Do you think control panels are way over-priced? I know it takes a lot of work, but still they seem to charge too much. It just doesn't seem like fair pricing to me.

TOTAL CHARGES - seem too high. I don't think a good CP should cost over $500 total.

MONTHLY CHARGES - seems like BS to me.
Why does a CP need to have a monthly recurring cost?

UPDATE CHARGES - should be lower or free

A THEORY: The high prices of Control Panels may drive the Open Source community to keep making theirs better, thus eventually putting the paid ones out of business. So, it seems to me that by charging high prices for Control Panels that the programmers for the paid ones are shooting themselves in the foot in the long run. However, it seems that the OS community has a hard time getting people to even test their control panels, and if that's the case, this theory is flawed.

Your thoughts?

Just my 3 cents worth :)

Well, you can always make your own. :)

Originally posted by chrisb

MONTHLY CHARGES - seems like BS to me.
Why does a CP need to have a monthly recurring cost?



One thing you have to look at is the constant updating done by some control panel companies. Cpanel has regular updates, and these are included in the payments.

Also, they wrote it, so I guess they can charge whatever the market will bear. :cartman:

i think h-sphere is 100% worth the price.

Cpanel is waaaaaay overpriced for the amount of frustration and bugs in it.

Like everything else, if I'm buying overpriced...if I'm selling underpriced....seriously I have no problems and the pricing structure has been coming down. There is plenty of competition and they charge what the market will bear. I would rather pay current prices and see the continued improvements that less and see all development stop.

I agree with the determination that many panels are overpriced, though in the instance of CPanel I believe Darkorb has at least a respectful and justified model of how to handle things....

Fairly, that is.
;)

If you know the guts of Cpanel and it's theme/skinnable potential, you can almost always grin and bear it when a bug rears its ugly head. Has anyone actually run across a flawless panel for either linux or NT/win2k ? Anyone run across a panel that's actually remained flawless for a month's time?

Now, if you say yes, does the panel in question update its critical daemons behind the scenes, at a nightly frequency? Are new features and backend tweaks and controls constantly on the assembly line, and actually getting implemented?

If you know how to tame the product, CPanel is the most flexible and innovative product out there for controlling a webhosting environment... and if you know how to keep bugs at bay by gradually introducing new features through the use of your own themes, you'll keep things sane-- just don't forget about basic systems administration. That's one of the major misunderstandings- everyone expects Cpanel to tend to their servers' kernel upgrades and patches, driver updates & log cleansing, hacker detection & network/security issues.....

And they are actually making huge strides in those areas as well. The point is, the product advances so frequently you can't predict where it will be precisely, six months down the road.

That might be why it still turns some people away.

I see no problems with the pricing of software like CPanel, if you think about it, they're providing a great service to you and your customers for a pretty low fee. I mean, if you have several hundred customers, and you're running off of one cpanel liscense, i'd say that's more than fair. They're allowing you to make the whole experience a lot easier on your customers, for a minimal fee every month. Do you think it's unfair to charge your customers for upgrades to their accounts? Well then it shouldn't be unfair for cpanel to charge for upgrades to software, if they choose to do so. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Well, I tried to keep the thread generic and talk about CPs in general; but I was referring mostly to CPanel. It's hard not to when it's the most popular one out there.

If just seems a bit ironic to me that many here buy or sell cheap hosting, and then have no problems paying so much for a CP.

On another note, I like CPanel; but I think they better get on the ball soon and start improving it by adding billing, support tickets, flexibility for other OS, etc. ...or some of the new Control Panels are going to pass them up very shortly... just my opinion.

Another aside... HostGUI... if that's the one being advertised from JaguarPC. Isn't he in Alaska? That thing must've got lost in a glacier. :)

Originally posted by chrisb
On another note, I like CPanel; but I think they better get on the ball soon and start improving it by adding billing, support tickets, flexibility for other OS, etc. ...or some of the new Control Panels are going to pass them up very shortly... just my opinion.

I think the day that Cpanel adds a billing and ticket system will be the day I uninstall it...

I'd rather have my own software and take care of that myself then trust other software todo it... That way you can make it suit the job you need it todo...

Cpanel is that a control panel, it shouldn't be anymore....

If they want to go off and make another product that includes cpanel and billing, and ticket system that would prolly be a good idea, there is prolly a market for a plugin system....

There are 3 reasons for high control panel prices (from my point of view).

1) Control panel has to accomodate all the cases.
Hosting company can write exactly what they need in terms of functionality. Generic control panel has to do the same for 100s of different companies + more

2) Control panel should run in different environments.
Once again the hosting company can create the control panel that works in their environment, in their network, with exactly software packages they would like it to run. It will work on the OS that company prefer, for the distribution this company things is the best.
Generic control panel should support different hardware/configuration/partition/OS/distributions
installations/patches. It takes a lot of work to port it. It also has to be easelly installed. Hosting company can spend a month installing their own control panel, but it will never accept generic one that takes too long to install.

