The CPanel - Installatron Software Tools/Scripts

Useful Or Useless?  Out-Of-Date Or Up-To-Date?  Installatron Or Fantastico?

When looking at the specifications of a web hosting package you might see that it offers you the popular CPanel control panel as part of that package. You login to your CPanel in order to then run certain aspects of your website (its MySQL Databases, PHP Scripts, Email and so on set ups).

On top of this the cpanel may come with an additional tool called Fantastico or Installatron, both of which are additional-software installers. These are add-on tools that will automatically install, but not necessarily set up the settings for, a Blog, Forum and so on. You might not have Fantastico or Installatron as part of your web hosting package, for whatever reason(s), but a good web hosting package will normally have one or the other.

It normally goes that the better the web hosting package the more tools you will get, both in the cpanel and in the additional software-installer, but not always. A cheaper web hosting package can also offer the same amount of quality cpanel tools and software-installer tools of those normally found in a quality web hosting package only.

Never mind the cpanel tools though; Last week (Saturday 24th July 2010) I logged into my NetHosted CPanel to see how many of its Installatron tools were actually useful and more precisely up-to-date simply because, from a curious research point of view, I wanted to see how many of those tools were added to Installatron just for the sake of being “A Big List Of Tools” which some web hosting providers play to their advantage.

Note: Installatron, Fantastico and CPanel are separate software providers in their own right whereby a web hosting provider installs them onto your web hosting package. This article applies equally to Fantastico simply because they install roughly the same softwares as Installatron. Which one is better? None, from the point of view of YOU the website owner – Technically it is supposed to be Installatron, going by this list of features and from what is said on this web hosting forum.

Installatron Tools (Snapshot: Saturday 24th July 2010)

Fig 1.0  A snapshot of installed softwares from web hosting package and software author's website

The softwares marked in RED represent tools/scripts that I class as either Too Old, Out-Dated or Obsolete by Installatron and/or by the author(s). And softwares marked in BURGUNDY represent tools/scripts that I class as Slightly Old because of their Release Date and/or because of their Version Number.

Out Of Date

Out of the 59 Softwares 20 of them were out-of-date and/or obsolete, leaving 39 useable softwares. And even then many of those were similar softwares in terms of category - eCommerce, CMS (Content Management System) and Survey/Poll for example.

Useless

Many of the softwares will never be used by the Absolute Beginner either because they are business orientated, programmer oriented and/or need payment for their fully featured version. Code Igniter (a PHP Framework/Engine), Moodle (a teachers aid basically) and PHP Coin (an invoice system) are typical examples. Code Igniter (as if the absolute beginner gives a **** !!). PHP Coin (many people use Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice Maths). Moodle (not everyone is making an educational website). Need I go on!

Don’t get me wrong; These softwares are good in their own right, but I do not think they should be included as part of a hosting package; Especially not as a false enticement for that package (i.e. Enticement: “Our hosting packages all come with loads of software”)…..Yes, loads of useless softwares.

Conclusions

I was lucky in that I had a good web hosting package that had reasonably up-to-date, useful, softwares included in its version of Installatron, mainly because I can utilize many of the programming orientated softwares for example, but you might not be as lucky. And when I say lucky I mean pure luck – Meaning, unless you have seen a particular web hosting package before (i.e. from a friend or website developer), normally there is no way of telling what a web hosting provider is going to give you in terms of cpanel tools and extras (i.e. softwares within fantastico or installatron).

So always e-mail a web hosting provider first with specific questions aimed at the CPanel tools and Fantastico/Installatron.