How does cpanel-based website hosting function?
For your information, it's good to be aware that most of the cPanel web hosting offerings on the current hosting marketplace are furnished by a quite inconsiderable business segment (as far as annual money flow is concerned) dubbed hosting reseller. Reseller web page hosting is a kind of a small business niche, which supplies an enormous number of different web hosting brands, yet supplying absolutely the same thing: mainly cPanel web hosting solutions. This is bad news for everyone. Why? Because of the fact that at least ninety eight percent of the web hosting offerings on the whole hosting marketplace provide one and the same thing: cPanel. There's no variety at all. Even the cPanel web hosting prices are identical. Very identical. Giving those who demand a top web hosting service virtually no other site hosting platform/hosting CP choice. Thus, there is only a single fact: out of more than two hundred thousand webspace hosting brand names around the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than 2 percent! Less than two percent, mind that one...
200,000 "web site hosting service providers", all cPanel-based, yet distinctly labeled
The web site hosting "variety" and the web hosting "offerings" Google shows to us boil down to merely one and the same thing: cPanel. Under hundreds of thousands of different web hosting trademarked names. Suppose you are just an ordinary person who's not very well familiar with (as most of us) with the web page creation procedures and the web page hosting platforms, which actually power the different domains and web pages . Are you prepared to make your web hosting choice? Is there any webspace hosting variant you can settle on? Of course there is, now there are more than two hundred thousand website hosting distributors in existence. Officially. Then where is the difficulty? Here's where: more than 98% of these 200k+ different web site hosting brands in the world will offer you precisely the same cPanel hosting CP and platform, labeled in a different way, with the same price tags! WOW! That's how vast the diversity on the contemporary site hosting market is... Full stop.
The webspace hosting LOTTERY we are all part of
Simple arithmetic shows that to stumble upon a non-cPanel based web hosting service provider is an enormous stroke of luck. There is a less than one in 50 chance that something like that will take place! Less than one in 50...
The strengths and weaknesses of the cPanel web site hosting solution
Let's not be unfair with cPanel. At least, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was trendy and possibly met all site hosting industry demands. In short, cPanel can do the job for you if you have only one single domain name to host. But, if you have more domains...
Negative Aspect Number 1: An imbecilic domain name folder configuration
If you have 2 or more domain names, though, be extra careful not to erase fully the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will call each next hosted domain, which is not the default one: an add-on domain name). The files of the add-on domains are quite easy to erase on the server, since they all are set up into the root folder of the default domain, which is the very famous public_html folder. Each add-on domain name is a folder placed inside the folder of the default domain name. Like a sub-folder. Next time attempt not to delete the files of the add-on domains, please. See for yourself how great 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)
Are you getting confused? We certainly are!
Weak Side No.2: The same email folder configuration
The email folder arrangement on the server is literally the same as that of the domain names... Repeating the very same mistake twice?!? The admin guys firmly reinforce their belief in God when dealing with the e-mail folders on the e-mail server, praying not to muck things up too severely.
Negative Aspect Number Three: A total shortage of domain manipulation options
Do we have to cite the sheer shortage of a modern domain name manipulation menu - a location where you can: register/relocate/renew/park or administer domain names, change domains' Whois details, protect the Whois information, edit/set up nameservers (DNS) and DNS resource records? cPanel does not have such a "contemporary" section at all. That's a vast drawback. An unjustifiable one, we would like to add...
Negative Sign Number 4: Multiple login places (minimum two, max three)
What about the necessity for an additional login to make use of the billing, domain and technical support management user interface? That's beside the cPanel account login credentials you've been already given by the cPanel web hosting firm. Now and then, depending on the billing platform (particularly intended for cPanel exclusively) the cPanel web hosting provider is making use of, the zealous clients can wind up with 2 additional logins (1: the billing transaction/domain administration software platform; 2: the trouble ticket support software), ending up with a total of three login locations (including cPanel).
Weak Side Number 5: More than 120 CP sections to grasp... quickly
cPanel presents for your consideration more than a hundred and twenty departments inside the website hosting CP. It's a fabulous idea to memorize each and every one of them. And you'd better learn them briskly... That's inordinately insolent on cPanel's side.
With all due respect, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel webspace hosting vendors:
As far as we are informed, it's not the year 2001, is it? Remark that one as well...