hosting, which lets you customize your plan resources depending on your needs.

A2 Hosting uses cPanel because of its intuitive design and easy to use interface. It uses this popular control panel to power its shared, VPS, dedicated, and reseller servers, and combines cPanel with high-performance SwiftServers to give your site the power and speed it needs.

And what about its hosting? A2 Hosting is a solid choice – in our research, it scored a very respectable 4.3 stars out of 5 overall. It has a full range of help and support options, as well as a wide selection of different hosting types.

Where A2 Hosting fell down, however, was its pretty low uptime score of 99.95%. Despite this flaw, it still finished in the top three providers for shared hosting, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, and managed WordPress hosting.

A2 Hosting’s prices start at $3.92 for its cheapest shared hosting plan, and it also offers a generous anytime money back guarantee.

There are plenty of tutorials and articles in the A2 Hosting support center to help you get to grips with cPanel, and it’s easy to reach out in person with any questions you might have.

Best for Reliability

SiteGround Pros and Cons

If your main focus is on steady, stress-free, reliable hosting, then SiteGround is the choice for you. All SiteGround plans come with cPanel included to make managing your account easy. Manage your domains, track your billing, and even access support through your control panel with SiteGround.

You have lots of hosting options with SiteGround. It didn’t stand out in our research for good or bad reasons – it sits comfortably amongst its competitors, with 4 out of 5 stars overall.

SiteGround offers six types of hosting. Out of these, it’s strongest in its managed WordPress hosting. It’s not in the number one spot, (that honor goes to Bluehost) but it is recommended by WordPress because of its tailored features.

From $6.99 per month, you get essential WordPress features such as free installation and migration, daily backups, automatic updates, and specialist WordPress support. It’s not quite on Bluehost’s level, but it’s a safe and solid choice.

Best for Extra Features

GoDaddy Pros and Cons

For an all-round service including hosting, domain names, email, marketing and more, take a look at GoDaddy. It’s not the most advanced hosting provider out there, but it does have a whole set of extra tools to arm you with.

GoDaddy provides a whole host of options, which you can easily manage all in one place. This makes it a popular, if not particularly powerful choice.

In our research, GoDaddy actually scored top marks for the features of its shared hosting plans. Just on its cheapest Economy plan, you can benefit from free backups, a free domain, a free business email for the first year, and more.

Because of all those nifty extras, GoDaddy scored highly for features in our research.

However, GoDaddy plummeted down the ranks when it came to value for money. With no money back guarantee on most hosting plans (including shared hosting) and pretty hefty renewal costs, GoDaddy won’t get you the most bang for your buck.

cPanel doesn’t support Windows hosting, so you only get cPanel with GoDaddy if you sign up for any of its Linux hosting plans. We usually recommend Linux hosting as it’s faster and generally cheaper, while Windows is more specific and isn’t needed by most users.

Best for Stinging You With Expensive Renewal Prices

HostPapa Pros and Cons

HostPapa has a solid range of features, and actually scored a personal best in our research for its shared WordPress hosting plans. You get a range of features, including:

• Free domain
• Software updates
• SSL Security
• Unlimited bandwidth

We think it’s best to be honest upfront, which is why you should be aware that HostPapa has some pretty pricey renewal costs. While it might have appealing sales features for new users, HostPapa isn’t so appealing when renewal time rolls around.

As long as you sign up aware of the long-term costs, then HostPapa can be a great choice.

Promotional prices range from $3.95 per month to $12.95 per month for HostPapa’s three shared WordPress hosting plans. With 99.97% uptime, plenty of disk space on offer, and a user-friendly cPanel, HostPapa has upsides worth thinking about.

cPanel is one of the most widely used control panels on the market, mainly because it’s so easy to use. Of course, it makes sense there are more providers out there using cPanel than the seven in our list – but these are the best seven!

There are other providers using their own version of cPanel, which we’ve researched and can recommend. These providers are best if you want something a little bit different, but just as user-friendly.

iPage

Without a doubt, iPage is strongest when it comes to value for money. You can host with iPage from as little as $1.99 per month on its shared hosting plan – that’s 75% off the regular price, and includes free domain registration!

