How does cpanel website hosting work?
For your information, it's good to be aware that the majority of the cPanel web page hosting offers on today's web space hosting marketplace are furnished by a quite unsubstantial business segment (as far as annual capital flow is concerned) dubbed reseller hosting. Reseller website hosting is a type of a small-scale business niche, which supplies a big amount of different web hosting trademarks, yet offering precisely the same thing: mostly cPanel web hosting solutions. This is bad news for everyone. Why? Owing to the fact that at least ninety eight percent of the web hosting offers on the whole web space hosting marketplace furnish the same thing: cPanel. There's no variety at all. Even the cPanel-based web site hosting price tags are similar. Quite similar. Giving those in need of a top web hosting service practically no other website hosting platform/web site hosting CP alternative. So, there is just one fact: out of more than 200k hosting brand names in the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than two percent! Less than two percent, note that one...
200,000 "website hosting firms", all cPanel-based, yet diversely labeled
The web page hosting "diversity" and the web page hosting "offerings" Google shows to us come down to merely one and the same solution: cPanel. Under hundreds of thousands of different web hosting brand names. Assume you are merely an ordinary guy who's not very familiar with (as most of us) with the web site making processes and the website hosting platforms, which in fact power the different domain names and web pages . Are you prepared to make your web hosting decision? Is there any web hosting variant you can settle on? Sure there is, now there are more than two hundred thousand web page hosting vendors in existence. Formally. Then where is the problem? Here's where: more than 98% of these 200k+ unique web space hosting brands around the world will give you the same cPanel webspace hosting CP and platform, branded in a different way, with the same price tags! WOW! That's how large the diversity on today's web space hosting marketplace is... Full stop.
The website hosting LOTTO we are all part of
Simple mathematics shows that to run into a non-cPanel based web hosting service provider is a colossal stroke of luck. There is a less than 1 in 50 chance that an event like that will happen! Less than 1 in 50...
The pros and cons of the cPanel-based site hosting solution
Let's not be unfair with cPanel. At least, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was modern and probably answered all web hosting market demands. To put it briefly, cPanel can do the trick if you have just a single domain to host. But, if you have more domains...
Weak Side Number 1: A stupid domain name folder structure
If you have 2 or more domains, though, be very cautious not to erase entirely the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will refer to each next hosted domain, which is not the default one: an add-on domain name). The files of the add-on domains are very easy to remove on the server, because they all are set up into the root folder of the default domain name, which is the very famous public_html folder. Each add-on domain name is a folder placed inside the folder of the default domain. Like a sub-folder. Next time try not to delete the files of the add-on domains, please. Examine for yourself how good cPanel's domain folder structure 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)
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 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 becoming confused? We definitely are!
Negative Side No.2: The very same email folder setup
The mail folder arrangement on the hosting server is absolutely the same as that of the domain names... Making the very same mistake twice?!? The admin boys firmly strengthen their faith in God when tackling the mail folders on the e-mail server, hoping not to fuck things up too severely.
Weakness Number 3: An absolute shortage of domain management menus
Do we have to point out the sheer shortage of a modern domain administration tool - a place where you can: register/relocate/renew/park or manage domain names, change domain names' Whois details, secure the Whois info, alter/create nameservers (DNS) and DNS records? cPanel does not incorporate such a "modern" tool at all. That's a colossal drawback. An unforgettable one, we wish to add...
Negative Aspect No.4: Multiple user login locations (minimum two, max 3)
How about the demand for an extra login to utilize the invoicing, domain name and technical support administration interface? That's aside from the cPanel user account login credentials you've been already provided by the cPanel-based website hosting firm. Now and then, depending on the billing transaction tool (particularly invented for cPanel exclusively) the cPanel web hosting firm is availing of, the enthusiastic users can end up with two additional login locations (1: the invoicing/domain name administration platform; 2: the trouble ticket support system), ending up with an aggregate of 3 user login locations (including cPanel).
Negative Point Number Five: More than a hundred and twenty webspace hosting Control Panel sections to become acquainted with... quickly
cPanel presents for your consideration 120+ departments inside the web page hosting CP. It's an excellent idea to get acquainted with each one of them. And you'd better become familiar with them fast... That's very impudent on cPanel's side.
With all due recognition, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel-based hosting suppliers:
As far as we are aware of, it's not the year 2001, is it? Mark that one too...