How does cpanel-based hosting work?
For your information, it's good to be aware that the majority of the cPanel web site hosting offerings on the current site hosting market are furnished by a very insignificant marketing niche (as far as annual cash flow is concerned) named reseller hosting. Reseller hosting is a kind of a small business niche, which supplies an immense amount of different web hosting brands, yet supplying the very same thing: mostly cPanel web hosting services. This is bad news for everyone. Why? Owing to the fact that at least 98% of the web space hosting offers on the whole web page hosting market furnish absolutely the same solution: cPanel. There's no difference at all. Even the cPanel-based web page hosting prices are alike. Very similar. Leaving for those who need a top web hosting service virtually no other site hosting platform/web space hosting Control Panel option. So, there is only one single fact: out of more than two hundred thousand web site hosting brands around the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than 2 percent! Less than 2 percent, remark that one...
Two hundred thousand "hosting firms", all cPanel-based, yet diversely branded
The hosting "variety" and the web page hosting "offerings" Google shows to us boil down to just one and the very same thing: cPanel. Under hundreds of 1000's of different webspace hosting brand names. Assume you are just a regular bloke who's not very well familiar with (as most of us) with the website making procedures and the website hosting platforms, which in fact power the various domain names and sites . Are you prepared to make your web hosting choice? Is there any web space hosting variant you can opt for? Of course there is, now there are more than 200k site hosting companies in existence. Officially. Then where is the difficulty? Here's where: more than 98 percent of these 200,000+ different web page hosting brand names around the world will offer you absolutely the same cPanel web hosting Control Panel and platform, named differently, with exactly the same price tags! WOW! That's how huge the variety on today's webspace hosting market is... Period.
The webspace hosting LOTTERY we are all paricipating in
Simple math demonstrates that to choose a non-cPanel based web hosting distributor is an immense stroke of luck. There is a less than one in 50 chance that a phenomenon like that will take place! Less than 1 in 50...
The strong and weak points of the cPanel-based web space hosting solution
Let's not be severe with cPanel. At least, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was fashionable and possibly fulfilled all webspace hosting market requirements. To put it briefly, cPanel can do the trick if you have just one domain to host. But, if you have more domain names...
Weakness Number 1: A laughable domain name folder configuration
If you have 2 or more domains, however, be very watchful not to erase entirely the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will refer to each next hosted domain name, which is not the default one: an add-on domain). The files of the add-on domains are very easy to delete on the web hosting server, since they all are placed into the root folder of the default domain name, which is the very popular public_html folder. Each add-on domain name is a folder located 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. Discover for yourself how marvelous cPanel's domain folder configuration is:
public_html (here my-default-domain.com is located)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 name)
public_html/my-third-domain.com (an add-on domain)
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 undoubtedly are!
Negative Aspect Number 2: The same email folder system
The e-mail folder arrangement on the hosting server is strictly the same as that of the domains... Making the very same error twice?!? The sysadmin chaps firmly increase their belief in God when managing the e-mail folders on the mail server, hoping not to bungle things up too gravely.
Weak Side Number Three: An absolute deficiency of domain name administration user interfaces
Do we have to mention the absolute absence of a contemporary domain administration interface - a place where you can: register/transfer/renew/park or manage domain names, alter domain names' Whois information, shield the Whois information, change/create name servers (DNS) and Domain Name System records? cPanel does not involve such a "modern" GUI at all. That's a great inconvenience. An unforgivable one, we want to point out...
Inconvenience No.4: Numerous login locations (min 2, maximum three)
How about the demand for another login to use the invoicing, domain name and tech support management platform? That's aside from the cPanel login credentials you've been already given by the cPanel hosting vendor. Now and then, on the basis of the invoice transaction tool (especially tailored for cPanel only) the cPanel web hosting supplier is making use of, the eager clients can end up with 2 additional login places (1: the billing/domain name administration GUI; 2: the trouble ticket support tool), winding up with a total of three login places (including cPanel).
Downside No.5: 120+ hosting CP sections to become familiar with... quickly
cPanel presents to your attention 120+ areas inside the web hosting Control Panel. It's a wonderful idea to get familiar with each of them. And you'd better become familiar with them quickly... That's extremely arrogant on cPanel's side.
With all due recognition, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel web page hosting vendors:
As far as we are aware of, it's not the year 2001, is it? Mark that one too...