can someone tell me what the difference between Cobalt Hosted and PLESK Hosted is? which one is more user friendly and will give me less problems if I'm planning on putting up a chat room etc.. ? thanks.

the cobalt cp, and plesk cp are both control panels, not operating systems. Both of them run on Linux. A cobalt RaQ is a server that comes pre-installed with applications to serve web-sites, (this is called a server appliance) The plesk cp is licensed to server admins who have a server, and install it on a bare Linux system.

The difference is that raq's have a slower processor (450 mhz), come with a modified version of linux. The plesk cp can be installed on a linux server with any specifications.

In terms of a more 'user-friendly' cp, I would say that they are both equally easy to use.

More info:

http://www.cobalt.com
http://www.plesk.com

Hope I didn't confuse you

:)

I've used both, however I'm not entirely sure if it matters for having a chat room (other than the RaQs having limitations in both processor speed and ram, which may affect your chat depending on the type). I think we need a bit more info to help you.

Down side of RAQ's is the limitations regarding virtual hosts / websites - limit to 200.

As stated above only 450Mhz processor with Cobalt unless you get one of the newer ones and they are way expensive.

Just my thoughts.

I would buy a own server and run plesk on it or any other kind of Control Panel. My suggestion is to never go with a raq, because you can't change things yourself.

RaQ hardware is a bit underpowered, though for most people it is more than enough. It is also overpriced.

A decent Intel server running Plesk, CPanel, Sphera HostingDirector or Webmin can support more users than a RaQ - up to 1000 with Sphera, unlimited with Plesk (however, note that the price of Plesk goes up with the number of domains).

The question is whether you would be running as many sites as the machine can handle. If you only need 20-30 sites, Cobalt might be your easiest route into hosting.

If you would like unlimited power, get your own powerful server and use Plesk, CPanel or Sphera for it.

Originally posted by Dotcomsnz
Down side of RAQ's is the limitations regarding virtual hosts / websites - limit to 200.

As stated above only 450Mhz processor with Cobalt unless you get one of the newer ones and they are way expensive.

Just my thoughts.

To remove the Raq limitation of no more than 250 virtual sites on it, Edit the Cobalt Perl modules (Product_raq.pm to be exact) and changed the line that reads:

$Sites_Max = 250;

to have another value... :)

File Location: /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/Cobalt/Product_raq.pm

Note: This will void your Sun warranty (everything does), and you should know the hardware limitations of your Raq and the type of sites on it. A Raq4 can easily handle 400+ smaller static sites, while it could also strugle with as little as 2-5 Huge Interactive script heavy CPU intensive sites.

Much better to get a more powerfull machine in the first place - unless you have sites that don't need cgi, mysql or anything else that needs cpu time :-)

I'd like to test a cobalt with 400 sites on it :-)

Originally posted by tryavds
RaQ hardware is a bit underpowered, though for most people it is more than enough. It is also overpriced.

A decent Intel server running Plesk, CPanel, Sphera HostingDirector or Webmin can support more users than a RaQ - up to 1000 with Sphera, unlimited with Plesk (however, note that the price of Plesk goes up with the number of domains).

The question is whether you would be running as many sites as the machine can handle. If you only need 20-30 sites, Cobalt might be your easiest route into hosting.

If you would like unlimited power, get your own powerful server and use Plesk, CPanel or Sphera for it.

Just curious why you left out Ensim...is it really that bad?

Ensim doesn't do resellers yet - main problem for me.

It was my impression that Ensim do not sell directly to end users, only data centers. Besides that, it was mostly an oversight. I have dealt with the other products, not so much with this one.