What Actually is cPanel Web Hosting?
For your information, it's useful to know that the majority of the cPanel-based web hosting offerings on the present web hosting marketplace are furnished by a quite insignificant marketing niche (when it comes to yearly cash flow) known as reseller hosting. Reseller website hosting is a kind of a small marketing niche, which generates a huge number of different web hosting trademarks, yet supplying exactly the same solutions: mainly cPanel web hosting services. This is bad news for everyone. Why? Owing to the fact that at least 98% of the web hosting offers on the entire website hosting market furnish the very same service: cPanel. There's no variety at all. Even the cPanel web hosting price tags are similar. Very identical. Giving those who require a top web hosting service virtually no other web hosting platform/website hosting CP option. So, there is simply one single fact: out of more than 200k web hosting trademarks worldwide, the non-cPanel based ones are less than 2%! Less than 2%, mind that one...
Two hundred thousand "web hosting service providers", all cPanel-based, yet differently dubbed
The web hosting "variety" and the web hosting "offerings" Google shows to all of us boil down to just one and the very same solution: cPanel. Under hundreds of 1000's of different website hosting brand names. Imagine you are just an ordinary bloke who's not very familiar with (as the majority of us) with the web page creation processes and the web hosting platforms, which in fact power the various domains and web sites. Are you prepared to make your web hosting decision? Is there any hosting alternative you can decide upon? Of course there is, nowadays there are more than 200k web hosting distributors in existence. Formally. Then where is the difficulty? Here's where: more than ninety eight percent of these 200,000+ unique website hosting brands all over the world will give you literally the same cPanel web hosting CP and platform, branded in a different way, with literally the same price tags! WOW! That's how large the assortment on the present-day website hosting marketplace is... Full stop.
The web hosting LOTTERY we are all participating in
Simple math reveals that to stumble upon a non-cPanel based web hosting firm is a huge stroke of fortune. There is a less than 1 in 50 chance that something like that will happen! Less than 1 in fifty...
The positive and negative sides of the cPanel web hosting solution
Let's not be fierce with cPanel. After all, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was fashionable and perhaps satisfied all web hosting market demands. In brief, cPanel can do the trick if you have just one single domain to host. But, if you have more domains...
Inconvenience No.1: An idiotic domain folder setup
If you have 2 or more domain names, though, be extremely cautious not to delete completely the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will call each next hosted domain, which is not the default one: an add-on domain name). The files of the add-on domain names are quite simple to delete on the web hosting server, because they all are set up into the root folder of the default domain, which is the quite famous public_html folder. Each add-on domain is a folder located inside the folder of the default domain. Like a sub-folder. Next time try not to delete the files of the add-on domain names, please. Decide for yourself how fantastic cPanel's domain name folder configuration is:
public_html (here my-default-domain.com is placed)public_html/my-family (a folder part of my-default-domain.com)
public_html/my-second-domain.com (an add-on domain)
public_html/my-second-wife (a folder part of my-default-domain.com)
public_html/my-second-wife.net (an add-on domain name)
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)
Are you getting perplexed? We categorically are!
Disadvantage Number Two: The very same e-mail folder arrangement
The e-mail folder configuration on the server is absolutely the same as that of the domains... Repeating the very same mistake twice?!? The sysadmin blokes strongly enhance their faith in God when managing the e-mail folders on the e-mail server, praying not to botch things up too badly.
Weak Side No.3: A thorough absence of domain name administration interfaces
Do we have to refer to the total shortage of a contemporary domain name manipulation platform - a place where you can: register/migrate/renew/park or manage domains, alter domains' Whois information, secure the Whois info, alter/set up nameservers (DNS) and DNS resource records? cPanel does not supply such a "contemporary" user interface at all. That's a major weakness. An unjustifiable one, we would like to point out...
Problem No.4: Many login locations (minimum two, max 3)
What about the necessity for an extra login to access the invoicing transaction, domain name and technical support management menu? That's beside the cPanel user account login credentials you've been already supplied by the cPanel-based web hosting service provider. Sometimes, on the basis of the invoicing platform (particularly built for cPanel only) the cPanel web hosting vendor is making use of, the keen customers can end up with two extra login places (1: the invoicing/domain administration software; 2: the ticket support user interface), ending up with a total of three login places (including cPanel).
Negative Side Number 5: 120+ web hosting Control Panel departments to memorize... rapidly
cPanel presents to your attention more than 120 sections inside the web hosting Control Panel. It's a fantastic idea to become familiar with each one of them. And you'd better become familiar with them quickly... That's extremely impertinent on cPanel's side.
With all due respect, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel-based web hosting providers:
As far as we are informed, it's not the year 2001, is it? Note that one too...