Question from a client:

[My Hosting Company] is asking to select default between Round Cube, Horde, and Squirrel Mail for the email… Not sure which too choose?

For decades now most web hosting companies include email with their server plans.  And all of them offer the same three, decades-old webmail clients as well: RoundCube, Horde, and SquirrelMail.  We’ll discuss whether you should use any of them in a moment (short answer, no, you shouldn’t use shared hosting for email) but let’s answer the client’s actual question first.

Not sure which to choose?  According to the official cPanel documentation here’s the difference:

• Horde is for users who need a full suite of features that includes mobile email access and advanced productivity tools.
• RoundCube is for users who need a user-friendly web interface with some additional features available.
• SquirrelMail is for users who need a simple interface with which to read and reply to emails.

Most modern hosting plans will let you try them all out — using one won’t stop you from using another!  And if you like one more than another, most hosting plans will let you choose a default.

And if you don’t have any other email accounts, and you don’t already use another web-based, desktop, or mobile application for email, any one of the three will probably do a fine job.

But!

If you do have other email accounts, and if you do use Outlook, iMail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc., then you can use one of those instead.

Chances are your hosting company’s control panel has configuration information for desktop and mobile.

• Here’s a guide for using Gmail to receive and reply to hosting-plan email
• Here’s one for using Outlook.com and one for Yahoo mail.
• Here’s an older one for using Hotmail.

If you use a different web, phone, or desktop mail client chances are you can use that instead.

Point being that while it’s nice that you can use one of the webmail clients from your hosting company, chances are you really don’t have to.