tamouh
05-11-2005, 12:09 PM
We currently use Hosting Accelerator control panel for one of our Windows machine since Oct, 2004. So it is due time to review it and let people know what I've seen.
Hosting Accelerator is probably a new player on the block for Windows control panels. We decided to go with them after lengthy research and test of different control panels (I've another post on why we didn't select the other panels).
So here is my review:
1) Installation / Platform:
- We found the installation package is very simple and straight forward on a Windows 2003 Server Ent (without Active Directory). The software installs the main control panel, configure it for IIS and ready to go.
- The application is written in ASP.NET which is great and not so great. I'm the type of person who likes to edit the source codes!
- Even the demo from HACL installation went fine smoothly. It installs all the packages, softwares, AWSTATS and configure them by default
- After install, you'll need to install your favourite Mail program / FTP program / Stats / SQL / ColdFusion / Tomcat
- They support most major softwares. Including Perl,mySQL,PHP,.NET, application pooling....etc
2) Interface / Usability / Features:
One thing I didn't like about other control panels such as Helm is the interface. I hated those huge icons in the middle of the screen. HACL provides three types of interfaces: tab, menu, something else.
But the tab is very annoying, so we edit the login page to only allow a single interface for everyone.
Something I hated about Windows control panels is the need to click different links just to get to what you want. For example with HACL, if I want to add new email user I have to do this:
Click on Service Settings -> Manage Mail -> Search the domain -> click Manage Users -> Click Add New Mail User icon
In cPanel, this whole process is only two clicks away. On Windows it takes 4 or 5 clicks....
Other than that, when you get used to the interface, it is very easy to navigate. The interface is clean, organized and all icons have pop-up explaining what they do
- For HACL you definitely need Internet Explorer 6. Anything else will not work properly with HACL.
3) Compatibility:
AWSTATS work, there is disk quotas and bandwidth transfer. There is even an application to access and work with SQL databases.
HACL also comes with pre-installed free softwares like oscommerce, snitz forum, poll mentor, mambo...etc
ColdFusion is enabled, but you can't add/remove DSNs through the control panel.
(nice thing if you delete a user, it deletes everything associated with that user automatically)
However, when adding new account, you still have to create a user first, then there is a little Site Wizard that creates IIS/Mail..etc
- There are alot of features in HACL like remote desktop from web, update, they are coming up with integration for ModernBill, domain registration.....etc
4) Stability:
Mainly the panel works fine for most of the time as long as you don't change something. Everytime we do a change (e.g. once we changed the clock time and the license became invalid, some features stopped working on the panel and everything had to be reset!)
Most options work without problems, we had issues with bandwidth calculations and sometimes awstats used to stop working. I believe this was fixed in their latest release, but you have to disable all domains AWSTATS and then re-create them again.
We have never had a crash with HACL. But we did experience startup problems with the service when they first came out with v.2, but since it all worked fine. Surprisingly, HACL seems to work better with W2K3 SP1 than without it!
For stability, there are for some reasons things that stop working every now and then like the bandwidth quotas I mentioned above. Also we once had the domain deletion wouldn't work, and it queued all delete requests somewhere. But HACL staff helped us to fix it.
5) Licensing:
Oh, this is the worst thing about HACL. I definitely don't like the licensing system. It is too interfering with your Windows. We had to re-genrate the license after installing SP1, re-generate if change time, re-generate if server hardware changed. Very very strict licensing system.
Additionally, the license contact HACL server everytime someone login to the control panel.
6) Support:
Staff have always been courteous. Some of them know more than others. However, if I have a problem, the only person that I did appreciate working with was Chirag. Without him I probably wouldn't have choosen HACL. He has been professional and looking into problems right away.
sometimes tickets sit for a day or two in the support queue until I speak to him and he gets it moving right away.
Fred is another person at HACL who seems to know well about the system.
In general, very nice people to deal with.
Conclusion: As I said earlier, HACL is the new kid on the block. Their application is impressive, but it is still lacking in the area of bugs. Support is good and have been always helpful with us. Licensing system is a b#$#$.
Lets not forget this is HACL with v.2 and they already have more features than Plesk, but they still need to get the stability of a Helm control panel.
