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Web hosting service providers list features but many are not their own solutions.
Web hosts capable of engineering their own platform gain control of their destiny but the level of technical expertise needed to develop such a platform is out of reach for most, which is why off the shelf solutions such as cPanel are so common.
A provider’s technical competence is a direct correlation to how much of their platform is their own. This extends further than developing an in house solution from scratch, it can even include the inability for basic research to understand and configure already existing open source solutions - many of which are better than commercial options.
Commercial platforms such as cPanel are increasingly expensive to licence. In addition there are secondary commercial solutions such as the LiteSpeed web server and JetBackup. These are foundational components to web servers yet they are outsourced when better open source solutions exist. Web hosts should be at a minimum be able to implement these features in house yet can’t because they do not view themselves as tech companies.
It should be a strategic priority for web host providers to replace cPanel. Depending on the fleet size, the licence fees can certainly offset engineering salaries. Gain a “free” engineer along with a more modern and custom platform. It seems an impossible task for these providers because their talent pool is misaligned to that or similar objective.
cPanel is no longer a strong selling point and customers are now used to custom platforms. A more powerful custom platform with reward of no price increases should hopefully become more standard.
How much of your platform is outsourced? Web hosts should be more commonly viewed as tech companies because that is what they are.