DreamHost Panel
Control Panel is the used to access and manage your hosting account. There are many control panels available in the market for hosting companies. CPanel and Plesk are well known control panels for hosting. Most of the hosting companies use these readymade control panel available. DreamHost is a different. These people like to stay unique and do unique. DreamHost has developed their control panel. DreamHost Control Panel is developed using perl. As DreamHost people say, "We speak perl".
Update:
At the time I wrote this article, there wasn't any demo available for the dreamhost panel. But now DreamHost has introduced the control panel demo account. You don't need to read this article. Just go to DreamHost Control Panel Demo and enjoy the coolest web hosting panel of the world.
What makes DreamHost Panel Different From CPanel?
How can you say that one control panel is better than other? Ease to use panel is better? Oh..right! So I will say that DreamHost Control Panel is very easy to use because I know how to use it and I have now become used to.
If you give me any CPanel account today, I will find it difficult to use at a moment. Same with the CPanel. If any person regularly using CPanel uses DreamHost panel, at the first time she might find it hard to use.
Overall both panels provide all the needed features which are required for managing hosting accounts. DreamHost panel don't include File Manager and Site Stats through panel which are included in CPanel. That doesn't mean DreamHost don't offer those features. DreamHost has webftp equivalent to File Manager of CPanel and /stats page for the statics of any web site. So that's why people find it difficult to switch from one panel to another panel.
DreamHost panel includes as many features as many really required. For example, Billing information.
You can't find billing info, invoices and your hosting plan details in CPanel. In DreamHost panel, you can find all your invoices. Even you can change the hosting plan through DreamHost Control Panel. You can't have to mail or call their support team to change the hosting plan. Another thing I like about DreamHost Panel is that their domain registration system is also integrated with panel.
So whenever you register a domain through DreamHost, you don't have to worry about DNS changes. They take care of all DNS entries. You get a full access of your domain through DreamHost panel. You can also change whois information or change DNS servers of your domain through panel. You don't have to mail every time you want to change whois information. Another benefit DreamHost control panel has is that they can implement customer requested feature. They have a separate section where customers can request a new feature in the control panel. In DreamHost panel, you can even create a new Web ID and assign limited privileges. Then you can give that Web ID to any person. She will be able to access only resources which are assigned to that Web ID. Now that is called a REAL CONTROL Panel.
CPanel is a widely acceptable control panel among hosting companies. So I can't say that CPanel is not good. But I am just saying that DreamHost Control Panel is also really cool! It has all features what are required.
What You Can Do With DreamHost Panel?
This is obvious that you can manage your hosting account using DreamHost Panel. I will include details of what are basic operations you can do with DreamHost Panel.
DreamHost panel has a nice interface. Navigation menu is divided in logically manageable sub sections. Let's check each one by one.
1) Home 
- Overview - This page has all short cuts of mostly used buttons like View Invoices, Pay Bills, Register Domains, Manager Domains, Create User Accounts, Manage Email, Manage Databases, One-Click Installers & Contact Support.
- Backup Your Account - Use to take a backup of your full account including all domains, mysql database and mails.
- DHSOTM - DreamHost Site Of The Month
- Green Hosting - Green Icon management. You can put this icon on your site and let the world see that your site is GREEN.
- Suggestions - Suggestions on the improvement of DreamHost Panel
- Rewards - Manage Reward program
- Buy Gift Certificate - Buy gift certificate for someone special.
- Donations - Get donations from your visitors.
- Give to Charity - Give donations to charity.
- Partner Offers - Get offers from DreamHost partners.
2) Billing
- Manage Account - You can manage your account on this page, change hosting plan and manage users, domains, emails.
- Make Payment - You can make due payment on this page.
- View Invoices - Check your old invoices.
- Account List - Manage your DreamHost accounts
- Security - Manage Web ID password
3) Private Servers 
- Enable DreamHost PS - You can enable DreamHost Private Server for your shared account.
- Configure Server - Manager Server side settings.
- Manage Resources - Change the memory and CPU resource settings.
- Reboot Server - Reboot the virtual server.
4) Domains 
- Manage Domains - Manage domains, DNS entries.
- Registrations - Register new domains.
- Reg. Transfer - Transfer your registered domain to new registrar.
- Remap Sub-Dir - Change the mapping of directory.
- Anonymous FTP - Allow anonymous FTP access.
- Mongrel and Proxy - Setup Mongrel application server for Ruby web application.
5) Users 
- Manage Users - Create new user/ modify user accounts.
- Unix Groups - Create Unix groups for advance users only.
- Account Privileges - Give privileges to another user for some/all domains.
6) Mail
- Manage Email - Create new email address, bulk edit email addresses, set quota for mails.
- Webmail - Manage webmail settings, logo selection, webmail selection ( Squirrelmail/RoundCube)
- Email Filters - Create different email filters
- Junk Filter - Enable or disable junk mail setting.
- Autoresponders - Setup an auto reply for your email addresses when you are on vacation.
- Announce Lists - Manage announce subscription lists.
- Discussion Lists - Manage discussion subscription lists.
- Custom MX/Gmail - Change MX records.
7) Goodies
- Flash Media - Convert AVI, MOV, MPG & MPEG to FLV format.
- Manage MySQL - Manage MySQL databases.
- Htaccess/WebDAV - Mange Htaccess file and configure WebDAV directory
- Block Spiders - Mange robots.txt files for spiders.
- Jabber IM - Create Instant Messaging service on your domain.
- Subversion - Mange subversion projects.
- Media Streaming - Mange Quick Time streaming service.
- One-Click Installs - Install many open source softwares on single click.
- FrontPage - Enable frontpage extension
- Cron Jobs - Setup regular cron jobs to automate the task.
8) Status
- Site Statics - Edit website stats related settings.
- BandWidth Usage - Check your bandwidth usage for each of your site.
- Disk Usage - Check disk usage for domain, mails and database.
- MySQL Usage - Track MySQL disk and connections report.
9) Files Forever
- How It Works - basic understanding of what is Files Forever.
- My Files - Manage your uploaded files.
- Upload Files - Upload files to Files Forever.
- Billing History - Check the billing information for Files Forever.
10) Support
- Contact Support - Open a support ticket.
- Support History - Check support mail archives.
- Account Tests - Check your services status.
Once you use DreamHost Panel, you will know how easy it is to use DreamHost Panel! This is just a brief overview of the panel. If you have any question about DreamHost Panel feature or usage, contact me.