How does cpanel web hosting function?
For your information, it's useful to know that most of the cPanel web space hosting offerings on today's web hosting market are furnished by a very inconsiderable business segment (when it comes to annual capital flow) named hosting reseller. Reseller website hosting is a kind of a small-sized business niche, which provides a great amount of different web hosting brands, yet offering one and the same services: mainly cPanel web hosting services. This is bad news for everyone. Why? Due to the fact that at least 98% of the webspace hosting offers on the whole hosting market furnish one and the very same solution: cPanel. There's no diversity at all. Even the cPanel-based hosting prices are identical. Very similar. Leaving for those who demand a top web hosting service almost no other web page hosting platform/hosting Control Panel alternative. Thus, there is only one single fact: out of more than two hundred thousand hosting brand names around the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than 2, remark that one...
200,000 "website hosting firms", all cPanel-based, yet differently branded
The web site hosting "variety" and the web site hosting "offers" Google presents to us come down to just one and the very same solution: cPanel. Under 100's of 1000's of different web site hosting brand names. Imagine you are simply a regular guy who's not very well aware of (as most of us) with the web site making procedures and the hosting platforms, which actually power the various domain names and web sites . Are you prepared to make your hosting decision? Is there any site hosting variant you can decide upon? Sure there is, as of now there are more than 200,000 webspace hosting service providers in existence. Officially. Then where is the difficulty? Here's where: more than 98 percent of these more than two hundred thousand different web page hosting brand names across the world will give you precisely the same cPanel web site hosting Control Panel and platform, labeled in a different way, with absolutely the same price tags! WOW! That's how large the variety on the contemporary hosting marketplace is... Period.
The web page hosting LOTTERY we are all part of
Simple arithmetic shows that to come across a non-cPanel based web hosting supplier is an immense strike of luck. There is a less than one in fifty chance that something like that will happen! Less than 1 in 50...
The strengths and weaknesses of the cPanel website hosting solution
Let's not be unfair with cPanel. At least, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was modish and probably fulfilled all webspace hosting business preconditions. In brief, cPanel can do the trick if you have only one domain name to host. But, if you have more domains...
Negative Point No.1: A dumb domain folder structure
If you have two or more domain names, though, be extremely watchful not to delete entirely the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will call each subsequent hosted domain name, which is not the default one: an add-on domain). The files of the add-on domain names 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 popular public_html folder. Each add-on domain is a folder located inside the folder of the default domain name. Like a sub-folder. Next time attempt not to erase the files of the add-on domain names, please. Examine for yourself how excellent 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 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 becoming puzzled? We surely are!
Negative Aspect No.2: The same e-mail folder configuration
The e-mail folder structure on the hosting server is literally the same as that of the domain names... Making the very same error twice?!? The sysadmin guys strongly reinforce their faith in God when coping with the mail folders on the email server, praying not to muck things up too seriously.
Weak Side Number Three: A complete lack of domain manipulation menus
Do we need to cite the entire shortage of a modern domain management platform - a place where you can: register/transfer/renew/park or administer domain names, modify domains' Whois information, protect the Whois information, edit/set up name servers (DNS) and Domain Name System records? cPanel does not furnish such a "contemporary" menu at all. That's a big predicament. An unforgettable one, we would like to add...
Disadvantage Number 4: Many login places (minimum 2, max 3)
How about the need for another login to utilize the billing transaction, domain and tech support administration section? That's aside from the cPanel user account login credentials you've been already given by the cPanel-based hosting firm. Sometimes, depending on the invoicing platform (principally designed for cPanel solely) the cPanel web hosting supplier is availing of, the devoted clients can end up with 2 extra login locations (1: the billing/domain administration GUI; 2: the trouble ticket support menu), winding up with a total of three login locations (including cPanel).
Weak Point Number Five: More than one hundred and twenty web hosting CP areas to become acquainted with... fast
cPanel offers for your consideration more than one hundred and twenty departments inside the website hosting Control Panel. It's a superb idea to get acquainted with each and every one of them. And you'd better get acquainted with them quickly... That's extremely impertinent on cPanel's side.
With all due veneration, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel-based web page hosting vendors:
As far as we are aware of, it's not the year 2001, is it? Mark that one as well...