3) Support/patches. Company that provides generic control panel has to support its product & constantly produce patches. Of course support price can be separated, but it much more difficult to achieve, as most of the clients consider that they have to get support with software they buy, and the software has to work as expected.
Please, note - it is completly separate from new features - that cone be priced on different terms.

So in my opinion:
Cost of the development of control panel for one single hosting company is much lower then to develop generic control panel. I would estimate it is at least multiple of 10 price difference

Yet, the price of ownership of generic control panel usually (should be) less then developing your own.

I would estimated development of fully featured hosting control panel with no billing at about 3-6 month for 2 people, who are doing it part time. This is clearly more then most control panels costs. Yet it just small ratio of the total price, as there is still same amount, if not more of work to continue to maintain the CP, due to bugs/patches/new features that has to be developed.
I believe only huge companies, or companies created by developers (who cannot stop programming) can afford development of their own control panel.
And I believe only huge companies will be able to finish the project.

Open source is not a real threat for commercial hosting control panels. As I told before, large part of the control panel price is support fees. While it is posible for companies to back open source projects with support, it rarely happends. Another thing: people more willing to pay for product, then for support, even if part of the product cost is suppor fees. As the result, people would want support, but the are not acustomed to pay for it. So they will select to pay for the product instead.

IMHO they are overpriced - its a pain thats why I and others have undergone projects to create free / inexpensive control panels.

The problem is, i've been developing simplecp and have asked for help from the community NUMEROUS times, i've got 1 person who says they want to develop and they never get back to me, i have 100+ beta testers but when we release a beta version we get almost no feedback.

Unfortunately that leaves a 1 man development/testing team. And i gotta put food on the plate....

The fees you pay to big cp's goto development, testing, updates which freecps cant devote 100% time to that because we get no income from it. it would be a ton better if we had help from everyone - but thats not happening.....

Until people stop complaining about overpriced cps and start helping the inexpensive/free ones, you're the one forcing yourself and others to pay the high prices....

Just my .02

Isn't time = money? You just explained that it takes a lot of time to develop it. And you need that time to earn money. So, maybe cp's are not that overpriced. It just takes alot of time to develop/support it - so the price is relative to that.

This is true. But i also want to stress that there are 2 or 3 free/inexpensive CP projects but they are hard because we dont have the funding to test/develop them - and we have amost zero help from the community. My point is that if people would help to join in and make a free/inexpensive cp they can stop complaining that they are all too expensive

CPanel makes a lot of things very easy. $20-95/month really isn't that much for a little package that basically lets clients do all of the work (setting up subdomains, email accounts, etc) themselves.

I think one of the things that is terribly overlooked with Cpanel recently, is that the backend (not the user-end interface), the WHManager backend has been the main focus of their development in the past half year.

Are there bugs/inconsistencies & lingering questions with the new options in the admin backend? of course. However things get ironed out with each passing day and now the issues are few and far between. Via the web (through hopefully https), you can now do things like interactively manage the mailqueue on the server, bump your smtp server to another port, put the hammer down on a delinquent reseller or reactive or rework their plans all in one swoop, enable security sweeps to check for specific entrusive-type materials, manage RPMs and perl modules from multiple resource sites..... there is an amazing amount of new functionality in CPanel's backside since 2002 got underway.

I touched on maybe a handful of things out of probably 40 to 50 new administrative functions.

And the Cpanel community keeps feeding the development team with new ideas & suggestions & bug reports, that eventually get implemented or ironed out.

It's a pretty tight system overall.
Hopefully they can branch out with a solid BSD release of the panel soon, and perhaps move into additional platforms (*gasp*) in the near future.

Originally posted by MaB
This is true. But i also want to stress that there are 2 or 3 free/inexpensive CP projects but they are hard because we dont have the funding to test/develop them - and we have amost zero help from the community. My point is that if people would help to join in and make a free/inexpensive cp they can stop complaining that they are all too expensive
I think part of the problem is that these Control Panels hide the underlying administration so deeply that there are tons of people running webhosting servers who have no idea what is going on under the covers. I've been reading up on linux server administration, and it is complex, but not impossible to manage a webhosting server without even using a control panel at all. IMO if half of these wanna be webhosters would take the time to actually learn how to configure the servers they are managing, there would be a lot less griping about the cost of control panels. I have recently decided to rent a low cost linux server and plan to administer it with web min and perhaps one of the gpl control panels like simplecp.

I will be paying 75 dollars a month for my server with a 3MB/s connection. Why should I pay a similar amount just for some fancy panel? At that point the cost of the panel software is going to impact my per-account cost unfavorably. Ultimately servers based on high cost control panels will be less profitable that those using free systems. Why not educate yourselves on how to run a server so that you can lend a hand to the free software?

Remember, if it wasn't for free software such as most of us are using on our Linux servers, many of us wouldn't have the opportunity to even think about running a web server.

It's supply and demand. There are a lot of newbs out there who don't know nothing about nothing, and want to start a webhost. They NEED a control panel to survive, so the are gouged.

