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.