I'm sure people come here all the time and ask, "What's the best control panel?" I'd like to see not only people's personal preference but a comprehesive comparison. So, can anyone post a link to a good, indepent review of the major web hosting control panels for Linux?

Thanks,
Paul

Yes, I'd love to see this too.

There are tons of "I love DA," "I like CPanel," and "Plesk is the bomb," etc., comments on this board. A comprehensive review that compares features, usability, stability, security, upgradeability, documentation, support, etc. would be invaluable. Haven't any 3rd parties like cnet.com or any magazines done any tests and published reviews? Or have any WHT members posted really thorough comparisons? My searches haven't yielded anything other than brief reviews that are not comprehensive or comparative and mostly touch on specific features. Using the demos I can't get a complete feel for which one I'd really find best for me and my clients in the long run, so it's very hard to pick which panel to jump into.

I'm stalled out on getting my VPS right now because I can't decide which control panel.

on here it's mainly the personal experiences of the control panel, which is quite normal as it is a webhosting forum

i can see why independancy is important as you get otherwise whole topics with discussions back and forth

but afaik no external company has done it yet.


Personally i have used: Plesk, DA, Ensim, Cpanel/WHM.


Regards,

TWS

Originally posted by TWS

Personally i have used: Plesk, DA, Ensim, Cpanel/WHM.

Are you very familiar with these 4 control panels you've used? If so, perhaps you can provide your view of the pros and cons of each?

ensim has been a while back for me, somewhere in my starting days with hosting personal sites, can't remember much from that 1 really.

CPanel/WHM:

Pros: Easy to use, not many problems, fantastico/rvskins etc. and populair
Cons: lay-out could be better

DA:

Pros: clean lay-out, easy to use, installatron, less resources needed
Cons: no dns clustering (can be a con if it's a pre)

Plesk:

Pros: both windows/*nix, nice lay-out
Cons: expensive

People may add more, these are what i've seen and what i thought of it in the meaning of cons and pros i know from own experiences.


Regards,

TWS

Do any of the control panels come with a company level control panel that allows you to manage multiple servers, like to move accounts from one server to another?

And do any have utilities to convert accounts from another control panel? For example, if I have a server running Ensim and want to move all the accounts to a new server running cPanel can cPanel create the duplicate the accounts on the Ensim server and copy all the data including websites, email boxes, and DNS?

Do any of the control panels come with a company level control panel that allows you to manage multiple servers, like to move accounts from one server to another?

With WHM/cPanel, you can move/clone (Email, ftp accounts/DBs etc) your account from one server to another. This is quite eazy and love this feature of WHM :).
And do any have utilities to convert accounts from another control panel? For example, if I have a server running Ensim and want to move all the accounts to a new server running cPanel can cPanel create the duplicate the accounts on the Ensim server and copy all the data including websites, email boxes, and DNS?
This is not actually that easy for a control panel as it looks. All the control panel works differently. They have different kind of directory structure, there are so many different software (like mail server, ftp server etc.) which makes it more difficult but I would love if I can have this feature with Control Panels.