11 Helpful Web Hosting Tools

Are you looking to make your site accessible to the world wide web? Not quite sure what you need to web host? Not to worry, web hosting can be easy if you have the right tools.

Whether you’re just creating a site for fun or trying to build an online business, you will need a web host. As a home for your site, it is key to having a smooth and easily run website. Luckily for you, we’ve put together a list of eleven web hosting tools to help you launch your site.

• Wix 
• Weebly 
• WordPress 
• Joomla
• Cpanel
• Plesk 
• WHMCS  
• BILLmanager 
• Cloudflare
• StackPath
• Moodle

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Wix: A Website Builder For Anyone

People looking to find a web host provider rather than host their own can look to website builders like Wix for all their needs. Wix has its own hosting as well as domain name registration to make your life easy.

With simple drag and drop tools, you can create your perfect website in no time. This tool offers some of the best templates and features to meet all your needs. If you want, you can even start from scratch so that your site is unique to you.

The only downfalls to Wix are once you choose a template, it is tough to change it later on if you decide you don’t like it. Wix loading times are also relatively slow when compared to other website builders.

Weebly: A Good Website Builder For Beginners

Weebly is another excellent tool to save you all the hassle of coding your site. As a very intuitive and popular tool, it is easy to use with multiple responsive themes to choose from.

With a cloud-based hosting infrastructure, Weebly provides a fast and reliable experience to anyone that visits your site. Another great thing, there are no ads on your site, unlike other free website builders.

Click here to start a website with Bluehost

The downfall to Weebly is that it offers limited design flexibility. You are not able to move site elements around as well as you are with other website builders. Weebly is also not great at SEO optimizing site in languages other than English.

WordPress: Most Popular Content Management System

But wait, isn’t WordPress a website builder too?

WordPress is a content management system (CMS). CMS’s are software used to manage your digital content, while website builders simply allow you to just build a site. So, if you want a software that goes above and beyond when it comes to web hosting, opt for a CMS like WordPress.

WordPress can power almost any type of website, although it is mostly geared towards blogging. It offers a multitude of features to ensure your site runs the way you want it to. With different marketing tools, this tool is easy to use for beginners and easily customizable for experts.

Some downfalls to WordPress are that some themes are unnecessarily complex and, as a result slow downloading speeds. Also, as an open-source platform, your site may be more vulnerable to hackers.

Joomla: Best Content Management System For Developers

If the WordPress platform is not cutting it for you, another great CMS is Joomla. Joomla can be used for a wide range of sites, from personal pages to corporate websites. With a global community of developers, the Joomla platform is very user friendly and responsive.

Even developers can use Joomla for a multitude of tasks including:

• Complex business directories
• Application Bridges
• Inventory control systems

Joomla is a bit harder to navigate than WordPress, but once you get around the learning curve, you will see it’s perfect for just about anyone.

Click here to start a website with Bluehost

Cpanel: Best Control Panel For Managing Large Number of Sites

If you’re considering doing your web hosting, then a control panel is one of the most important aspects to consider. Control panels help manage a website by allowing you to manage your servers and hosted services. With a control panel, you can manage different things like:

• Domains
• Subdomains
• Files
• Mailboxes

Cpanel has been the leading hosting platform for over twenty years. As a global web host provider, you can do a multitude of things with Cpanel, including:

• Publish a website
• Launch databases
• Create emails 
• Create calendars

Cpanel tends to be a more reasonably priced option for web hosting many sites, but when you are only managing a small number, it tends to be a bit pricier.

Plesk: Best Control Panel For Managing Small Number of Sites

Plesk is another great control panel to consider if you are managing a smaller number of sites. With over 100 extensions to choose from and a versatile WordPress toolkit, Plesk has something for anyone.

Plesk is always adding to its features list as well to meet all your needs. Some of its newer features include:

• Self-repair tools
• Scheduling incremental backups
• Extension catalog

Another great thing is that it is easily customizable and compatible across all platforms. The only thing about Plesk is that it starts to get expensive when you are managing many sites.

Click here to start a website with Bluehost

WHMCS: Top Billing Management Support System

Billing management is a support system that interacts with different payment gateways to manage your automated billing and provisions. It is essentially how you participate in e-commerce.

WHMCS, also known as Web Host Manager Complete Solution, is a well-known billing management system that is secure and dependable. With a multitude of features and the ability to adjust to your needs, this is a top pick for most people who web host.

WHMCS offers a wide range of services that include:

• Tax support
• Recurring payments
• Credit card processing
• Invoice generation

BILLmanager: Best Billing Management for Low Number of Sites

BILLmanager is another immensely popular billing management tool from ISPsystem. The great thing about this tool is that it is completely free for people whose web host with less than fifty clients. It provides services like:

• Billing
• Invoicing
• Cloud solutions
• SSL
• Domain shared hosting

If you’re looking for analogs of WHMCS or HostBill, this tool is perfect for all levels of web hosting.

Cloudflare: Cloud Based Website Security

To securely web host, you need to take steps to protect the websites protected from cyber-attacks. One easy way to do this is to use a tool like Cloudflare.

Click here to start a website with Bluehost

Cloudflare protects your internet presence while improving site speeds. It offers a variety of services, including:

• Firewall protection
• Bot management
• VPN
• Image optimization
• Load balancing
• Intelligent routing 
• Rate limiting

As a fast and reliable content delivery network service, Cloudflare makes sure the sites that you web host stay safe.

StackPath: Top Website Security Tool

StackPath is another excellent CDN that is said to be a leader in this market. With a super easy setup and a free private EdgeSSL certificate, this tool utilizes multiple server locations across the globe to improve your site’s speed.

The great thing about StackPath is that it offers a multitude of security services, including: 

• Block features for DDoS protection
• Firewall
• Load balancing

However, there are no free options associated with this tool, but you can choose between various bundles at a price best for you.

Moodle: Top Education Course Management System

If your hosting sites that involve online education courses, then you are going to need a special kind of tool to do this. Moodle is a CMS provided by Inmotion that allows for the easy setup of online courses. It offers a few features like:

• Grades
• Courses
• Organizing classes
• Keeping track of students
• Calendar

Course management systems like Moodle are great for colleges and universities and sites that teach everyday trades and skills. When web hosting, you only need to consider these tools if they apply to your websites, but it’s good practice to have one just in case you acquire a site that needs it.

Picking the Right Tools

Whether you are embarking on the journey of doing your own web hosting or simply trying to build a website and are in search of what to look for in a hosting platform, it is important to note what tools are the most helpful. Picking the right tools will help all the sites you manage run optimally and efficiently.

Click here to start a website with Bluehost