Whats the difference between Subdomains, Addon Domains and Aliases in cPanel Hosting Print

Subdomains

Subdomains act like “branches” of your main domain and are commonly used to organise different sections of a website. For example:

• store.your-domain.net.au – for an online shop

• login.your-domain.net.au – for a customer login portal

• staging.your-domain.net.au – for testing new versions of your site before going live

Subdomains can either run as part of your main website, or they can be pointed via DNS (e.g., an A record) to a completely separate server. This makes them flexible for testing environments, additional services, or dedicated apps.

Addon Domains

Addon domains allow you to host an entirely separate website under your cPanel account, using a completely different domain name. For example:

• Primary domain: hostingroo.com

• Addon domain: newbusiness.com

Even though both are managed in the same cPanel, each website functions independently and has its own site files (stored in a unique folder, e.g. /public_html/newbusiness). You can also create email accounts for each addon domain.

⚠️ Keep in mind:

• On shared hosting, all addon domains share the same server resources (CPU, RAM, Disk). Running multiple sites on one cPanel can slow performance if resource limits are reached.

• Shared hosting plans limit the number of addon domains you can create. With Dedicated Server plans, you can define your own limits via WHM.

Aliases (Previously Called Parked Domains)

Aliases allow a single website to load from multiple domain names. For example:

• Main site: your-domain.net.au

• Alias: mydomain.com.au

When someone types mydomain.com.au into their browser, they’ll see the same site as your-domain.net.au. This is especially useful for:

• Brand protection (securing different extensions of your domain).

• Covering spelling variations of your brand name.

⚠️ Important for WordPress sites: If you set up an alias, WordPress will usually redirect the alias back to the “primary” site URL (due to the configured site URL in WordPress). This means the alias won’t stay visible in the browser’s address bar.

✅ Quick Summary

• Subdomain – A branch of your main domain, often used for sections like store. or blog..

• Addon Domain – A separate website hosted under the same cPanel account.

• Alias – An extra domain name that points to and displays your main site.