Hosting is where your website content such as images, videos etc are stored. Most of the websites share a server with others, some require an entire server.
cPanel is a web hosting control panel software developed by cPanel, LLC. It provides a graphical interface (GUI) and automation tools designed to simplify the administration processes of hosting a website. cPanel also has command line and API-based access that allows third-party software vendors, web hosting organisations, and developers to automate standard system administration processes.
Plesk is a web hosting control panel and data center software developed for Linux and Windows-based hosting services. It is developed by Plesk International GmbH. Plesk's user management model is suitable for dedicated and shared hosting, allowing server administrators to set up new websites, reseller accounts, email accounts, as well as edit and create DNS entries through a web-based interface.
A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone else. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organisations have full control over the server, including choice of operating system, hardware, etc.
There is also another level of dedicated or managed hosting commonly referred to as complex managed hosting. Complex Managed Hosting applies to both physical dedicated servers, Hybrid server and virtual servers, with many companies choosing a hybrid (combination of physical and virtual) hosting solution.
A virtual private server (VPS) is a virtual machine sold as a service by an Internet hosting service. The virtual dedicated server (VDS) also has a similar meaning. A virtual private server runs its own copy of an operating system (OS), and customers may have superuser-level access to that operating system instance, so they can install almost any software that runs on that OS. For many purposes, they are functionally equivalent to a dedicated physical server, and being software-defined, are able to be much more easily created and configured. They are cheaper than an equivalent physical server. However, as they share the underlying physical hardware with other VPSes, performance may be lower, depending on the workload of any other executing virtual machines.
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It is the standard technology to keep an internet connection secure, safeguarding any sensitive data that is being sent between two systems, can be server to server or a server and a client, preventing criminals from reading and modifying any information transferred. SSL uses encryption algorithms to scramble data in transit, makes sure that any data transferred between users and sites, or between two systems remain impossible to read, preventing hackers from reading it as it is sent over the connection. TLS (Transport Layer Security) is an updated, more secure, version of SSL. Not only is TLS more secure and performant, most modern web browsers no longer support SSL 2.0 and SSL 3.0. While SSL is still the dominant term on the Internet, most people really mean TLS when they say SSL. HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) appears in the URL when a website is secured by an SSL certificate. The details of the certificate, including the issuing aut...