Recommendation For Newbie

[annamae]

I'm learning the ins and outs of setting up my first website.  Which is best for a beginner cPanel or VPS?  Does one allow you more room to play around and figure out what you are doing?

[linker]

These terms are different and we cannot compare them because they serve different purpose.

cPanel is a program that controls the setup of your websites in a server.

VPS or Virtual Private Server is a type of server package that web hosting companies offer.

We can compare cPanel with Plesk while VPS can be compared with shared-hosting and dedicated server. I think some can explain a bit more about these because I am still learning things about we b hosting.

[dave]

What linker said is correct.

I would add that cPanel is a control panel that runs on top of a dedicated server or a VPS. Where a VPS is simply a slice of a dedicated server that allows you to install and run applications from the command line cPanel is a software layer that you run on the vps that gives you a web interface that allows you host websites without configuring/installing everything by hand from the command line.

[trying hard]

What I understood from your posts is that a website can be hosted by a VPS, a shared hosting or a dedicated hosting, and any or all of these hosts has a cPanel that runs the hosting program. Am I right?

[dave]

That is correct, cPanel isn't the only control panel out there but it's the industry standard and from our experience the best when it comes to maintenance and updates.

[smiley!]

the price range between suppliers of VPS is rather large.  I've seen prices as low as $10 (USD) a month or as high as $50 USD).  Is the actual storage and bandwidth the cause for the difference in price or is it other things to consider?  How should I guage the quality of the package I buy while I'm comparison shopping?

[dave]

The items that price a vps package are "Generally":
1. Disk Space
2. Bandwidth / IP Addresses
3. Ram
4. CPU Access

Basically you have to figure out how much of each fo the resources you need, it's not bad if you make a mistake though because plans can be upgraded very easily unlike a traditional server.

[hollaback]

How is this different from a traditional server? I thought that it was hosted, just like it always has been? Is it that it's off site, and so it's not your "traditional" server?

[dave]

It's an application layer on top of a dedicated server that lets you run several OS's on 1 machine.

It's like VMWare.