What Exactly is cPanel Hosting?
For your information, it's useful to be aware that the majority of the cPanel Hosting offers on the present-day web hosting marketplace are provided by a very unsubstantial business niche (when it comes to annual cash flow) named reseller hosting. Reseller web hosting is a sort of a small-size business segment, which supplies a big number of different web hosting trademarks, yet offering the very same solutions: mostly cPanel web hosting solutions. This is bad news for everyone. Why? Owing to the fact that at least 98% of the web hosting offerings on the whole website hosting marketplace offer absolutely the same thing: cPanel. There's no diversity at all. Even the cPanel Hosting price tags are similar. Quite identical. Leaving for those who need a top web hosting service virtually no other website hosting platform/Control Panel alternative. Thus, there is merely a single fact: out of more than two hundred thousand web hosting brands around the world, the non-cPanel based ones are less than 2%! Less than 2 percent, mark that one...
Two hundred thousand "Hosting distributors", all cPanel-based, yet uniquely named
The Hosting "diversity" and the web hosting "offers" Google presents to us come down to merely one solution: cPanel. Under hundreds of thousands of different web hosting brand names. Suppose you are simply an average person who's not very familiar with (as the majority of us) with the website making processes and the web hosting platforms, which in fact power the respective domain names and online portals. Are you prepared to make your hosting pick? Is there any web hosting alternative you can pick? Of course there is, today there are more than 200k website hosting companies out there. Formally. Then where is the problem? Here's where: more than 98% of these 200k+ different website hosting brand names worldwide will offer you strictly the same cPanel hosting CP and platform, dubbed in a different way, with exactly the same price tags! WOW! That's how immense the diversity on the current website hosting market is... Period.
The Hosting LOTTERY we are all part of
Simple math shows that to chance upon a non-cPanel based web hosting firm is a big stroke of luck. There is a less than one in fifty chance that a thing like that will take place! Less than 1 in fifty...
The advantages and disadvantages of the cPanel Hosting solution
Let's not be cruel with cPanel. After all, in the years 2001-2004 cPanel was modern and probably satisfied most website hosting market preconditions. In short, cPanel can achieve the desired result if you have just a single domain name to host. But, if you have more domains...
Shortcoming No.1: A dumb domain folder structure
If you have two or more domains, though, be very cautious not to erase entirely the add-on ones (that's how cPanel will dub each next hosted domain, which is not the default one: an add-on domain). The files of the add-on domain names are quite simple to delete on the web hosting server, since they all are created into the root folder of the default domain, which is the quite popular 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. Observe for yourself how good 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)
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)
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 getting confused? We certainly are!
Problem No.2: The very same email folder system
The mail folder structure on the server is precisely the same as that of the domain names... Making the very same mistake twice?!? The sysadmin guys firmly increase their belief in God when handling the mail folders on the mail server, hoping not to bungle things up too harshly.
Predicament Number 3: A thorough shortage of domain name manipulation interfaces
Do we need to refer to the total lack of a contemporary domain manipulation interface - a place where you can: register/relocate/renew/park or manage domain names, alter domain names' Whois details, shield the Whois info, modify/create name servers (DNS) and Domain Name System resource records? cPanel does not supply such a "modern" GUI at all. That's a colossal downside. An unforgivable one, we wish to point out...
Negative Point Number 4: Numerous login locations (minimum two, maximum three)
How about the demand for an additional login to utilize the invoicing transaction, domain name and technical support management software platform? That's apart from the cPanel account login credentials you've been already provided by the cPanel Hosting service provider. Sometimes, on the basis of the billing system (principally intended for cPanel solely) the cPanel Hosting service provider is using, the avid clients can end up with two extra login locations (1: the invoicing/domain administration interface; 2: the ticket support software), winding up with an aggregate of 3 login locations (including cPanel).
Negative Side Number Five: More than 120 web hosting Control Panel departments to get acquainted with... promptly
cPanel presents to your attention 120+ menus inside the web hosting Control Panel. It's a fantastic idea to grasp each one of them. And you'd better become acquainted with them briskly... That's extremely insolent on cPanel's side.
With all due veneration, we have a rhetorical question for all cPanel Hosting firms:
As far as we know, it's not the year 2001, is it? Mind that one too...
| Enhanced | Premium | Ultimate | Standard |
| 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 |
| £3.39 / month | £6.61 / month | £9.17 / month | £2.68 / month |