cPanel Hosting or BUST!

[MapleDots]

I was helping a client set up a new website, blog, and shopping basket and they had pre-paid hosting with Host Gator for two years.

After working with that monstrosity for a couple of weeks it reiterates to me why I will NEVER have hosting that does not have true cPanel installed. I spent so much time looking for things its not even funny. They do seem to use cPanel but it is heavily modified and all over the place. First you log into their monstrosity of an interface and then from there they feed you a buggered up version of cPanel.

I like cPanel in it's pure state with no skins or mods. It feels like an old friend whenever I login to my control panel at canspace.ca (my hosting provider). When I picked them as a host I had 3 specific things I was looking for...

1. cPanel, cPanel & cPanel (did I mention cPanel?).
2. No skins or mods to the cPanel and all items active.
3. Servers located in my country of origin.

I got all that, and once I factored in my wild cat ssl certificate it's not cheap but dealing with the abomination called hostgator control panel it makes me super glad to be with my purist version.

So how do you feel about cPanel?

 

[xynames]

I insist on it. But hostgator Linux hosting does have cpanel so why do you seem to say it does not. Currently I use a vps at hostgator. Comes with free auto installed ssl too.

 

[MapleDots]

Here is a partial view once you get to the control panel and this window does not even show the crap on the right. It is a heavily modified cPanel and for someone used to the pure version this seems totally weird. Their skin even modifies icons..... ugh!

Compare this pic with the one in my first post.

 

[xynames]

My Hostgator cpanel resembles the first one you posted, it looks like this:

but keep in mind, mine is for a Hostgator VPS not a shared hosting. One thing I thought to do is try to toggle the "Switch Theme" at the lower left to rvskin to see if maybe that other skin resembles the one you posted in post #3 above, but it wouldn't let me, it just kept reverting to paper_lantern.

You might want to fool around with the theme to see if changing the theme will make it look more like the version you like.

In any case, I am not going to stick with Hostgator because I prepaid the maximum time in years for this VPS and now that the promo is running out the price will triple and I am not going to pay that much for a VPS. So actually, I am now looking for a good VPS with cpanel. Know of one?

BTW, this is what the hpanel looks like in my shared (not VPS) Hostinger (not Hostgator) server:

It looks more like the type you don't like, but really it gets the job done the same. It isn't true cpanel it is actually what Hostinger calls "hpanel."

When my prepaid VPS at Hostgator runs out, I am actually considering getting the top VPS Linux plan at Hostinger @ $29.95 per month:
8 vCPU
8 GB
160 GB
12632

8000 GB
SAVE 77%
$ 129.95 /mo
$ 29.95 /mo ***

*** Apparently this includes the cpanel but not the license which it seems that the cpanel / WHM license is an additional $20. per month for VPS.

It hadn't occurred to me to ask if this cpanel for their VPS will be more like the traditional one, or more like their shared cpanel, but three things holding me back are
1. Apparently no free SSL with their VPS - to get free SSL you apparently must install the free certs yourself which is a bit of a pain for multiple sites, and must be re-done every few months.
2. I am not sure how they handle their email - I don't like the way their cpanel email works with Hostinger shared servers, as the email comes from some weird looking [yourusername]@srv_____.main-hosting.eu on behalf of [email protected] when someone submits a message to you from your FormMail. I don't like that, and hope it would not be that way with their VPS. This issue is hard to explain unless you use a lot of FormMail.php Contact Us forms, but I have many set up on many different sites.
3. Hostinger VPS is semi-managed versus at Hostgator fully managed. I am still not clear on what exactly this means.

I am still checking on (1) (free ssl) and (2) (formmail.php handling) at Hostinger VPS, they may not be issues, I am just researching these two now.

What I have discovered is that no host is giving anything away, one has more of a certain feature, less of another. When you check and balance features versus cost they all come in about the same, so in the end customer service and how closely they deliver what they promise are what matter.

I am open to suggestions if anyone has a good VPS.

 

[MapleDots]

Yup the one you posted is pure cPanel.

I'm working with someone else's hostgator account and it is shared hosting.
The panel is a bastardized version of cPanel.

 

[MapleDots]

Here is what my actual one looks like from my host - it is fully enabled

 

[xynames]

cPanel sure knows how to make money they are charging 20. per month just for the license (for a VPS):
https://cpanel.net/pricing/