I think HACL with their new releases will be the best control panel out there. It will need sometime, and their clients need to be a bit more patient while they grow into a great and powerful contorl panel.
Hosting Accelerator is probably a new player on the block for Windows control panels. We decided to go with them after lengthy research and test of different control panels (I've another post on why we didn't select the other panels).
So here is my review:
1) Installation / Platform:
- We found the installation package is very simple and straight forward on a Windows 2003 Server Ent (without Active Directory). The software installs the main control panel, configure it for IIS and ready to go.
- The application is written in ASP.NET which is great and not so great. I'm the type of person who likes to edit the source codes!
- Even the demo from HACL installation went fine smoothly. It installs all the packages, softwares, AWSTATS and configure them by default
- After install, you'll need to install your favourite Mail program / FTP program / Stats / SQL / ColdFusion / Tomcat
- They support most major softwares. Including Perl,mySQL,PHP,.NET, application pooling....etc
2) Interface / Usability / Features:
One thing I didn't like about other control panels such as Helm is the interface. I hated those huge icons in the middle of the screen. HACL provides three types of interfaces: tab, menu, something else.
But the tab is very annoying, so we edit the login page to only allow a single interface for everyone.
Something I hated about Windows control panels is the need to click different links just to get to what you want. For example with HACL, if I want to add new email user I have to do this:
Click on Service Settings -> Manage Mail -> Search the domain -> click Manage Users -> Click Add New Mail User icon
In cPanel, this whole process is only two clicks away. On Windows it takes 4 or 5 clicks....
Other than that, when you get used to the interface, it is very easy to navigate. The interface is clean, organized and all icons have pop-up explaining what they do
- For HACL you definitely need Internet Explorer 6. Anything else will not work properly with HACL.
3) Compatibility:
AWSTATS work, there is disk quotas and bandwidth transfer. There is even an application to access and work with SQL databases.
HACL also comes with pre-installed free softwares like oscommerce, snitz forum, poll mentor, mambo...etc
ColdFusion is enabled, but you can't add/remove DSNs through the control panel.
(nice thing if you delete a user, it deletes everything associated with that user automatically)
However, when adding new account, you still have to create a user first, then there is a little Site Wizard that creates IIS/Mail..etc
- There are alot of features in HACL like remote desktop from web, update, they are coming up with integration for ModernBill, domain registration.....etc
4) Stability:
Mainly the panel works fine for most of the time as long as you don't change something. Everytime we do a change (e.g. once we changed the clock time and the license became invalid, some features stopped working on the panel and everything had to be reset!)
Most options work without problems, we had issues with bandwidth calculations and sometimes awstats used to stop working. I believe this was fixed in their latest release, but you have to disable all domains AWSTATS and then re-create them again.
We have never had a crash with HACL. But we did experience startup problems with the service when they first came out with v.2, but since it all worked fine. Surprisingly, HACL seems to work better with W2K3 SP1 than without it!
For stability, there are for some reasons things that stop working every now and then like the bandwidth quotas I mentioned above. Also we once had the domain deletion wouldn't work, and it queued all delete requests somewhere. But HACL staff helped us to fix it.
5) Licensing:
Oh, this is the worst thing about HACL. I definitely don't like the licensing system. It is too interfering with your Windows. We had to re-genrate the license after installing SP1, re-generate if change time, re-generate if server hardware changed. Very very strict licensing system.
Additionally, the license contact HACL server everytime someone login to the control panel.
6) Support:
Staff have always been courteous. Some of them know more than others. However, if I have a problem, the only person that I did appreciate working with was Chirag. Without him I probably wouldn't have choosen HACL. He has been professional and looking into problems right away.
sometimes tickets sit for a day or two in the support queue until I speak to him and he gets it moving right away.
Fred is another person at HACL who seems to know well about the system.
In general, very nice people to deal with.
Conclusion: As I said earlier, HACL is the new kid on the block. Their application is impressive, but it is still lacking in the area of bugs. Support is good and have been always helpful with us. Licensing system is a b#$#$.
Lets not forget this is HACL with v.2 and they already have more features than Plesk, but they still need to get the stability of a Helm control panel.
I think HACL with their new releases will be the best control panel out there. It will need sometime, and their clients need to be a bit more patient while they grow into a great and powerful contorl panel.