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cCpanel/WHM: Reseller hosting or fully managed VPS?
| Posted by Robiro, 08-06-2010, 05:32 AM |
| Look, I am only starting out...so most of you would recommend I start with shared hosting.
However, I like the idea of having separate cPanels for each domain so that I could limit access to specific sites only, in a scenario where I employ a contract worker to do some occasional work for me.
So that would require WHM, correct? That's why I was looking into Reseller hosting and VPS's.
I do not intend to resell web space, and I do not intend to flip websites, nor do I intend to host client sites. The whole reason why I like the idea of WHM is as stated above.
Q1: Are Reseller hosting environments in general less prone to performance issues than shared hosting as there tend to be less accounts per server?
Q2: Or is it the other way around, or maybe similar to shared hosting, since chances are that most of the reseller account holders are in fact...reselling space!?? (i.e. 50 reseller accounts on one server could mean 500 sites if they all had 10 client sites...or 1000 if each had 20...that sort of thing).
Q3: What do you think of Reseller hosting 'in the cloud'...?
Some seem to offer that and it sounds all good, especially when it comes to handling traffic spikes...
Q4: How the heck do I know if a host that is offering reseller hosting, is in fact a reseller themselves (white labelled)?
I know how to do some general WHOIS and ping-back searches but with private name servers it is not always easy, often impossible to see...but I would not want to be on some kid's reseller program.
Also: Some Reseller hosting seem dirt cheap compared to others, sometimes cheaper than some shared hosting...??? Is that a typical sign for a Master Reseller's offer...(someone holding a reseller hosting account and then offering sub-reseller hosting accounts, with their DNS and support white labelled) ??
Alternatively, even though a bit over the top when starting out, I was looking into fully managed VPS's. I have read many opinions here on the forum that it does not always mean that in the stictest sense, but I have seen a number of offers that do seem to suggest it can be used even as a novice.
Any opinions/suggestions?
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| Posted by ldcdc, 08-06-2010, 05:55 AM |
| I don't think you can really state that. Resellers will add end user accounts, so it's going to be pretty much like a shared hosting environment from that POV. A problem that can arise is resellers not being very careful what type of customer they allow to use the server (fraud, spammers etc.) leading to more issues than in shared hosting with an experienced provider.
A good bunch of those providers are going to be quite new, and yes, they will be offering the moon for peanuts. That should help you weed most of them out easily.
Then you can always ask here, maybe someone can determine if they're using a host with master reseller accounts.
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| Posted by Killerwow, 08-06-2010, 07:56 AM |
| just one tip, always check reviews first before ordering something.
google: review HOSTCOMPANYNAME
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Last edited by bear; 07-13-2011 at 05:04 PM.
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| Posted by Robiro, 08-06-2010, 08:56 AM |
| Yes, but in my experience that gets you fake review sites in most cases. They are the monetized sites where a lot of effort has been put into ranking high in the SERPs.
I only take into consideration those sites that have genuine user created reviews, but often that requires going past pages 1, 2 and sometimes 3, as they do not necessarily rank on page 1 of Google, with the exception of forums such as this one
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| Posted by JasonD10, 08-06-2010, 09:34 AM |
| 1) Actually Reseller environments are more prone to performance issues over the course of time. The main reason is that resellers are in a business of themselves and will grow over time, and add more websites over time. Non-reseller servers I've seen throughout history keep much more consistent loads from when you stop adding customers.
2) see above.
3) Just about everything in the cloud is going to be better than not, as long as the cloud technology used is a high quality infrastructure just like everything else.
4) Business name search, see if it's even a legal company for one. If they have an EV SSL certificate they are legit. As for being a reseller, check the IPs. Do they own them? Perform a search at ARIN. A reseller will not own the IPs. Also many are cheaper not only for these reasons, but also because they do not have the overselling feature enabled. That is very important for you as it allows you to use the full quota you are purchasing instead of just allocating it.
5) A fully managed VPS is nice.. but you still will be controlling a lot of things yourself. You may need more control, management, end-user suppport, etc.
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| Posted by Anthony-HD, 08-06-2010, 10:17 AM |
| You should be able to control who can access sites via cPanel by creating a separate FTP account and limiting what files they can access, so in that respect you only need a cPanel account.
As for the performance issue, it depends on the host, some will mix shared and reseller accounts on servers, some wont. As long as you pick a host that doesn't have crazy limits then you should be ok performance wise
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| Posted by Robiro, 08-06-2010, 10:34 AM |
| Hey, thanks for that ... I really didn't know...I have read several suggestions that WHM with a separate cPanel for each domain was required if I wanted to create limited access to the one domain for someone.
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| Posted by PremiumHost, 08-06-2010, 10:23 PM |
| Separate cpanel account is much better than just ftp account.
There are other features your contractor will need access like create mysql db, access phpmyadmin.
One day you want to give your customer control panel access or move website to a new server. It's very difficult if you use addon domain with only one cpanel account.
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| Posted by ldcdc, 08-07-2010, 03:39 AM |
| Doing that even for your own domains, can serve a purpose. In any shared hosting environment there are scenarios where the provider has to suspend an account (for server resources abuse, or for sending spam after being hacked etc.). If each domain has its own account, then only one domain will be affected by the suspension.
In my opinion, an entry level VPS ends up being too much of a waste of money, if you don't have special needs that can't be fulfilled in a shared hosting environment. You will be paying for fully managed services, which almost always requires paid license control panel. Coupled with the memory usage overhead caused by running all the services on your VPS, you basically end up wasting a good percentage of the money you're spending.
