How does cpanel-based web site hosting operate?
For your information, it's good to be aware that the majority of the cPanel-based webspace hosting offerings on the present web space hosting marketplace are supplied by a very unsubstantial business niche (as far as yearly money flow is concerned) named hosting reseller. Reseller hosting is a kind of a small-size business segment, which supplies a huge amount of different web hosting brands, yet providing literally the same services: mainly cPanel web hosting solutions. This is bad news for everyone. Why? Owing to the fact that at least ninety eight percent of the site hosting offerings on the whole web page hosting marketplace supply precisely the same solution: cPanel. There's no difference at all. Even the cPanel site hosting prices are alike. Very similar. Giving those who demand a top web hosting service virtually no other site hosting platform/webspace hosting CP choice. Thus, there is simply one fact: out of more than 200k web hosting brands around the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than two percent! Less than 2%, note that one...
200,000 "hosting service providers", all cPanel-based, yet distinctly labeled
The site hosting "variety" and the webspace hosting "offers" Google reveals to us boil down to just one solution: cPanel. Under 100's of thousands of different web space hosting trademarked names. Suppose you are merely a regular fellow who's not well aware of (as the majority of us) with the web site making procedures and the web space hosting platforms, which in fact power the respective domains and sites . Are you prepared to make your web hosting selection? Is there any web site hosting alternative you can select? Sure there is, nowadays there are more than 200,000 hosting providers in existence. Officially. Then where is the difficulty? Here's where: more than 98% of these 200,000+ different web site hosting brand names worldwide will give you absolutely the same cPanel Control Panel and platform, named in a different way, with the very same price tags! WOW! That's how enormous the variety on the contemporary hosting marketplace is... Full stop.
The website hosting LOTTO we are all paricipating in
Simple arithmetic shows that to encounter a non-cPanel based web hosting vendor is a gigantic strike of luck. There is a less than one in 50 chance that an event like that will take place! Less than one in 50...
The positive and negative points of the cPanel-based website hosting solution
Let's not be harsh with cPanel. After all, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was fashionable and perhaps covered all web site hosting market requirements. In brief, cPanel can do the trick if you have just a single domain name to host. But, if you have more domain names...
Drawback Number One: An idiotic domain folder arrangement
If you have 2 or more domains, though, be extremely watchful not to delete entirely the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will dub each subsequent hosted domain, which is not the default one: an add-on domain). The files of the add-on domains are quite easy to remove on the server, because they all are situated into the root folder of the default domain name, which is the quite popular public_html folder. Each add-on domain is a folder situated inside the folder of the default domain name. Like a sub-folder. Next time try not to remove the files of the add-on domain names, please. Verify for yourself how amazing cPanel's domain folder system 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 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)
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 positively are!
Predicament Number Two: The very same mail folder configuration
The e-mail folder structure on the hosting server is literally the same as that of the domain names... Repeating the same mistake twice?!? The sysadmin chaps firmly strengthen their faith in God when coping with the electronic mail folders on the mail server, hoping not to mess things up too fatally.
Negative Aspect Number 3: A total shortage of domain manipulation options
Do we need to point out the total shortage of a modern domain manipulation interface - a location where you can: register/relocate/renew/park or administer domains, change domains' Whois details, secure the Whois info, alter/create nameservers (DNS) and Domain Name System resource records? cPanel does not involve such a "modern" user interface at all. That's a vast weakness. An unjustifiable one, we wish to add...
Problem Number Four: Numerous login places (minimum 2, max three)
How about the demand for an additional login to avail of the billing transaction, domain and technical support management software solution? That's aside from the cPanel account login credentials you've been already given by the cPanel-based hosting service provider. Occasionally, on the basis of the invoicing system (especially developed for cPanel solely) the cPanel web hosting provider is availing of, the ardent clients can wind up with two extra logins (1: the invoice transaction/domain administration software solution; 2: the trouble ticket support software solution), ending up with an aggregate of 3 login places (counting cPanel).
Downside Number Five: More than 120 web space hosting Control Panel sections to pick up... swiftly
cPanel offers to your attention 120+ departments inside the hosting CP. It's an excellent idea to get to know each one of them. And you'd better grasp them quickly... That's quite insolent on cPanel's side.
With all due appreciation, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel hosting companies:
As far as we are informed, it's not the year 2001, is it? Mind that one as well...