How Does cPanel Website Hosting Work?

For your info, it's useful to be aware that the majority of the cPanel-based web hosting offers on the current web hosting marketplace are furnished by a quite insignificant business niche (as far as annual cash flow is concerned) named hosting reseller. Reseller web hosting is a sort of a small-scale marketing niche, which furnishes a great number of different web hosting trademarks, yet offering one and the same thing: mostly cPanel web hosting services. This is bad news for everybody. Why? Due to the fact that at least 98% of the website hosting offerings on the whole web hosting marketplace furnish the very same thing: cPanel. There's no difference at all. Even the cPanel web hosting price tags are alike. Quite identical. Leaving for those who demand a top web hosting service almost no other website hosting platform/hosting CP choice. So, there is merely a single fact: out of more than 200k website hosting brand names in the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than two percent! Less than two percent, mark that one...

200k "web hosting service providers", all cPanel-based, yet uniquely named

The web hosting "diversity" and the web hosting "offers" Google reveals to us come down to just one and the same thing: cPanel. Under 100's of 1000's of different web hosting trademarked names. Imagine you are merely an average guy who's not very familiar with (as most of us) with the website development processes and the web hosting platforms, which in fact power the individual domain names and web sites. Are you ready to make your hosting decision? Is there any hosting option you can decide upon? Sure there is, right now there are more than 200,000 hosting companies in existence. Officially. Then where is the problem? Here's where: more than 98% of these more than two hundred thousand different hosting brands worldwide will offer you literally the same cPanel CP and platform, labeled differently, with the same price tags! WOW! That's how huge the assortment on the current web hosting market is... Full stop.

The web hosting LOTTERY we are all part of

Simple arithmetic reveals that to chance upon a non-cPanel based web hosting vendor is a mammoth stroke of luck. There is a less than 1 in fifty chance that a phenomenon like that will happen! Less than 1 in 50...

The positive and negative sides of the cPanel-based web hosting solution

Let's not be relentless with cPanel. At least, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was fashionable and perhaps fulfilled all web hosting industry requirements. To cut a long story short, cPanel can do the job for you if you have only one single domain name to host. But, if you have more domain names...

Disadvantage Number One: A dumb domain folder system

If you have 2 or more domains, however, be extremely cautious not to erase entirely the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will dub each next hosted domain name, which is not the default one: an add-on domain name). The files of the add-on domains are very easy to erase on the web hosting server, because they all are created into the root folder of the default domain name, which is the quite well known public_html folder. Each add-on domain name is a folder situated inside the folder of the default domain. Like a sub-folder. Next time attempt not to erase the files of the add-on domain names, please. Decide for yourself how great cPanel's domain folder system is:

Are you growing baffled? We categorically are!

Weakness No.2: The very same e-mail folder system

The mail folder arrangement on the server is precisely the same as that of the domains... Repeating the very same error twice?!? The admin boys firmly strengthen their faith in God when dealing with the mail folders on the e-mail server, praying not to screw things up too fatally.

Weak Point Number Three: An entire deficiency of domain name manipulation options

Do we need to refer to the complete absence of a modern domain administration GUI - a place where you can: register/transfer/renew/park or administer domain names, change domains' Whois details, shield the Whois details, alter/set up name servers (DNS) and DNS resource records? cPanel does not supply such a "modern" user interface at all. That's a great downside. An unpardonable one, we would like to add...

Weakness Number Four: Many user login places (minimum two, maximum 3)

How about the demand for an additional login to utilize the invoicing, domain name and technical support administration platform? That's beside the cPanel account login credentials you've been already supplied by the cPanel-based web hosting distributor. At times, depending on the invoice transaction system (especially tailored for cPanel only) the cPanel web hosting vendor is availing of, the zealous users can end up with two additional login places (1: the billing transaction/domain name management interface; 2: the trouble ticket support platform), winding up with a total of three login locations (counting cPanel).

Downside Number 5: 120+ website hosting CP sections to get to know... fast

cPanel presents for your consideration more than one hundred and twenty menus inside the website hosting CP. It's a fabulous idea to become familiar with each one of them. And you'd better become familiar with them briskly... That's way too impudent on cPanel's side.

With all due respect, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel-based web hosting service providers:

As far as we know, it's not the year 2001, is it? Note that one too...