XAMPP vs. Cpanel

XAMPP is a PHP/Perl development environment, an Apache server, and a MySQL installation, whereas CPanel is a hosting control panel, so they're pretty different things. If you're not developing in PHP or Perl or using MySQL, you probably don't need XAMPP. Since you said you're using CPanel "on [your] hosting," I'm assuming that you're using CPanel on server space you're paying for from a hosting company, so not on your own PC, which makes perfect sense and is probably just fine for your needs if you're not actually developing software using XAMPP's tools.

XAMPP is good for local testing before committing changes to the Internet (or your live host). I'm not sure why XAMPP takes up "so much space" on your computer. I have not less than 20 websites with database back-ends and videos. My entire XAMPP directory sums up to about 1GB which isn't 'so much' in my opinion.

I'll advice you to retain XAMPP for local development. It's free and fast and can be a very handy tool for a web developer :)

Update: There's also WAMP, which may use a little less space.

As Cole mentioned above XAMPP and cPanel are two different things, in terms of ones on your computer and ones on the server.

XAMPP is much quicker for working on an entire project as your working on the files locally and then can upload them to the hosting space once done, its also safer incase theres an error in the code just done it only effects the site on your local computer instead of the site the world can see.

XAMPP has also saved me a few times where i've thought to try something new but it hasn't worked then i just downloaded the old code on the server and stated again.

I do however use cPanel for small updates instead of downloading the entire site for a tiny little change.

If disk space is an issue you could try archiving some old sites in the htdocs folder your no longer actively working on to an external hard drive, the cloud(dropbox e.t.c) or just a space on your hosting set aside for uploaded files.

Great! Thanks for all your input! It's really appreciated !I was using the cpanel of my hosting as a test server. I wouldn't test the code on an actual site but i would play around with phpmyadmin and mysql through the cpanel. To date I have only edited and tweaked PHP scripts through a PHP editor and sometimes test a script on "writecodeonline.com" . But as far as developing PHP from scratch it seems that Xampp would be the way to go with that. I already have Dropbox which is currently full so I will have to open up another account.