cPanel has dropped a ticking time bomb by increasing the price for their licenses that will see people paying as much as 800% more in monthly license cost. You can see the official announcement here: https://cpanel.net/wp-content/themes/cPbase/assets/downloads/cP_Store_Licensing_Guide.pdf

What this basically means is: Presently a cPanel license for a dedicated server is anything between $31 and $36 depending on where you get it from. And this license allows creation of an unlimited number of cPanel accounts (i.e websites) on one server. Now cPanel has moved to a per-account billing. So they are billing each server per account on the server (whether active or suspended websites).

The base price is now $45 per server (for a base of 100 cPanel accounts) and you then pay $0.20 for every additional account over 100.

For example:
If you had a server with 2,000 cPanel accounts (i.e websites), with the old billing system you would normally pay the $35 monthly cPanel license cost for this server.

Now that has changed:
From September 1, according to cPanel:
Your server of 2000 cPanel accounts will now have a monthly cPanel license cost of $45 + ($0.20 x 1,900) = $425

So what you were paying $35/month for will now be $425/month.
In this case, that's 12 times more. So you will effectively be paying for a month, what you would normally pay for 12 months.

The entire webhosting community has gone bunkers on cPanel right now. You can check out the reactions on these links:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1770316
https://twitter.com/cPanel/status/1145739629687201792
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1770826



So what's the way forward?
While some hosts are resorting to alternative control panels like DirectAdmin, VestaCP etc, others are considering remaining with cPanel and passing the bulk of the cost to their customers (this would mean drastically cutting profits and increasing the cost of their hosting plans). There are still some hosts that may consider liquidation.

While cPanel has said this will take full effect from September 1, they are likely to change their minds amidst the (possibly unexpected) backlash.

So people, if you begin to see hosting prices going up or your host changing control panels, I hope this post will give you a clearer understanding of what's happening.

Are you a host or an enduser? How do you think this move will affect you?

Seems cpanel is now only driven by money.

But it seems they have no big competitors.

If they do, they will care more.

Let's just hope that they listen to their customers.




So, how you been bro?

Serious matter

sapientia:
Seems cpanel is now only driven by money.

But it seems they have no big competitors.

If they do, they will care more.

Let's just hope that they listen to their customers.




So, how you been bro?

I dey my brother. The thing is, an investment firm bought cPanel over, last year. So its not owned by its original developer anymore. The same investment firm bought over other hosting technologies like SolusVM, Plesk and WHMCS. They are out for the webhosting industry now and want to milk it dry.

There are alternatives but cPanel is the most popular because of its wide appeal and demand by endusers. Sometime around 2008 I tried out a few alternatives but they were no where near as good as what cPanel was at the time so I reverted to cPanel. Right now most of those control panels have caught up with cPanel and this recent bomb has just opened up the market for all the other alternatives.

Let's see how things go. At this end, an alternative control panel (DirectAdmin) is strongly being considered.