Tuesday, August 11, 2009

A Run Down on VPS Applications

When it comes to Website Hosting, many people are loathe to choose the Shared Hosting environment because what they are seeking is freedom and control over their own server. This allows them to run a multitude of programs that they might otherwise be stuck having to decide against in a more limited environment. If you think that VPS Hosting is the right choice for you then you will want to know what options you have in terms of VPS applications. There are several different options out there and we'll cover three in this article.

Let's start with DirectAdmin, a web control panel. It includes email features to allow you to set up POP/IMAP accounts, forwarders, webmail, autoresponders and a host of other features. You can have FTP accounts have full control over your DNS as well as statistics for monitoring your VPS. Subdomain management, site backup, error pages and MySQL databases are all built right in and you'll even have access to FrontPage extensions and password protected directories if you need these features.

Next is cPanel, one of the more popular VPS applications out there. You'll be able to manage a wide assortment of your average operations like accounts for mail and FTP, PGP key management, mailing lists and crontab tasks. Fortunately, cPanel can upgrade MySQL, PHP and Apache automatically to keep you running up to speed with less hassle. You'll be able to run web based applications like phpBB, TikiWiki, Moodle, WordPress, Drupal and SMF among others so it's a pretty powerful solution that maximizes the potential of your VPS.

Finally, one of the strongest VPS applications on the market today is CentOS for Linux. Built on the Red Hat distribution of Linux, this is incredibly powerful software that enables smooth virtualization and is noted for it's rock steady reliability, a feature any software needs if its going to be used to run your website from. As long as you are familiar with Linux you will find it pleasantly easy to use and more than powerful enough to handle any applications you care to throw its way. Of course, you should make sure that you have solid tech support from your web host provider before you dive into anything.

In the end, the choice is up to you and if you are planning to run a heavy site then you will definitely still want Unlimited Hosting in order to make sure you can not only handle a heavy visitor load, but also deal with an tweaking and experiments you need to do on your VPS without running over your bandwidth limit. As you can see, VPS applications are incredibly powerful tools that can take your site to the next level once you've mastered them.


1 comment: