cPanel Website Hosting Definition
For your info, it's good to know that most of the cPanel-based hosting offers on the present-day web hosting marketplace are generated by a quite insignificant marketing segment (as far as yearly money flow is concerned) called hosting reseller. Reseller website hosting is a kind of a small business segment, which generates a vast quantity of different web hosting brands, yet supplying the very same services: mainly cPanel web hosting services. This is bad news for everybody. Why? Because of the fact that at least 98 percent of the web hosting offerings on the entire hosting marketplace offer the very same thing: cPanel. There's no diversity at all. Even the cPanel hosting prices are alike. Quite similar. Leaving for those who need a top web hosting service virtually no other web hosting platform/hosting CP choice. Thus, there is only one fact: out of more than two hundred thousand website hosting trademarks all over the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than 2 percent! Less than 2%, mark that one...
200k "hosting corporations", all cPanel-based, yet differently dubbed
The hosting "variety" and the web hosting "offers" Google reveals to all of us boil down to merely one and the very same solution: cPanel. Under 100's of 1000's of different website hosting brand names. Suppose you are just a regular bloke who's not well aware of (as most of us) with the website creation procedures and the website hosting platforms, which in fact power the separate domains and sites. Are you prepared to make your hosting selection? Is there any web hosting alternative you can opt for? Of course there is, these days there are more than 200,000 website hosting firms out there. Formally. Then where is the problem? Here's where: more than 98% of these 200k+ different web hosting brand names in the world will give you precisely the same cPanel website hosting Control Panel and platform, dubbed differently, with the very same price tags! WOW! That's how large the variety on the present website hosting market is... Period.
The hosting LOTTO we are all participating in
Simple math demonstrates that to run into a non-cPanel based web hosting distributor is a great stroke of fortune. There is a less than one in 50 chance that a phenomenon like that will happen! Less than one in 50...
The strengths and weaknesses of the cPanel-based hosting solution
Let's not be merciless with cPanel. At least, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was modish and possibly covered all web hosting market prerequisites. To cut a long story short, cPanel can achieve the desired result if you have just one single domain to host. But, if you have more domains...
Problem Number One: A laughable domain name folder structure
If you have 2 or more domain names, however, be very attentive not to remove 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 simple to remove on the hosting server, because they all are created into the root folder of the default domain, which is the very famous public_html folder. Each add-on domain is a folder situated inside the folder of the default domain. Like a sub-folder. Next time attempt not to erase the files of the add-on domain names, please. Observe for yourself how excellent cPanel's domain folder arrangement 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)
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 becoming confused? We clearly are!
Shortcoming Number 2: The very same e-mail folder structure
The electronic mail folder structure on the web server is absolutely the same as that of the domain names... Making the same error twice?!? The sysadmin guys strongly increase their faith in God when dealing with the e-mail folders on the mail server, praying not to bungle things up too gravely.
Negative Sign No.3: A complete lack of domain name management sections
Do we need to refer to the utter deficiency of a modern domain management GUI - a place where you can: register/move/renew/park or manage domain names, modify domain names' Whois info, secure the Whois details, change/create name servers (DNS) and DNS records? cPanel does not include such a "modern" user interface at all. That's a colossal shortcoming. An unforgettable one, we wish to add...
Negative Point No.4: Multiple user login places (minimum 2, maximum 3)
What about the demand for an extra login to use the billing transaction, domain name and tech support administration software? That's beside the cPanel account login credentials you've been already provided by the cPanel-based hosting supplier. Occasionally, based on the invoicing tool (especially invented for cPanel only) the cPanel hosting firm is availing of, the zealous customers can wind up with 2 additional logins (1: the invoicing/domain management section; 2: the trouble ticket support platform), ending up with a total of three login locations (counting cPanel).
Downside Number 5: 120+ web hosting Control Panel sections to become familiar with... quickly
cPanel offers for your consideration 120+ areas inside the web hosting CP. It's a fantastic idea to become familiar with each one of them. And you'd better become acquainted with them fast... That's way too impudent on cPanel's side.
With all due appreciation, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel-based hosting vendors:
As far as we know, it's not the year 2001, is it? Note that one as well...