How does cpanel web hosting function?
For your info, it's useful to be aware that the majority of the cPanel-based webspace hosting offerings on the contemporary web space hosting marketplace are generated by a very inconsiderable business segment (as far as yearly money flow is concerned) named hosting reseller. Reseller site hosting is a kind of a small-size marketing niche, which supplies a big quantity of different web hosting brand names, yet furnishing one and the same thing: chiefly cPanel web hosting services. This is bad news for everybody. Why? Because at least 98 percent of the web page hosting offers on the entire webspace hosting market furnish literally the same solution: cPanel. There's no variety at all. Even the cPanel web page hosting price tags are alike. Quite identical. Leaving for those who require a top web hosting service almost no other web page hosting platform/webspace hosting CP option. Thus, there is simply one single fact: out of more than two hundred thousand webspace hosting trademarks in the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than 2, mark that one...
200k "site hosting distributors", all cPanel-based, yet distinctly dubbed
The website hosting "diversity" and the web page hosting "offers" Google reveals to us come down to merely one solution: cPanel. Under 100's of thousands of different web hosting brand names. Suppose you are simply a normal guy who's not well aware of (as most of us) with the web site development procedures and the webspace hosting platforms, which actually power the different domains and web sites . Are you ready to make your web hosting pick? Is there any web space hosting alternative you can settle on? Of course there is, at the moment there are more than 200,000 webspace hosting providers in existence. Formally. Then where is the difficulty? Here's where: more than 98% of these more than two hundred thousand unique web hosting brand names all over the world will offer you absolutely the same cPanel hosting CP and platform, dubbed differently, with literally the same price tags! WOW! That's how great the assortment on the present web site hosting market is... Full stop.
The website hosting LOTTERY we are all part of
Simple mathematics reveals that to come across a non-cPanel based web hosting service provider is a big stroke of fortune. There is a less than one in fifty chance that a thing like that will happen! Less than one in 50...
The strengths and weaknesses of the cPanel-based site hosting solution
Let's not be merciless with cPanel. After all, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was modish and possibly fulfilled most web hosting market preconditions. In brief, cPanel can do the trick if you have only one single domain name to host. But, if you have more domain names...
Downside No.1: A laughable domain name folder structure
If you have 2 or more domains, however, be extremely careful not to erase completely the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will dub each next hosted domain, which is not the default one: an add-on domain name). The files of the add-on domains are very simple to delete on the server, since they all are placed into the root folder of the default domain, which is the quite well known public_html folder. Each add-on domain is a folder located inside the folder of the default domain. Like a sub-folder. Next time attempt not to remove the files of the add-on domains, please. See for yourself how great cPanel's domain name 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 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 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 name)
Are you becoming confused? We clearly are!
Inconvenience Number 2: The same mail folder setup
The electronic mail folder configuration on the server is absolutely the same as that of the domain names... Making the very same mistake twice?!? The sysadmin chaps strongly strengthen their belief in God when tackling the e-mail folders on the mail server, hoping not to fuck things up too fatally.
Disadvantage Number 3: A sheer lack of domain name manipulation user interfaces
Do we have to mention the thorough lack of a contemporary domain management user interface - a place where you can: register/transfer/renew/park or manage domains, edit domain names' Whois details, protect the Whois details, alter/create nameservers (DNS) and DNS records? cPanel does not incorporate such a "contemporary" interface at all. That's a considerable drawback. An unforgettable one, we want to add...
Negative Point Number 4: Many user login locations (minimum 2, max 3)
How about the demand for an additional login to access the invoicing, domain name and technical support management software? That's beside the cPanel login credentials you've been already provided by the cPanel web hosting company. At times, depending on the billing transaction tool (particularly made for cPanel only) the cPanel web hosting distributor is utilizing, the ardent users can end up with two additional login locations (1: the billing/domain administration platform; 2: the ticket support software solution), ending up with a total of 3 user login places (counting cPanel).
Negative Point Number 5: More than 120 CP departments to get to know... rapidly
cPanel offers for your consideration more than one hundred and twenty sections inside the web page hosting Control Panel. It's a great idea to memorize each one of them. And you'd better become familiar with them rapidly... That's inordinately insolent on cPanel's side.
With all due appreciation, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel-based web page hosting suppliers:
As far as we know, it's not the year 2001, is it? Remark that one too...