At PlanetHoster, our primary mission has always been to offer the best in web hosting and domain names.
Indeed, PlanetHoster, in addition to being an ICANN-accredited registrar and directly offering over 200 ccTLD, gTLD and more, manages the web hosting infrastructure from A to Z.
We have always put Open Source as a priority. In this sense, we are one of the first contributors (sponsor) of Let’s Encrypt. This is a certification authority for the SSL/TLS protocols. They secure today about 260 million websites and it is Open Source :)! We also contribute to Open Source CMS events such as Joomla!, WordPress and Prestashop.
With this in mind, we decided almost 5 years ago to create a modern and robust web hosting platform that would meet the unique needs of web actors (webmaster, seo, designer, etc.), all based on Open Source.
Initially, it was a hybrid concept with cPanel. The latter being greatly appreciated by webmasters, we had decided to add our unique features in parallel to cPanel.
However, in 2018, cPanel was sold to a venture capital firm. Quickly, we saw the negative effect of this. There was an increase in license prices and a change in the business model (you have to pay per cPanel account, there are no more “unlimited” licenses).
Our hosting solution The World offers to the hosts to create each of their websites on a unique hosting account (thus a unique server and even a unique continent!). The advantage? A better resilience in case of failure, better performance and increased security. Indeed, by isolating each of the sites on a “single basket”, the sites can “breathe better”. Also, hosts can, from GUI or API, create, suspend and delete hostings on the fly. It’s like having a dedicated environment, but instead of having 1x dedicated server you have (‘x Accounts’ dedicated server). However, since 2018, the concept of cPanel does not follow this mindset. They prefer to cram a huge number of sites on one account until they create a bottleneck.
Launch of the N0C Hosting Platform and its Control Panel
And that is when N0C was born. It is a complete web hosting platform 100% made by PH and it follows the latest web standards. Since 2018, it has been constantly ground up until it is ready for production today.
What is N0C?
It is a complete web hosting platform from A to Z (infra, software etc.). It has been custom built to meet the unique needs of web actors (webmaster, SEO, designer, etc.).
It implements the latest web standards and allows for fine-tuned management of all aspects of hosting while maintaining a horizontally scalable model. Each website has its own unique space and is hosted on a different infrastructure (FR and/or CA!). In addition to being “white-labeled”, it will allow the addition of a custom logo of your brand if desired. Knowledge base: https://kb.n0c.com/en/.
What is the difference with cPanel?
N0C has been built with modern and optimal programming languages. In addition to being faster, it is much lighter than cPanel. Also, it offers web actors modern tools to allow a fine management of their hosting (detailed access to logs, visitors, resources etc.). We will continue to support cPanel in parallel with N0C. It should be noted that cPanel has been sold to a venture capital firm for almost 4 years now. The future of this control panel is therefore unfortunately at risk. Also, cPanel is based on a complex language that is difficult to maintain. N0C allows us to meet the high requirements of webmasters and adapt it to your image.
Also, in all transparency, we keep a changelog available: https://kb.n0c.com/en/changelog/.
The migration process from cPanel to N0C is mostly automated.
However, here are the points to take into account:
1- If the domains are at PH, the DNS will be automatically changed. If not, you must change them at your provider.
The DNS are:
nsa.n0c.com
nsb.n0c.com
nsc.n0c.com
2- The password for additional FTP accounts and Email addresses will need to be changed on the N0C panel after the migration so that you can access them.
3- It may take 30 minutes to 2 hours to generate a new SSL certificate depending on the speed of the DNS change.
On The World, accounts that were created under cPanel will remain under cPanel. No change to expect on this. However, hosted users are free to ask for a free migration to N0C. The new accounts will be exclusively on N0C. Several dozen infrastructures have been set up to meet the need.
Regarding HybridCloud dedicated servers, the usage is individual. Since 2019, we have assumed the three rate increases and the change in the cPanel business model. So, some HybridCloud customers with sometimes 300x accounts, we were paying 60€ license fee even though we were charging only 50€ at hosted (including server)! In short, the cPanel pricing system is unique to each HybridCloud host. Thus, we will continue to offer the basic cPanel license with 5x accounts included at no charge. In case of more than 5x accounts, cPanel will charge 0.2€ per account. Starting October 1st, any cPanel fee exceeding the 5x account license will be charged to the HybridCloud host. For example, if you have 100 cPanel accounts on a dedicated HybridCloud server: (100-5)*0.2 = 19€ extra per month. This decision of cPanel does not make anyone happy (see this for example: https://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1770316 ). cPanel: Several price increases and very few improvements on their solution.
With N0C, hosted in a dedicated HybridCloud server, in addition to having the choice of several PHP, Ruby, NodeJS and Python versions as well as several features that cPanel does not offer, there will be no additional fees per account.
At the moment, N0C is only available on The World web hosting platform and is expected to be available between late 2021 and early 2022 for HybridCloud dedicated servers.
Here is a demo of the N0C web hosting platform and its control panel (in French):
New TierIV Datacenter Opens in Lausanne
On another note, we are also pleased to announce the deployment of a new premium infrastructure (TierIV datacenter!) in Lausanne. Based on AMD Epyc cpu, 100G network and more, it is redundant and secure from A to Z. Thus, customers hosted in Europe will be in Paris as well as in Lausanne 🙂
In the French-speaking canton of Vaud, Switzerland, Lausanne ensures optimal connectivity to both the French and Swiss as well as other European states. In addition to the green energy source (Hydro-Electricity), data protection is at the rendezvous.
Take advantage of the infrastructure in Lausanne by creating a new World account from your customer area 🙂
Implementation of a Premium Web Firewall
A premium WAF firewall is now integrated to The World and progressively on HybridCloud. It is a solution created in partnership with the founders of mod-security (Atomicorp). It protects against bruteforces cms, hacking attempts, etc. With N0C, it is possible to see the live history of blocked attacks as well as activate/deactivate the desired rules. An example is available in the demo above.
PlanetHoster celebrates its 14th anniversary in December 2021. And this is just the beginning, thanks for your trust 🙂
