Thank you for your replies about the Control Panels you prefer.

I think I've heard enough variants to start a poll about CP's.

But I would still be happy to know WHY you vote for this but not the other CP. Please leave your comments.

H-Sphere for it's completeness, and enterprise class features for a lot less then Ensim ServerXchange.

Neofree

I like CPanel, its easy to use and displays all basic information at your finger tips. Although I agree with NEO, H-Sphere, is very nice and has a profecional feel about it.

Remember, it's the users that count.

Cpanel is the most popular with users from what we have seen. We have had multiple clients come to our services in the last 2-months because of their hosts switching to H-Sphere from Cpanel, many from one popular hosting company.

For this reason and others, we vote for Cpanel, it's maturing rather nicely.

I like the look of Hsphere, but could somebody please explain how on earth their pricing works? Do you pay per domain, or do you buy domains in packs of 50 or ... ? I found the info on their site most confusing concerning this. It looks like you pay the install fee, and then just pay one time for each domain you want to host, but then on another page it states licences come in 50 domain packages...

You pay a $95 setup fee. (They set it up for you, you dont have option to manually install. This may change in the future.) Then you pay $4.50 One time fee per user for license, but purchased in 100 user blocks. What this means for every 100 users you pay $450. This is not monthly, this is one-time. Only active users count against your license, so people that cancel will free up an account.

The other thing to consider is that they charge you 20% per year for upgrades. So if you paid $450+$95 to get started, then a year later you want to continue getting upgrades, you pay $450 x 0.20. but if you upgrade to 200 users, you'd pay $900 x .20 yearly for upgrades.

Another option is to find a dedicated server provider that provides it as an option. This is usualyl the best way to go.

Neofree

Ok, this is how it works

You pay a setup fee of 95.00, then you buy in packs of 100 Licenses at 4.50 each (450.00)

After that you pay 20% yearly for upgrades and support (on a 100 pack you woudl pay 90.00 a year)

A license means one client/account, one client can have multiple domains, they are not counted towards the licenses

Meaning

Client A: has 1 account with 3 domains .. it's one license

hope this helped

cheers

I guess I was typing ti at the same time as Neofree :D

Hiya

I like H-Sphere a lot better than CPanel 3.0. My host only had problems with CPanel 3.0 and then we switched. At the beginning we first had to get used to it and what I like is the broad range of features offered there. I mean I can do almost anything I ever wanted to do with my account. I didn't know before so much control could be given to an user.
Well I don't use all the features but it's nice to know that they are at my disposal so that I can use them once I need them without first asking my host to do this or that...

BTW, I've seen a Hsphere reseller sell 50 domain packs at $4 per domain. Just saying you'd better shop around. This was for offsite servers.

I've seen the admin part of Cpanel, and laughed A LOT. It's so ugly that i don't even know how this product can be sold and have any reputation in the market.
I won't even mention the way it is done inside...
It's just a big ugly stuff that is being advertised well

Of course, Plesk is better than Cpanel, there's even users' database in it, it's already a good thing.
But for sure it lags behind HSphere for about 3 years :)
There's still a long way before Plesk can catch up with HSphere. IMO, these 2 systems can be compared when there will be at least any billing in Plesk.

It's difficult to say something specific about Ensim, I had a chance to deal with it only a few times. But I was surprised by Ensim's support that was asnwering my clear questions absolutely not to the point. It's very strange that they don't know they have Java working not completely. So, in general, I had to spend a lot of time to solve my problems.

Max

P.S. My opinion might be biased, as I work for Positive Software, but I integrated SiteStudio with all those systems,
and I have an idea how they work from inside.

I definitely leave my voice for H-Sphere.
Except for other HS advantages, I think nobody hasn't mentioned its integrated trouble tickets system.

But Julka, perhaps you could add Raq to the poll you started? It's also a popular CP, let's give people a chance to vote for it.

Another vote for HSphere.

More and more hosts in our datacenter are turning to HSphere from other control panel systems.

HSphere gives end users so much power to handle their own hosting issues that no other control panel system is even close to it. Most end users love those features and so your hosting service too.

HSphere integrates hosting system control, automated signup and billing, affiliate program tracking, built-in domain registration, and built-in trouble-ticket support system into one. It's simply a turn-key hosting system at such an affordable price as explained above by some HSphere hosts. Hey, you can run your own hosting business without much knowledge of programming.

HSphere works on Linux, FreeBSD, Windows,and Sun. With it you may sell both Unix hosting and Windows hosting at the same time under one admin control panel. Not many control panel system can do that.

Best of all, Psoft guys are listening to hosts, and dynamically improve the software. For example, I suggested them to integrate a good shopping cart two months ago, and after vote on its forum, ocCommerce, a nice open source shopping cart system is being integrated into HSphere, and will be available in one or two weeks.

I have found that most are ordering cpanel - then plesk at a distant second.