How Does cPanel Hosting Function?
For your info, it's good to know that most of the cPanel-based web hosting offerings on the present web hosting market are provided by a very unsubstantial business segment (when it comes to yearly money flow) named hosting reseller. Reseller web hosting is a type of a small-size marketing segment, which supplies a big quantity of different web hosting brand names, yet offering strictly the same thing: chiefly cPanel web hosting services. This is bad news for everybody. Why? Owing to the fact that at least 98 percent of the web hosting offerings on the entire website hosting market furnish one and the same solution: cPanel. There's no difference at all. Even the cPanel-based web hosting price tags are identical. Very much alike. Giving those who demand a top web hosting service practically no other web hosting platform/website hosting CP choice. So, there is only a single fact: out of more than 200k website hosting brand names all over the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than 2, note that one...
Two hundred thousand "web hosting service providers", all cPanel-based, yet differently labeled
The web hosting "variety" and the web hosting "offers" Google shows to us boil down to just one and the very same thing: cPanel. Under hundreds of 1000's of different hosting brand names. Suppose you are simply an ordinary guy who's not very well acquainted with (as most of us) with the site development processes and the web hosting platforms, which in fact power the respective domains and web sites. Are you ready to make your hosting pick? Is there any web hosting alternative you can settle on? Sure there is, nowadays there are more than 200k website hosting companies out there. Officially. Then where is the difficulty? Here's where: more than 98% of these 200k+ different web hosting brand names around the world will offer you absolutely the same cPanel Control Panel and platform, dubbed differently, with exactly the same price tags! WOW! That's how enormous the diversity on the current web hosting marketplace is... Full stop.
The web hosting LOTTERY we are all participating in
Simple arithmetic demonstrates that to come across a non-cPanel based web hosting supplier is a great stroke of luck. There is a less than one in 50 chance that a thing like that will happen! Less than one in 50...
The pros and cons of the cPanel web hosting solution
Let's not be harsh with cPanel. After all, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was trendy and probably answered all web hosting market prerequisites. To put it briefly, cPanel can achieve the desired result if you have just one domain name to host. But, if you have more domain names...
Drawback No.1: A moronic domain folder arrangement
If you have 2 or more domain names, though, be very attentive not to delete completely the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will refer to each next hosted domain, which is not the default one: an add-on domain). The files of the add-on domains are very easy to erase on the server, since they all are located into the root folder of the default domain name, which is the quite popular public_html folder. Each add-on domain is a folder located inside the folder of the default domain name. Like a sub-folder. Next time attempt not to remove the files of the add-on domain names, please. See for yourself how good cPanel's domain name folder setup 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)
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 disorientated? We categorically are!
Downside Number 2: The same mail folder structure
The mail folder arrangement on the web server is precisely the same as that of the domain names... Making the same mistake twice?!? The sysadmin chaps firmly fortify their faith in God when handling the electronic mail folders on the mail server, praying not to botch things up too seriously.
Negative Sign Number 3: A complete lack of domain name administration sections
Do we need to mention the total shortage of a contemporary domain administration platform - a location where you can: register/migrate/renew/park or administer domains, modify domain names' Whois info, shield the Whois information, edit/set up nameservers (DNS) and Domain Name System resource records? cPanel does not incorporate such a "contemporary" interface at all. That's a big inconvenience. An unforgettable one, we want to point out...
Weakness Number Four: Many user login places (min two, max three)
How about the necessity for an extra login to utilize the invoicing, domain name and technical support administration interface? That's aside from the cPanel user account login credentials you've been already supplied by the cPanel web hosting firm. Sometimes, on the basis of the invoicing system (particularly tailored for cPanel solely) the cPanel web hosting firm is utilizing, the earnest clients can wind up with two additional login locations (1: the invoice transaction/domain name management interface; 2: the trouble ticket support software), ending up with a total of three login locations (including cPanel).
Negative Sign Number Five: 120+ web hosting CP areas to become acquainted with... quickly
cPanel presents to your attention more than 120 menus inside the web hosting Control Panel. It's an excellent idea to get to know each and every one of them. And you'd better become familiar with them quickly... That's inordinately impudent on cPanel's side.
With all due appreciation, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel-based web hosting distributors:
As far as we are aware of, it's not the year 2001, is it? Mark that one as well...