Why cPanel sucks

Are you facing issues using cPanel? Do you want to get a better control panel for your website? If yes, we heard you!

Here we discuss in-depth reasons why cPanel sucks and we provide you with the best cPanel alternative. We’ll also answer some of your frequently raised queries by the end of the article.

But first, let’s find out the faults in cPanel in our next section.

Why cPanel sucks?

No control panel is perfect and the same applies to cPanel too. It is, undoubtedly, the most popular control panel with pros and cons. So you must be aware of all its flaws before purchasing a license and determine for yourself whether or not it is the right choice.

Price Increase

The biggest problem with cPanel is its constant price rise. It has the highest license cost in contrast to its competitors. The cPanel developers have been increasing prices regularly in the last few years.

Thus, it is no longer a cheap solution as it used to be earlier.

The constant price rise indicates that this hike will continue in the future too. Therefore, it is not good to purchase a cPanel license for managing a single website or two.

Rather, choose a cPanel hosting plan where the host will lend you its license at a much cheaper rate.

Excessive Features

cPanel offers many necessary features along with a lot of unnecessary ones. These extra features aren’t used in day-to-day server operations but consume more space than needed.

The availability of excessive cPanel features results in digging through more unnecessary documentation. It takes up a lot of your time and feels like digging through a search engine rather than a documentation knowledge base.

Outdated user interface

The user interface of cPanel looks quite outdated even after the theme update. Instead of making a user-friendly layout, the developers designed it specifically for an admin.

Newer cPanels offer minimalism and avoid giving much space to rarely-used hosting tasks.

Risk of Data corruption

There’s always a risk of data corruption during low-quality cPanel releases. Your active settings might also be overwritten with new ones during major updates.

It becomes difficult to restore your settings in such a case because of the over-complicated file structure.

Email issues

Using cPanel for email hosting can never deliver similar results to using a third-party email host like G-Suite. You will notice a lot of deliverability issues making cPanel an unreliable email management solution.

Many users often report this problem in cPanel forums:

Some Basic Functions Are Counterintuitive

Some common functionalities in cPanel are counterintuitive. For instance, you cannot determine how to use the built-in SSL installer only by looking at it. Instead, it requires special effort to learn how to use it which is not the case with third-party addons.

This makes customers wonder why cPanels developers are not making it easy and intuitive.

User Invitation Feature Missing

When a control panel is built on a cloud-based management system, it becomes easier to invite new users. However, cPanel is not a cloud-based panel which limits your capability to quickly add users.

You’ll either have to provide access to your account or create a new one for additional users. It is an extremely cumbersome process and might lead to security issues if you forget to keep track of people accessing your account.

Lack of isolation within one account

cPanel doesn’t create isolated environments for different sites within the same account. So if one of your websites gets infected, others might also get hacked.

But this risk can be mitigated by using strong and different passwords plus keeping everything updated. Thus, cPanel again adds to your work since you need to follow best security practices to protect your sites.

cPanel Installation Complexity for Non-experts

The cPanel installation process is not easy for beginners. You’ll have to deal with the command line and might also need to edit configuration files or open firewalls.

On the contrary, other control panels usually have only a single command to work with all major cloud providers, including Linode, Vultr, and AWS.

cPanel’s Reputation Concerns with Clients

cPanel has been around for more than 25 years. It has seen many ups and downs since its initial release. Unfortunately, some people believe it is outdated, buggy, slow, and insecure, thereby raising reputation concerns.

Best Alternative to cPanel

Since cPanel has a lot of problems, many hosting providers have stopped using it. For instance, DreamHost, Hostinger, and SiteGround have developed their custom control panels to prevent any technical issues arising with the use of cPanel.

We have also brought a cPanel alternative for you. In our opinion, DirectAdmin is the best solution when you do not plan to run a lot of websites or host emails yourself.

It is more affordable, occupies less space, and has a modern user interface when compared to cPanel.

Conclusion

cPanel is the first choice of most people not for its features but because it is the only brand they’ve heard of. However, both end-users and hosts have now started moving away from it due to all the problems discussed above.

We also recommend using DirectAdmin as it is devoid of most of the issues you might face while using cPanel. It is capable of performing everything a beginner or an average webmaster would need.

However, it has a bit of a learning curve when shifting from cPanel.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Is cPanel any good?

Yes, cPanel is a good choice because of the features it offers. It allows running dozens of websites, hosting your emails, and even running a web hosting business.

But comparatively, it lacks plenty of things that answers you on why cPanel sucks?.

How many people use cPanel?

As per BuiltWith, over 1 million people use cPanel. It is the most widely used web control panel.

Can cPanel be hacked?

Yes, cPanel can be hacked and if one of your sites gets hacked, others will also be at risk.

Is cPanel still popular?

No, cPanel’s popularity is declining because of its rising costs and other problems it carries.

Is cPanel webmail good?

No, cPanel webmail isn’t good as it has many deliverability issues.