What Precisely is cPanel Hosting?
For your information, it's useful to be aware that most of the cPanel hosting offerings on the current website hosting marketplace are furnished by a very unsubstantial business segment (as far as yearly cash flow is concerned) called reseller hosting. Reseller hosting is a type of a small-size marketing niche, which provides an immense amount of different web hosting trademarks, yet providing precisely the same services: mainly cPanel web hosting services. This is bad news for everybody. Why? Owing to the fact that at least 98% of the website hosting offerings on the whole web hosting market furnish strictly the same service: cPanel. There's no difference at all. Even the cPanel hosting price tags are identical. Very identical. Leaving for those who need a top web hosting service almost no other web hosting platform/hosting CP alternative. Thus, there is just a single fact: out of more than two hundred thousand website hosting trademarks worldwide, the non-cPanel based ones are less than 2 percent! Less than two percent, remark that one...
200k "hosting firms", all cPanel-based, yet differently labeled
Unlimited bandwidth
5 websites hosted
30-Day Free Trial
Unlimited bandwidth
Unlimited websites hosted
30-Day Free Trial
The hosting "variety" and the web hosting "offerings" Google presents to us boil down to just one thing: cPanel. Under 100's of thousands of different website hosting brand names. Suppose you are just a regular chap who's not well aware of (as most of us) with the website development procedures and the website hosting platforms, which in fact power the different domains and sites. Are you ready to make your web hosting choice? Is there any web hosting variant you can pick? Sure there is, nowadays there are more than two hundred thousand web hosting providers out there. Officially. Then where is the problem? Here's where: more than 98% of these 200k+ unique website hosting brands worldwide will give you absolutely the same cPanel web hosting CP and platform, dubbed in a different way, with literally the same price tags! WOW! That's how huge the assortment on today's website hosting marketplace is... Full stop.
The hosting LOTTERY we are all part of
Simple mathematics demonstrates that to select a non-cPanel based web hosting corporation is a mammoth stroke of luck. There is a less than 1 in fifty chance that something like that will happen! Less than 1 in 50...
The strengths and weaknesses of the cPanel hosting solution
Let's not be pitiless with cPanel. At least, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was modish and presumably satisfied most website hosting market demands. To put it briefly, cPanel can do the job for you if you have only one single domain name to host. But, if you have more domains...
Weak Point Number One: A stupid domain folder structure
If you have 2 or more domains, however, be very attentive not to erase completely the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will call each next hosted domain name, which is not the default one: an add-on domain name). The files of the add-on domain names are very easy to remove on the server, because they all are located into the root folder of the default domain name, which is the very well known public_html folder. Each add-on domain is a folder placed inside the folder of the default domain name. Like a sub-folder. Next time attempt not to erase the files of the add-on domains, please. Check for yourself how marvelous cPanel's domain folder configuration is:
public_html (here my-default-domain.com is situated)public_html/my-family (a folder part of my-default-domain.com)
public_html/my-second-domain.com (an add-on domain name)
public_html/my-second-wife (a folder part of my-default-domain.com)
public_html/my-second-wife.net (an add-on domain)
public_html/my-third-domain.com (an add-on domain name)
public_html/my-third-wife (a folder part of my-default-domain.com)
public_html/my-third-wife.net (an add-on domain)
public_html/rebeka (a folder part of my-default-domain.com)
public_html/rebeka.my-third-wife.net (a sub-domain of an add-on domain name)
Are you growing baffled? We doubtlessly are!
Negative Point Number 2: The very same email folder setup
The electronic mail folder configuration on the server is literally the same as that of the domain names... Repeating the very same mistake twice?!? The admin guys strongly increase their faith in God when tackling the electronic mail folders on the email server, praying not to mess things up too irretrievably.
Inconvenience Number 3: An utter absence of domain name management interfaces
Do we have to refer to the sheer absence of a contemporary domain management platform - a location where you can: register/transfer/renew/park or administer domains, change domains' Whois information, protect the Whois info, edit/create name servers (DNS) and Domain Name System records? cPanel does not contain such a "contemporary" tool at all. That's an enormous downside. An unpardonable one, we wish to add...
Downside No.4: Many login places (min 2, max three)
How about the demand for an extra login to access the billing, domain name and technical support management software solution? That's apart from the cPanel user account login credentials you've been already supplied by the cPanel-based hosting firm. Occasionally, based on the billing transaction tool (principally built for cPanel exclusively) the cPanel hosting distributor is utilizing, the enthusiastic customers can wind up with two additional login locations (1: the invoicing/domain name management menu; 2: the trouble ticket support interface), winding up with a total of 3 login locations (including cPanel).
Weak Side No.5: More than one hundred and twenty web hosting CP sections to pick up... swiftly
cPanel presents to your attention more than 120 menus inside the web hosting CP. It's a fine idea to grasp each one of them. And you'd better get familiar with them promptly... That's very impudent on cPanel's side.
With all due appreciation, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel-based hosting providers:
As far as we are aware of, it's not the year 2001, is it? Remark that one too...