Hosting Terms
What is Softaculous?
What Softaculous really means, with the jargon taken out — plus the example that makes it obvious.
Straight answer first
Softaculous is the one-click installer sitting inside your control panel, deploying WordPress and hundreds of other applications with their databases and their settings all arranged for you.
The sections below open it up properly — how it works, why a site owner should care, and a concrete example of it doing its job.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
0
Terms left unexplained
100+
Definitions, cross-linked
Real
Examples from real kit
Free
To read, naturally
An installation that used to mean downloading an archive, creating a database and editing config files by hand becomes a short form: pick the application, pick the domain, choose a login, and the installer performs the official setup in one go.
It also remembers what it put there, offering updates, backups, clones and staging copies for each installation — which quietly makes it a lifecycle manager rather than merely an installer.
The everyday comparison
The self-assembly furniture that arrives already assembled. You still choose the piece and where it goes; the part where you sit on the floor sorting screws simply stops being your evening.
Comparisons simplify, naturally — but this one holds together well enough to reason with, and reasoning is the whole point of a glossary.
Why this one is worth knowing
It takes the technical gate off trying software. A forum, a wiki, a CRM or a shop becomes a two-minute experiment instead of an afternoon project, and the uninstaller tidies away the databases that the manual method leaves stranded.
You do not need to work at this layer every day. You need to recognise it when it explains something, which is exactly the moment this page earns its keep.
Softaculous out in the open
A club secretary installs WordPress for the public site and DokuWiki for the committee handbook in one sitting, without creating a single database by hand or opening a config file.
Multiply that example by every website on the internet and you have the concept's entire job description in one go.
Where you will meet it on our platform
You will meet it in the control panel and occasionally in a support conversation, usually already set the right way. If this term made sense, the natural next reads are cPanel, WordPress, CMS and Database.
What you pay on day one is what you pay at renewal, so the year-two invoice holds no surprises worth opening early.
Unexplained jargon is bad service
Every confusing term in hosting turns into a support ticket sooner or later, so we defined the hundred most common ones properly, once, in the plain English we would use across the counter.
Mailboxes on your own domain are part of the plan, never an add-on sold back to you at checkout.
- 100+ terms, all in plain English
- Everyday comparisons and real examples
- Related concepts linked together
- Written by the people on the desk
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
Pictures that stick
Each concept gets a comparison you will still remember at the moment you actually need it.
Honest about what to skip
Most terms are recognise-level rather than operate-level, and the glossary says which is which.
One term, fully landed
Softaculous defined, pictured by comparison and placed in your own control panel — recognise-level in a single read.
Plain English first
Every term defined for people who run sites, not for other sysadmins — jargon translated rather than restated.
The stakes spelled out
Not only what it is, but when it turns out to be the answer to a problem you are having.
The next reads, mapped
Read on into cPanel and WordPress — terms rarely stand alone, so the neighbours are linked.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Find it in your own account
Open the control panel and find where this concept lives — seeing it attached to your own site is what turns a definition into understanding.
- 2
Check what the defaults are
Confirm how your account has this set. It is usually right by default here, and now you will know rather than guess.
- 3
Follow the terms next door
Concepts travel in packs — cPanel, WordPress and CMS finish this one's picture, and each is a two-minute read away.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- Real people on the counter, every hour of every day
- PHP versions picked per site from the panel
- SSH, Git and Composer on the plans built for developers
- Spam and virus filtering fitted to every mailbox
- A free SSL certificate on every plan, reissued before it lapses
- LiteSpeed caching running at the server, not bolted on by plugin
- A backup taken daily, with restores you run yourself
- Nothing added at setup — no joining fee, ever
- WebP image optimisation built in and costing nothing
- Upgrades apply to the account in place, with no move between plans
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
Are Softaculous installs the genuine applications?
They are the official releases, unchanged. The installer only automates where the files go and how they are configured. There is no cut-down version hiding in the catalogue — WordPress from Softaculous is simply WordPress.
Should I remove applications through Softaculous as well?
Yes. Its uninstaller clears the database and the configuration alongside the files. Deleting an application's folder by hand leaves an orphaned database sitting in the account, confusing whoever audits it next year.
Can I test changes somewhere safe first?
Yes — plans with staging let you clone the live site, work on the copy, then push it across when you are satisfied. It is the difference between hoping an update behaves and knowing that it does before any customer meets it.
How do I pay, and does it bill again on its own?
Orders go through a secure checkout by credit or debit card, and the renewal is taken at the same price you first paid. Every invoice sits in the client area for you to read, and switching auto-renewal off is a toggle in your account rather than a phone call.
Can I set the PHP version myself?
Yes — PHP versions are chosen per site from the control panel, so an old application and a current one can sit side by side on the same account. Extensions and per-site settings live in the same screen, and none of it needs a support ticket.
Do you shift an existing site across at no charge?
We do. Open a ticket with the login details for your current host and the whole lot comes over: files, databases, mailboxes and configuration. You check the copy before DNS changes hands, and the old site keeps serving customers until the new one takes the traffic, so nobody ever sees a gap.
What does round-the-clock support actually stretch to?
People at the counter at every hour, and a scope that takes in the practical work: mailbox setup, DNS records, WordPress trouble, restores. Not 'the server responds, ticket closed'. Ask us something hard before you order — the reply is a fair sample of what you would get afterwards.
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