Hello,

I have a client asking about cpanel, ensim and plesk. I have quoted him on cpanel because I think its the best. (Keep in mind I have never used ANY cpanel just heard good news about it). This client needs one license with unlimited domains.

I need some advices from other hosting companys for a cost effective control panel besides cpanel. I already have my quots on cpanel and my own take on it.

I dont need too much detail but a couple pro's and con's per control panel would be great.

Thank You for your time in advance.

I personally use cPanel and I think it is the best. I also have one website that uses Ensim, but I don't like it that much, and will be transfering it to cPanel soon. I have heard alot of bad things about Plesk.

cPanel is the best!

I have use plesk, Cpanel, and Ensim
I would go with Cpanel. I think of all the ones I have used cpanel is more userfriendly and easier to get around in. It also seems to have more frequent releases and bugfixes

Cpanel has tons of features, but with the tons of features comes a few bugs, though most get fixed...

Ensim and plesk are cheaper and not so uber. They aren't as cool looking as Cpanel and have less features. I don't know about other people, but I look at plesk and ensim as a budget control panel.

Definitely DirectAdmin (www.directadmin.com)! 299$ for unlimited life-time license is what I call a great deal! :)

Originally posted by UltimeWWW
Definitely DirectAdmin (www.directadmin.com)! 299$ for unlimited life-time license is what I call a great deal! :)

Never heard of it, how does it compare to cPanel?

DirectAdmin appears to be increasig in popularity. I have never really read a good pros and cons review on it though. I just looked over the demos. Looks real easy to use. There were a number of features that I did not see that I would like. That's not to say they are not there. I just could not find them. Like the option for a reseller to host on HIS shared IP vs the the servers main shared IP for one.

dont forget hsphere? :p

Originally posted by schmeg007

Ensim and plesk are cheaper and not so uber. They aren't as cool looking as Cpanel and have less features. I don't know about other people, but I look at plesk and ensim as a budget control panel.
Plesk is $800 and the SUS licence is $200/yr which is hardly cheap. You can get cpanel alot cheaper than Plesk via one of the resellers but Plesk resellers aren't cheap. The new Plesk 7 with its XP skin (that shames someone's bad attempt at a cpanel XP skin) looks the best out any control panel in my opinion.

Better designed, looks more professional, more logical and more stable. These are unarguable facts.

Originally posted by Bub Host
I have heard alot of bad things about Plesk.

Then you shouldn't believe what you hear. ;)

Cpanel is the best!

Originally posted by UltimeWWW
Definitely DirectAdmin (www.directadmin.com)! 299$ for unlimited life-time license is what I call a great deal! :)
Lately I have been really looking into directadmin. I think imo it will be just as good as cpanel soon. Maybe not as buggy?
I still love cpanel though.

I had enough with Ensim, never try CPanel, but they both use sendmail which need a lot of time to manage and maintain.

I am going to give Plesk7 a try, which use queue mail, heard it is faster, more stable and maintenance free.

As for web, almost all control panels, are quite similar in features.

You'll love qmail. :)

Has some great utilities and a nice spam removal program (3rd party script here (http://www.linuxmagic.com/opensource/qmail/qmail-remove/)).

Thanks NexDog! When we go full swing for Plesk7 it might come in handy.

Yes Sendmail is sh*t

Here is a question, will he be doing shared hosting .. if not, then get webmin .. people underestimate the powerf of that free control panel ;)

webmin is ok for a free panel. not up to snuff with a lot of other OS stuff i use though.

Carlos while your here, any plans to build a cpanel ---> hsphere copier ?

You can host on your own IP on DA :)

DirectAdmin is definitely the best option in our opinion. Extremely cost effective and very stable.

Here's a link to a reveiw I did a while back:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=174475

Things have only gotten better since then. Mark and John are steady working on improvements and new features. Plus, One of our fellow DA users just released a beta of an auto-installer for popular scripts that will be similar to Fantastico for cPanel (details here: http://www.directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2382 ) and there are several new skins starting to pup up as well including an email-only skin (details here: http://www.directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2331) .

We have several former cPanel and Plesk users (no Ensim yet) who have come to prefer DA and it's ease of use. No more having to log into 2 different sections to do things like in cPanel.

Looks like an early (and ugly) version of cpanel. Ugh, just doesn't feel professional to me....

I agree. It could use a facelift bigtime.

I have to agree that in terms of functionality almost everything is there, pretty straight forward and flexible. Some features are nice to have but only if the users know how to use them. Sometime giving too much to end user increases our support attention.

But lacking a mail user admin, correct me if I am wrong. And too cartonist. May be it needs a better skin.

Plesk7 do look good and more complete as a whole, though some features are not as straight forward as directadmin.

Originally posted by NexDog
Looks like an early (and ugly) version of cpanel. Ugh, just doesn't feel professional to me.... Originally posted by centrahost
I agree. It could use a facelift bigtime.

If you are looking at the DirectAdmin demo, yes that is a very simple design. It also comes with a "Power User" skin that is all text (which is the one we use) and there are other skins available that have been made by DA users and designers.

I have never liked the image based "default" skin either. But you can't judge the panel's abilities and stability based on that skin or any other that may be available. The 2 included skins are simply for functionality and to give a starting point. The guys at DirectAdmin are more concerned with functions and features than they are with skin development. They have created, and are constantly updating, a skin API so others can offer better looking skins and they can concentrate on the important thing.. the panel itself.

I'm leaving my Ensim servers to DirectAdmin within a cupple of weeks. The default skin is nice if you customize it a bit :)

http://alpha.ultimeweb.net:2222
Login: demo_user
Password: demo

:)

VERY nice job on the default skin customization, UltimeWWW!

I formatted my 'Ensim Server Appliance'!

It makes a real nice PC :D

Originally posted by MN-Robert
Carlos while your here, any plans to build a cpanel ---> hsphere copier ?

there are already scripts that will do just that .. just email support :)