The main thing you need to know about iPage is that it doesn’t use cPanel – it has its own iPage Control Panel. The aim of using this custom control panel is to simplify the design even more than cPanel, making it as beginner-friendly as possible. This dashboard also provides quick and easy access to all your management tools, and can tailor its design to reflect iPage itself.

Overall, iPage is a good, budget friendly hosting provider, which is perfect if you just want to keep things simple. Its “one-size-fits-all” shared hosting plan means you don’t have to worry about increasing costs as your site grows.

DreamHost

DreamHost is the best hosting provider for storage space. Instead of cPanel, DreamHost has a custom control panel called DreamHost Panel.

DreamHost Panel works in a similar way to cPanel, giving you controls to manage everything from payments and servers to your account, access support, and more. It has simple menus, helpful links, and the all-important search bar for quick fixes.

DreamHost is another provider which is recommended by WordPress, and has an impressive range of features to go with it.

WPEngine

WPEngine is aimed at WordPress users, with four managed WordPress hosting plans to choose from.

It’s no surprise that this WordPress specialist package comes with top notch help and support. You’ll need to sign up to the $115 per month Growth plan to unlock 24/7 phone support, or be bold and go for the Custom plan to access consultative onboarding (ooh).

WPEngine uses its own version of cPanel, which it has created to bring users the best experience of WPEngine possible. This control panel is called User Portal, and allows you to access all major features, such as visitor stats, storage and bandwidth usage, and domain management.

cPanel or Custom Control Panel – How Do They Compare?

At the end of the day, all control panels will do a similar job – you’ll have a central, all-in-one center to manage the important features of your site.

While different providers will customize their cPanel, on the whole, the basics remain the same. You have the benefit of standard cPanel guides and manuals online to help you out, and switching between providers is easy.

Custom control panels provide a more tailored and specific service, filled with the provider’s own data and design to benefit you and your site. However, there’s also more room for risk – you don’t know how easy or difficult it might be to use, and switching providers later on could be more difficult.

Some providers actually provide a demo of their control panel, which is a great way to see if it ticks your boxes before signing up.

This article has thrown together the seven best providers that use cPanel, and even introduced you to some which have gone their own way but can still be highly recommended.

cPanel is a control panel which makes it easy for you to manage and run your website, domains, server settings, email accounts, and more, all from one place. It’s a popular, beginner friendly control panel which is used by most hosting providers.

7 Best cPanel Hosting Providers: Recap

1. Bluehost – Best overall hosting provider.
2. HostGator – Best for uptime.
3. InMotion – Best for shared and VPS hosting.
4. A2 Hosting – Best for cloud hosting.
5. SiteGround – Best for reliability.
6. GoDaddy Hosting – Best for extra features.
7. HostPapa – Best for stinging you with expensive renewal costs.

What about the rest? These aren’t the only top quality providers out there – we’ve researched others which use their own custom control panels, and DreamHost, iPage, and WPEngine have all worked hard to bring you a control panel to rival cPanel.

Overall, we’d have to recommend Bluehost as the best provider to choose. It’s got the features, the prices, and the reliable control panel to boot. Claiming the title of best overall hosting provider, as well as the undisputed champion of WordPress hosting, Bluehost doesn’t leave much room for competition.

Don’t let the dust settle after this epic showdown – pick your winner, take control of your cPanel, and enjoy happy hosting!

Is cPanel free?

On its own, cPanel is not a free product – it starts at $15 per month. However, most hosting providers include it for free in your hosting plan, so you don’t need to worry about paying any extra! A few will give it to you free for a year, but charge extra after that, so always make sure to check your plan before signing up.

Is my control panel private?

Yes! You have to log in to access your control panel, whether it’s cPanel or a custom one. It’s important to keep your control panel secure, because it has all the important information and settings for your website. You don’t want a random stranger to get in and start messing around with your domains or emails!

Is cPanel compatible with all types of hosting?

cPanel can only be used for Linux hosting, rather than Windows hosting. This shouldn’t be a problem to most people, as Linux is the most popular and widely recommended type of hosting. It’s faster, cheaper, and more up to date. However, if you do need Windows hosting, you can use the software Plesk instead of cPanel – many providers offer both, so nobody is left out.