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| Posted by Robiro, 08-07-2010, 08:08 AM |
| Good point, however would my hosting provider not suspend my whole Reseller hosting account, or do you think they could identify which one of my site domains (under my own Reseller hosting account) and then ask me to rectify this? Because if you mean suspending, then they could not suspend one out of multiple cPanel accounts, rather than the whole lot?
Could you explain what you mean by 'memory usage overhead caused by running all the services on your VPS'?
I don't actually like the idea of Reseller hosting too much for my purpose* for one simple reason: Since it is designed to enable resale of allocated resources (one reseller account could oversell to i.e. 100 or 200 shared hosting clients), to me this means depending on the provider, there is a chance the performance for everyone on that server could be even worse than in some shared hosting environments, UNLESS there are a restricted number of reseller accounts on one server AND the main Host is actually strict with the performance monitoring, i.e. 50% average load...?
(* I don't intend to resell space, or flip a site, or have 'client websites' - I am only concentrating on my OWN sites currently)
On the other hand, it seems to me that running a VPS, even fully managed, still sounds as if this could be a rather complicated venture. I really do not want to be responsible for server management tasks that I know nothing about.
However, if using a WHM in combination with separate cPanels for each site domain is required/desired, then there IS only Reseller or VPS hosting, right?
Is there any alternative, i.e. WHM/cPanel with the added benefit of being able to handle traffic spikes/bursts in a way that seems quite limited in shared hosting?
Hosting "in the cloud" comes to mind again...still only a vague picture on my mind what exactly that is.
Then I came across Mediatemple.com, with their $20pm Grid Server hosting...it sounded great...but I am not sure if a "grid" is similar to a "cloud" (the nice guy from cloudweb.com told me the other day that it's not, but I am still unsure about the difference). Also I have read negative reviews of MT's Grid-Server. And it is shared hosting with NO WHM, after all.
Is there WHM/cPanel hosting in some sort of shared hosting environment that perhaps also runs in such a cloud/grid set up?
That would be the best of everything: WHM for easy individual cPanel handling, Shared so no server maintenance issues to deal with, free licensed panels, and finally the availablility of extra resources when required (traffic spikes) yet not wasted like in VPS/Dedicated server. Plus, the fail over that cloud/grid provides, but not in VPS/Dedicated necessarily...
??? ???
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| Posted by JLHC, 08-07-2010, 08:33 AM |
| They will be able to identify the individual hosting accounts hosted under the reseller account. Some hosting providers may suspend the whole reseller account, but reasonable providers will only suspend accounts which are causing trouble.
Well all of the services in the VPS, eg. cPanel/WHM, DNS, Mail, FTP, MySQL, etc requires memory (aka RAM) to run. For a cPanel VPS to run properly, it is normally recommended to have at least 512MB of RAM, which will not come cheap.
Well if that is the case you should go for a reseller provider who does not allow their client to oversell.
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| Posted by Robiro, 08-07-2010, 11:27 AM |
| Hey, James that is a good tip, too thankyou!
I guess I understand the concept of overselling...it may be good for a web host (reseller host) to maximise the allocated resources, but overall it can't be good if all Reseller hosts on the same server did this to the same extend...true?
Now, when a web host advertises their Reseller Hosting would NOT allow overselling, is this then aimed at people like me who do not want to resell, but in fact just have maximum performance for a smaller number of sites on our RH accounts?
(i.e. web designers creating and hosting their client sites; internet marketers hosting their own sites; etc)?
How do you know if Reseller Hosting does or does not allow to oversell? Where is this defined, is this a setting in WHM that the reseller provider can enable/disable for all their reseller hosting clients?
PS: I checked out your sites in your sig...looks like Aspirationhosting actually allows overselling at an extra fee, while SpeedySparrow (is that on a cloud host environment..?) does not specify...could you elaborate on this for me?
(Do you have some promo rates by any chance, lifetime discount preferred
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| Posted by XeHSean, 08-07-2010, 11:30 AM |
| Out of curiosity, what sort of budget do you have for this venture? This will most likely impact your options
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| Posted by Robiro, 08-07-2010, 11:55 AM |
| In the case of reseller hosting, maybe between $10 and $20 per month...after applying a nice discount. I have seen much lower costs, but I suspect they are Master Resellers (Reseller Hosting clients that sell Reseller hosting and shared hosting themselves) or fly by nighters. Ah, and I would prefer to pay month-by-month, but would consider paying upfront for up to a year after maybe a 3-month trial period. I don't really like hosts that require you to sign up for 24 or 36 months before the monthly charge becomes attractive...
I would of course like as much bandwidth allocated as possible, along with a high performing well-balanced (non-'oversold') server; that would give me the confidence of knowing a sudden increase in traffic to one or the other site would be handled within the limits of the plan I am on.
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| Posted by praveenkv1988, 08-07-2010, 02:04 PM |
| I would recommend fully managed VPS.
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| Posted by JLHC, 08-07-2010, 11:02 PM |
| No problem.
Somewhat true. Overselling can be good at times to maximize allocated resources but massive overselling will definitely cause issues in the long run.
Well reseller hosting with overselling disabled is easier to manage especially on the performance for the server so this does depends on the hosting provider's pricing and target audience.
You can ask the hosting provider and some will state it in their website. It is indeed a setting that a provider can enable or disable for their reseller clients.
Well I am not able to post all these in public since it will be against the WHT Rules. Do PM me directly if you have any questions or concerns.
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| Posted by qtriangle, 08-08-2010, 04:59 AM |
| How much disk and B/w do you get with such a price? just curious.
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| Posted by HostXNow_Chris, 08-08-2010, 10:51 AM |
| I think you should try a Reseller account first. A VPS is only really needed when you require Root Access.
The advantage to using a Cloud account is you can get better uptime as well as dedicated resources.
You should be fine with a good Reseller hosting provider.
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