Dear all;

I am writing an article on Control Panels and wondered if you could provide some assistance. The information I have found is a bit bewildering but the bottom line suggests most Control Panels are the same! I am sure this can't be true so I thought I would try the board. I would like to know a) what, in your opinions, the main control panels are and b) what are the key ways they differ. I am really interested to hear your answers because I couldn't really establish anything beyond some different functions.

Regards

Beta1201

All control panels serve basically the same function - allow clients to manage their web site through an easy to use web based interface. Most have the same standard feature sets (i.e. create email accounts, databases, etc.). Which control panels are you writing about?

Greetings:

There are many "just another control panel" applications which just provide end user automation; and may provide a small amount of hosting provider automation.

There's also complete hosting automation solutions provided by Positive Software, sw-soft, and Sphera.

Those complete solutions often include an end user control panel.

Thank you.

As mentioned, most all control panels do pretty much the same thing - provide what used to be, low level access to your server/account. However, not all control panels are created equal. I have experience with SWSoft Plesk, cPanel/WHM and Ensim. Personally I feel Plesk is the ultimate. Ensim is a bit lower end and does not provide as many features. cPanel is feature rich, but difficult to learn, and not very user freindly. Also, what I hate, there are way too many ways in it to do the same thing. plesk on the other hand, is feature rich, very powerful and very easy to learn and use.

Originally posted by beta1201
Dear all;

I am writing an article on Control Panels and wondered if you could provide some assistance. The information I have found is a bit bewildering but the bottom line suggests most Control Panels are the same! I am sure this can't be true so I thought I would try the board. I would like to know a) what, in your opinions, the main control panels are and b) what are the key ways they differ. I am really interested to hear your answers because I couldn't really establish anything beyond some different functions.

Regards

Beta1201

Just to let you know you might find some useful information in the CP forum here:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=9

Hi!

I second, I prefer PLESK control panel because it's very complete. Its offer to ours customers all functions that their needs. I found the Sw-soft technical support little bit slowly but when it’s working correctly it’s a charm. We already use Ensim but it less user-friendly than PLESK.

Karl

Thank you once again for tremendous input.

Beta1201

I agree with the previous two that Plesk is, in my opinion, the best option on the market in regards to usability and stability. Now, that being said, it isn't always the best in regards to marketing aspect. cPaenl is very well liked in the industry due to the fact it is so widely used that many more people have experience with it. Without purchasing outside skins it isn't very user friendly and it tends to have issues more often than Plesk. I never used Ensim myself, but both Ensim and DirectAdmin would be the next in line for market share.

There are many others out there. The basic concept for all the control panels is the same though, but they do not all do the same thing. Yes, they are all designed to give you an easy to use interface to manage your website, but the features for each control panel vary, how you use each control panel varies, and the stability of each one varies.

I think the largest difference in all these control panels are the differences on the admin side, and how much it will do. DirectAdmin won't recompile apache from the web interface or install/upgrade other software packages. For some (those who wish to customize down to every little detail) this is a blessing for others (the newbs) it can be a curse to learn to do it manually.

On the whole however the client-side interface is fairly the same across the board, however some are better-organized than others.

Originally posted by lyzer
I think the largest difference in all these control panels are the differences on the admin side, and how much it will do. DirectAdmin won't recompile apache from the web interface or install/upgrade other software packages. For some (those who wish to customize down to every little detail) this is a blessing for others (the newbs) it can be a curse to learn to do it manually.

On the whole however the client-side interface is fairly the same across the board, however some are better-organized than others.

Not to jump off topic, but my take on that situation is that if you can't compile it by hand (no scripts in shell or the web interface) then you shouldn't even think about using a control panel to do it for you ;)

Originally posted by justadollarhostin
Not to jump off topic, but my take on that situation is that if you can't compile it by hand (no scripts in shell or the web interface) then you shouldn't even think about using a control panel to do it for you ;)

Agreed, unfortunately with cPanel's ability to almost completely manage the admin side of the server (although very haphazardly) we've got plenty of hosts jumping up with no clue as to what a shell is.