How does cpanel-based web site hosting operate?
For your info, it's good to know that the majority of the cPanel-based hosting offerings on the present webspace hosting marketplace are generated by a quite inconsiderable business niche (as far as annual cash flow is concerned) named reseller hosting. Reseller web space hosting is a kind of a small marketing niche, which provides a great quantity of different web hosting trademarks, yet providing exactly the same thing: mostly cPanel web hosting solutions. This is bad news for everybody. Why? Owing to the fact that at least 98% of the web space hosting offers on the whole website hosting marketplace provide exactly the same solution: cPanel. There's no diversity at all. Even the cPanel web space hosting price tags are similar. Quite similar. Leaving for those who require a top web hosting service practically no other web site hosting platform/hosting CP option. So, there is only a single fact: out of more than 200k hosting trademarks in the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than two percent! Less than 2%, mind that one...
Two hundred thousand "hosting distributors", all cPanel-based, yet differently branded
The web site hosting "diversity" and the web space hosting "offerings" Google shows to all of us come down to just one and the very same thing: cPanel. Under hundreds of thousands of different webspace hosting trademarked names. Imagine you are merely an average chap who's not well aware of (as most of us) with the web site making procedures and the hosting platforms, which actually power the respective domain names and web sites . Are you prepared to make your web hosting pick? Is there any hosting option you can decide upon? Of course there is, as of now there are more than 200,000 web site hosting vendors in existence. Officially. Then where is the problem? Here's where: more than 98% of these 200,000+ different web page hosting brands all over the world will give you literally the same cPanel site hosting Control Panel and platform, dubbed differently, with the very same price tags! WOW! That's how enormous the diversity on the current web page hosting market is... Period.
The hosting LOTTO we are all paricipating in
Simple math reveals that to come across a non-cPanel based web hosting provider is an enormous strike of luck. There is a less than 1 in fifty chance that an event like that will take place! Less than 1 in fifty...
The advantages and disadvantages of the cPanel hosting solution
Let's not be relentless with cPanel. At least, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was modern and probably satisfied most web site hosting business requirements. In brief, cPanel can achieve the desired result if you have just one domain name to host. But, if you have more domains...
Drawback Number One: An imbecilic domain folder system
If you have 2 or more domains, though, be extra careful not to delete entirely the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will call each subsequent hosted domain, which is not the default one: an add-on domain name). The files of the add-on domain names are quite easy to remove on the web hosting server, because they all are placed into the root folder of the default domain name, which is the quite well known public_html folder. Each add-on domain is a folder situated inside the folder of the default domain. Like a sub-folder. Next time try not to erase the files of the add-on domain names, please. Check for yourself how terrific cPanel's domain folder structure is:
public_html (here my-default-domain.com is situated)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 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 getting confused? We undeniably are!
Weak Point Number 2: The very same electronic mail folder structure
The e-mail folder arrangement on the web hosting server is absolutely the same as that of the domains... Making the same mistake twice?!? The sysadmin chums firmly fortify their faith in God when handling the electronic mail folders on the e-mail server, praying not to botch things up too severely.
Problem Number Three: A sheer deficiency of domain administration GUIs
Do we have to bring up the entire absence of a modern domain manipulation interface - a place where you can: register/transfer/renew/park or administer domains, alter domains' Whois information, shield the Whois info, edit/create name servers (DNS) and DNS resource records? cPanel does not involve such a "contemporary" tool at all. That's a mammoth predicament. An unforgettable one, we would like to add...
Drawback No.4: Multiple login places (min two, max three)
What about the need for an additional login to avail of the billing, domain name and tech support management platform? That's aside from the cPanel login credentials you've been already supplied by the cPanel-based website hosting service provider. At times, on the basis of the billing transaction system (principally created for cPanel solely) the cPanel web hosting vendor is availing of, the ardent users can wind up with 2 additional login locations (1: the billing transaction/domain administration system; 2: the ticket support interface), winding up with an aggregate of 3 login places (counting cPanel).
Disadvantage No.5: More than a hundred and twenty web hosting CP areas to get acquainted with... rapidly
cPanel offers for your consideration 120+ sections inside the web site hosting Control Panel. It's a great idea to memorize each of them. And you'd better learn them briskly... That's quite insolent on cPanel's side.
With all due recognition, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel-based web hosting distributors:
As far as we know, it's not the year 2001, is it? Mind that one as well...