I just started looking at http://www.lpanel.net today (thanks w33t!) and it looks pretty impressive. I'm becoming a bit discouraged with ModernBill lately and this looks like a pretty good alternative, in theory.

I'd like to hear from those of you who are actually using it. Also, has anyone successfully migrated ModernBill records into it??

--Tina

It is a nice bit of software. There seem to be daily releases, they are constantly improving the code.

I am running modernbill, lpanel and whmautopilot on trial basis right now. Modernbill is offically out of the loop for my choice of software. I am leaning towards whmauto just because its cheaper, and the pending release looks pretty slick. Looks like the upgrade will be free for current license users as well. Of course, all of this only matters if you are using whm/cpanel servers. (Personally I will use nothing but)

AH-Tina, just for you I imported my whmautopilot and modernbill clients into lpanel - and it works fine :-)

Thank you so much for testing that for me!!! You don't know how much I appreciate that, since it is my #1 concern about switching over.

--Tina

Hi Tina,

Be sure to come back to this thread and post your review of lpanel. I've been evaluating it for some time now, and the product has been moving steadily forward.

(Unlike WHMAP which seems to have stalled for over 1/2 year now while they build v3, etc..)

lpanel has a history of various bugs that linger on for a while, but I believe lately the author(s) have tried to really nail things down and get the script working 100% properly.

It lacks many of the features of ModernBill, but if you only need a very simple and straightforward billing system, then lpanel is certainly a decent option from what I can see.

The only thing I dislike is how "integrated" things are such as SSL sales, template sales, etc. But these items can be easily removed or switched off, so it's not a realy issue.

If WHMAP v3 continues to be delayed, or is released with many bugs, then I'm sure lpanel will quickly become a major contender.

Weird...it said MrZippy replied to this thread, but I don't see it.

(edit) There it is! (/edit)

--Tina

Originally posted by mrzippy
Hi Tina,

It lacks many of the features of ModernBill, but if you only need a very simple and straightforward billing system, then lpanel is certainly a decent option from what I can see.


What does ModernBill do that Lpanel can't? From what I saw on their site, it actually offers extra things like allowing the customer to upgrade/downgrade their accounts on their own.

What'd I miss?

--Tina

Originally posted by AH-Tina
What does ModernBill do that Lpanel can't? From what I saw on their site, it actually offers extra things like allowing the customer to upgrade/downgrade their accounts on their own.

- Lock pricing for certain packages at any given time. Very useful if purchasing a company and you promise not to change current pricing for certain period of time.

- Auto suspend/enable account based on payment status. (Although they might have finally got this working - it's been about 4 months since my last review of lpanel)

- Can't associate a payment processor with a certain plan.

- Can't handle refunds within the lpanel system. (ie: no virtual terminal - you must log into your gateway, and then record the transaction manually in lpanel)

- Emailing to customer capability is far superior in MB. (ie: ability to select what customers to receive any certain email..)

- Welcome email ability was limited in lpanel. ie: You couldn't "add in" the various values I wanted.. so a highly customized welcome email would need to be "simplified" with lpanel. This issue may have also been addressed since my last review..

There are a number of other things, but off the top of my head I don't recal. I'm scheduled to do a review/comparison of lpanel again at month end, so hopefully I'll update things then. :)

Yeah, I noticed that you couldn't pick which customers you wanted to email. We have about 100 Cpanel servers and it would REALLY not be cool to email customers on all 100 servers, just to let customers on 1 server know that we will be performing maintenance on that 1 server. :(

That may actually be the deciding factor against Lpanel, for me.

--Tina

Originally posted by AH-Tina
Yeah, I noticed that you couldn't pick which customers you wanted to email. We have about 100 Cpanel servers and it would REALLY not be cool to email customers on all 100 servers, just to let customers on 1 server know that we will be performing maintenance on that 1 server. :(

That may actually be the deciding factor against Lpanel, for me.

--Tina If so, make sure you submit this as a feature request to the lpanel developers.

They seem to be keen on adding new features, and given enough time, I'm confident lpanel will develop into a decent little billing system.

At the very least, it'll be a close race between whmap v3 (assuming it is ever actually released) and lpanel to attract the "simple cpanel" hosting businesses.