How does cpanel-based hosting function?
For your info, it's useful to know that the majority of the cPanel web space hosting offers on today's site hosting market are supplied by a very inconsiderable marketing segment (when it comes to yearly money flow) named reseller hosting. Reseller web space hosting is a sort of a small-size business segment, which supplies a great amount of different web hosting trademarks, yet offering strictly the same thing: mainly cPanel web hosting services. This is bad news for everybody. Why? Because at least 98% of the web site hosting offerings on the entire web space hosting marketplace supply precisely the same thing: cPanel. There's no diversity at all. Even the cPanel-based website hosting price tags are similar. Quite similar. Giving those in need of a top web hosting service almost no other web space hosting platform/Control Panel alternative. So, there is simply one single fact: out of more than 200k web page hosting brands all over the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than 2%! Less than two percent, note that one...
200,000 "webspace hosting companies", all cPanel-based, yet uniquely named
The web space hosting "diversity" and the site hosting "offerings" Google shows to us come down to merely one and the same thing: cPanel. Under hundreds of 1000's of different hosting trademarked names. Assume you are merely a normal chap who's not very well familiar with (as most of us) with the web site making procedures and the web site hosting platforms, which actually power the individual domains and web sites . Are you ready to make your hosting pick? Is there any web page hosting alternative you can opt for? Of course there is, today there are more than two hundred thousand web site hosting service providers in existence. Formally. Then where is the difficulty? Here's where: more than 98% of these more than two hundred thousand unique hosting brand names all over the world will offer you the same cPanel site hosting Control Panel and platform, named differently, with precisely the same price tags! WOW! That's how immense the assortment on today's hosting market is... Full stop.
The hosting LOTTO we are all part of
Simple arithmetic reveals that to come across a non-cPanel based web hosting distributor is a huge stroke of fortune. There is a less than one in 50 chance that an event like that will occur! Less than 1 in fifty...
The strong and weak points of the cPanel webspace hosting solution
Let's not be cruel with cPanel. At least, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was fashionable and probably answered all web site hosting market demands. To cut a long story short, cPanel can do the trick if you have just a single domain name to host. But, if you have more domains...
Problem No.1: A foolish domain folder structure
If you have two or more domain names, though, be very cautious not to erase fully the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will dub each subsequent hosted domain name, which is not the default one: an add-on domain). The files of the add-on domain names are very simple to erase on the web hosting server, because they all are set up into the root folder of the default domain name, which is the quite famous 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 domain names, please. Determine for yourself how marvelous cPanel's domain folder system 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 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 name)
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!
Predicament No.2: The same e-mail folder structure
The mail folder structure on the web hosting server is exactly the same as that of the domain names... Making the same mistake twice?!? The sysadmin chaps strongly strengthen their belief in God when managing the email folders on the e-mail server, hoping not to fuck things up too fatally.
Negative Sign No.3: A thorough absence of domain administration GUIs
Do we have to mention the sheer lack of a modern domain name management user interface - a place where you can: register/transfer/renew/park or administer domain names, alter domain names' Whois info, secure the Whois information, change/set up nameservers (DNS) and DNS records? cPanel does not offer such a "contemporary" user interface at all. That's a great shortcoming. An inexcusable one, we wish to point out...
Negative Sign No.4: Numerous login locations (min 2, max 3)
What about the need for another login to access the billing transaction, domain and technical support management user interface? That's aside from the cPanel user account login credentials you've been already provided by the cPanel-based hosting supplier. Occasionally, depending on the billing transaction platform (especially meant for cPanel solely) the cPanel web hosting provider is utilizing, the devoted users can end up with two additional login locations (1: the billing/domain administration software solution; 2: the trouble ticket support section), winding up with a total of 3 login places (counting cPanel).
Shortcoming Number 5: 120+ web site hosting CP menus to grasp... briskly
cPanel offers for your consideration 120+ areas inside the web space hosting Control Panel. It's an excellent idea to become familiar with each one of them. And you'd better get acquainted with them quickly... That's way too impudent on cPanel's side.
With all due respect, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel webspace hosting firms:
As far as we are aware of, it's not the year 2001, is it? Mark that one as well...