LunarPages was sold to HostPapa on 30th September, 2019.
I have always recommended them since the beginning of this site in 2002, but they started going downhill from 2009.
What did they do wrong?
1. Moving away from cPanel
They went on to develop their own hosting control panel LPCP.
By doing so, they can lower their hosting price because they no longer need to pay cPanel for licensing fees. They launch their starter plan for only $2.95/month in July 2009.
But unfortunately, instead of “blasting off”, they crashed. And it is deadly. cPanel has been the market leader for a reason. It is so powerful that it makes other control panel looks like a lame duck.
Forcing someone who has used cPanel to LPCP is like forcing a Google search user to use Bing, or forcing a Windows user to use Ubuntu.
2. Not working well with important staff
I knew two of their staff who play very important roles in the company. They are probably the nicest person I have ever met in the entire industry. Very friendly and down to earth.
The first person is a guy who is really talented but not appreciated. He is said to be fired because he “couldn’t deliver”. He went on to start his own hosting company and continue to do very well until today.
The second person is a girl. She first moved to work for LunarPages from another country with her entire 4 family members. But after some years, she quit and moved back to her origin country.
What’s next?
Things come and go and that’s part of life. There are still plenty of great hosting companies out there. Click here for the list.