What Exactly is cPanel Hosting?
For your information, it's useful to be aware that most of the cPanel-based Hosting offerings on the contemporary website hosting marketplace are provided by a quite unsubstantial marketing segment (as far as yearly cash flow is concerned) dubbed reseller hosting. Reseller web hosting is a type of a small-sized business segment, which furnishes a vast quantity of different web hosting trademarks, yet offering absolutely the same services: mainly 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 hosting market provide absolutely the same service: cPanel. There's no diversity at all. Even the cPanel Hosting price tags are identical. Very similar. Leaving for those who need a top web hosting service practically no other website hosting platform/website hosting Control Panel alternative. So, there is simply one single fact: out of more than 200,000 web hosting trademarks all over the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than 2, remark that one...
Two hundred thousand "Hosting service providers", all cPanel-based, yet diversely dubbed
The Hosting "variety" and the web hosting "offerings" Google shows to us boil down to just one thing: cPanel. Under hundreds of thousands of different hosting brand names. Suppose you are merely a normal person who's not very well aware of (as most of us) with the site development processes and the web hosting platforms, which in fact power the different domain names and web sites. Are you prepared to make your hosting choice? Is there any web hosting alternative you can decide upon? Of course there is, now there are more than two hundred thousand website hosting corporations out there. Officially. Then where is the problem? Here's where: more than 98% of these 200,000+ unique hosting brand names all over the world will give you absolutely the same cPanel website hosting Control Panel and platform, labeled differently, with the very same price tags! WOW! That's how big the variety on the present website hosting market is... Period.
The Hosting LOTTERY we are all participating in
Simple math shows that to encounter a non-cPanel based web hosting firm is a huge stroke of fortune. There is a less than 1 in fifty chance that an event like that will happen! Less than 1 in fifty...
The advantages and disadvantages of the cPanel-based Hosting solution
Let's not be fierce with cPanel. At least, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was fashionable and probably satisfied all web hosting business prerequisites. To cut a long story short, cPanel can do the job for you if you have just one domain name to host. But, if you have more domain names...
Shortcoming No.1: A ludicrous domain folder configuration
If you have 2 or more domains, however, be very watchful not to remove completely 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). The files of the add-on domains are very easy to delete on the hosting server, since 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 located inside the folder of the default domain. Like a sub-folder. Next time try not to remove the files of the add-on domain names, please. Observe for yourself how fabulous cPanel's domain folder setup 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)
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 name)
Are you getting disorientated? We absolutely are!
Negative Point No.2: The very same electronic mail folder structure
The electronic mail folder configuration on the hosting server is literally the same as that of the domains... Repeating the same error twice?!? The admin chaps firmly reinforce their belief in God when dealing with the e-mail folders on the electronic mail server, hoping not to botch things up too irretrievably.
Inconvenience No.3: A total shortage of domain name manipulation sections
Do we need to cite the entire shortage of a contemporary domain name management GUI - a place where you can: register/move/renew/park or manage domains, change domain names' Whois information, protect the Whois details, alter/set up name servers (DNS) and DNS resource records? cPanel does not incorporate such a "modern" menu at all. That's a big problem. An unforgettable one, we want to point out...
Weak Side Number Four: Numerous login places (min 2, maximum three)
What about the need for an extra login to use the invoice transaction, domain name and technical support management software solution? That's apart from the cPanel user account login credentials you've been already provided by the cPanel Hosting distributor. At times, on the basis of the invoicing tool (particularly invented for cPanel solely) the cPanel Hosting distributor is availing of, the enthusiastic users can end up with two additional login places (1: the invoice transaction/domain administration software solution; 2: the ticket support software platform), ending up with an aggregate of three login locations (counting cPanel).
Disadvantage Number 5: More than one hundred and twenty web hosting CP departments to learn... swiftly
cPanel offers to your attention 120+ sections inside the website hosting CP. It's a great idea to memorize each one of them. And you'd better grasp them rapidly... That's quite impudent on cPanel's side.
With all due recognition, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel Hosting vendors:
As far as we know, it's not the year 2001, is it? Remark that one too...
| Professional | Expert | Webmaster | Beginner |
| Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage | Unlimited storage |
| Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth | Unlimited bandwidth |
| 5 websites hosted | Unlimited websites hosted | Unlimited websites hosted | 1 website hosted |
| 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial | 30-Day Free Trial |
| $3.96 / month | $8.83 / month | $12.75 / month | $3.02 / month |