How do I change from the WHS to the cPanel UI?

[tillkrueger]

I just licensed cPanel for my IONOS VPS after leaving Bluehost. Since I am familiar with the Bluehost cPanel, I am utterly lost with the WHM UI that I am presented with. Is there a way to change it to the cPanel UI like this one in the demo area:

https://demo.cpanel.net:2083/cpsess1079971918/frontend/paper_lantern/index.html?login=1&post_login=22839882013793

and if so, how do I do that?

 

[quietFinn]

cPanel and WHM are two different things, as you can see for example here:

cPanel & WHM Features

Explore what's inside the hosting platform of choice by unlocking the power behind all cPanel & WHM features.

cpanel.net

 

[tillkrueger]

Thanks for pointing that out. Thing is, I licensed cPanel with my VPS at IONOS, reluctantly at $15/mo., costing almost as much as the VPS itself, and got WHM instead, which - in my inexperienced mind - doesn’t add much over the open source CentOS WebAdmin Panel, for example, which costs me nothing on top of the VPS.

Be that as it may, maybe it’s IONOS’ oversight to sell WHM as cPanel, or maybe my inexperience for assuming the wrong thing or being unable to purchase and configure a proper cPanel outside of IONOS’ packaged offerings, I did give up on the VPS route today and went with a much simpler (and less costly) shared hosting solution that includes the cPanel I’ve come to love, at no additional cost to me.

Maybe in a couple of years, when I really need a root access server, and know how to manage it properly, I’ll come back to the VPS and a separate cPanel license route

 

[cPanelLauren]

cPanel and WHM are indeed separate but they ALWAYS exist on the same server. WHM is the server-wide administration side of the product where cPanel is for account-based administration.

It sounds like your provider sold you cPanel/WHM with root access - this means that maintenance and configuration will fall on your plate unless you have an administrator to perform these tasks.

Once you create an account on your server, you will then be able to utilize the cPanel interface you are accustomed to.