Hi,

for managing accounts (from a less experienced user point of view)

which of these three is better

1. Cpanel+ Fantastico
2. Directadmin
3. Ensim

Thanks

Ensim is easy to manage

Cpanel has the best / most features

Directadmin does not count <grin>

That being said, It is not good to entrust your controlpanel with user management. If you don't know how to manage vhosts and such without a control panel you are most certainly going to run into issues. If I would you I would look into fully managed servers or setup a server management contract.

Learning is great but when it takes you 12 hours to figure out that remote mail server domains go in /etc/remotedomains your customers loose faith in you..

Also how do you plan to do kernel upgrades? This is the type of stuff you need to think about, I'm sure everything will be fine for the first 2-3 months but after a few security vulnerabilities come out and your not comfortable applying the patches / upgrades your box becomes very very insecure and that is just not fair to your customers.

All that said, Good Luck :)

Would recommend Direct Admin.
Faster Panel Page Loads, Less server reasources, more secure, more stabil, and easy to repair on the odd occasion someone does break. and Easy to use.

I would not touch Ensim, it's a royal Piece of Crap from my own experience.
I would no longer touch cPanel because it's also a Piece of crap, too unstabil for my use.

Keepr

I agree with you completely. No, I am not going to try something as adventorous as managing a server with Cpanel/direct admin.

I have a few clients to whom I provide some services. I am going to buy a fully managed server to take care of all the complex stuff.

But my clients are even more un-netsavvy than I am (Ya! that's possible!). So, I need a quick way to install a few free applications, create email accounts, protect a few directories, analyze their statistics etc. As i can't bother my service provider with these, I want an easy admin panel.

Once my client list grows, I will recruit a techie.

Thanks for the info. But as I got a completely different feedback from klcodec, i am still confused.

Thanks

well, anyone who refers to any of the top 5 hosting control panels as "a Piece of crap" seems a bit biased.

Cpanel + Fantastico is great for your clients needs. They can install a host of free software and the learning curve is only a couple of days.

As far as setting up a cpanel server you should Read some of the 15 min cpanel setup guides they are very helpfull. Remember to take your time and check 2 times before making system changes to anything. If your getting a fully managed server this should not be a problem for you at all :)

Also another helpfull tool for your clients is Flash Tutorials, you can get them all over the place now for next to nothing. If one of my clients has a problem I help them out and then I point them to the flash tutorial that would have helped them out if I was not available. I usually don't get any support requests from that customer anymore :)

Have you used a Cpanel reseller account yet?? This might be a cheap easy solution to get you started and also train you on some of the aspects of Cpanel Administration.

You can find reseller hosting at roughly 30-40.00 a month I would suggest starting out in this fashion so you do not waste money. Once your clients can pay for your dedicated server and your comfortable running your own server then you can shop around and find one. At this point transferring clients from Cpanel server to Cpanel server is rather easy because there is a built in utility for just such situations :)

If you have any specific questions just let me know. I am more than happy to help.

if you want reliable and secure get directadmin, otherwise if you like exploits then get cpanel

Ensim have the power tools (i ting) and for free wich is like fantastico.
I use CPanel for a year. is very good. but to expensive.

My new choise will be Ensim stable and good. User friently.
and cheaper.

The direct admin is fast but no to much futures and in Good price.

murthy, any of the above could easily accomodate what you're asking for.....

If you're not wanting to set up individual user accounts with space limits on the same domain I'd suggest going with the DA. It's quicker than the other two, uses fewer resources, and the learning curve isn't that great.

Ensim is slow loading, but does offer the advantage of being able to set limits on users withing the same domain. It's not a bad little CP either.

If you want or need all the bells and whistles, go with cPanel/WHM.

And realistically, a reseller account sounds more like what you're looking for, and it's going to be one heck of a lot cheaper than a managed server.

cpanel + rvskin + fantastico, the best combination.

CPANEL is the best

Having just gotten out of a two year hate affair with Ensim, I will say CPanel is a huge step forward.

I have an Ensim Linux Basic License I will sell you -- I didn't upgrade to the new version, as I had such a lousy experience with V3.1.whateverthelatestwas.



Waxdoll: I noticed your sig.. did you mean Quite Cool & Adjustable, or Quiet, Cool & Adjustable?

Just wondering. ;)

If you want stability, go with DA. DA also has the advantage of not "hijacking" your system. If you want to brand your control panel to match your company, use cPnale with RV skin.

Oops, I forgot it is a old thread. Sorry.

CPanel is good, but it has too many bugs in it. And it's veryyyyy expensive. But still, I really like it because of the all the great features like Fantastico.

Direct Admin is also good, but doesn't have a lot of features. But they do have something called Instalation or something like that almost equal to Fantastico. It is very cheap compared to CPanel. and it loads very fast

installatron.com is the Fantastico equivelant for Direct Admin. I'll put my vote for Direct Admin, from an Admin's point of view. Most customers ask for cPanel, even if Direct Admin would suit their needs better, they just don't know any different.