Originally posted by robin93

I think part of the problem is that these Control Panels hide the underlying administration so deeply that there are tons of people running webhosting servers who have no idea what is going on under the covers. I've been reading up on linux server administration, and it is complex, but not impossible to manage a webhosting server without even using a control panel at all. IMO if half of these wanna be webhosters would take the time to actually learn how to configure the servers they are managing, there would be a lot less griping about the cost of control panels. I have recently decided to rent a low cost linux server and plan to administer it with web min and perhaps one of the gpl control panels like simplecp.


The goal of control panels is not only to simplify admin tasts, but also reduce the amount of such tasks, and allow customer self-care (the main benefit). Do you really want to get a phone call at 10pm regarding adding a mailbox or extra 10MB for an account? Thats what control panels are trying to solve. Ability of customer to change attributes of his hosting account, without involving sys admin.

Originally posted by chrisb
. . . . . . . . . if that's the case, this theory is flawed.

Your thoughts?

. . . . . . . .I agree. I think your theory is flawed. :D

And, I'd have to agree with UBC. Maybe you could build a better panel and give it out free.

It's simple. You don't like it; don't buy it.

But, to answer your thread title; no.

Originally posted by bambenek
It's supply and demand. There are a lot of newbs out there who don't know nothing about nothing, and want to start a webhost. They NEED a control panel to survive, so the are gouged.

Yep, and I understand that. I guess what I don't understand is why the GPL panels get so little support from the people who actually have the skills to contribute. I hope to eventually be able to make a contribution to help give back something to the GPL community which has already given us so many incredible offerings.

Webmin for example blows me away. It may already have everything you need to run a small webhosting company, at least on the server administration side. One thing I'm still looking for though is some decent documentation. I bet it wouldn't be that hard to take a control panel apart feature by feature and show how you could accomplish the same thing with webmin.

I have to say that I fully support the pricing of control panels, with the exception of Ensim ServerXChange which is rediculous to the point that their own sales people are affraid to tell you.

There is another point that Iselesk forgot to mention regarding the pricing of a control panel. Volume. With any industry, low volume = high markup and high volume = low markup. It's simple economics that if you are only selling a few hundered installations per year, you have to charge much more than what Blizzard gets to charge for their release of Warcraft 3 which will sell millions easily by years end.

Recurrent feeds are necessary to keep the development cycle in full swing, as well as to help pay for the support costs associated with generic software. As Iselesk did point out, writing software for the masses is an entirely different game than writing it for yourself.

I had once considered (and even designed) writing a control panel, but after experiencing HSphere and the fact that Psoft is open to assisting third-party development, I figured why bother? Now I just have to wait for them to release their open API and integration tools! :liplick:

I agree with The Prohacker with regard to billing and ticket system. I want to customise how I do things, I want to use my own software for that. Control panels should concentrate on being control panels as opposed to an all in one solution.

We use Cpanel, is it overpriced? Not in my opinion, I wouldn't complain if it was cheaper, but for what it does, we can justify it's cost. Cpanel's pricing structure IS messed up though. With so many influences affecting the prices (eg internal / external, different prices per distributor, etc.), I think it would be far easier if DarkOrb set a standard monthly fee for all distributors, and distributors are allowed to sell licenses at the prices they wish, but are not allowed to resell them (then problems such as Paradise Design's would not occur).

Just my thoughts
Matt

Ach, there seems to be so much miscommunication between Cpanel and the resellers. I contacted quite a few of the official resellers listed on their homepage in the last 24 hours and nobody seemed to know about the 50% off deal (or maybe they just didn't care to mention it for obvious financial reasons)...

You, have to consider, that the Control Panel was developed by people, these people have to eat. If they do not charge a monthly fee, how do you expect them to live?

Originally posted by iamdave
You, have to consider, that the Control Panel was developed by people, these people have to eat. If they do not charge a monthly fee, how do you expect them to live?

People do need to eat, but open source free software dosen't necessarily imply otherwise.

Remember that control panels (at least the linux based ones) are running on and managing software that is predominantly free.

It would make the most sense to me that people making money off of webhosting would contribute some of thier expertise to create the ultimate open source webhosting software. This would be in the spirit of Linux and open source, and help protect the Linux server market share against the deep pocket competitors (MS)

If we, the benefactors of free operating systems and software, don't give back to the free software movement we're losing a chance to be part of something which is possibly extremely significant. Linux servers and webhosting has to be top of the heap if we're to ward off the forces who would like to lock down users into proprietary expensive solutions. Try pricing a MS reseller account and you'll see what I mean. What if there was even less competition for the wanna be monopoly?

What we do collectively insures our survival as a cooperative internet society.

Well, they aren't making money off of the open-source software, they are making money by offering an interface to administer those open-source softwares.

Originally posted by iamdave
Well, they aren't making money off of the open-source software, they are making money by offering an interface to administer those open-source softwares.

We're all making money off open source software if we're running a hosting business on linux. The control panel people are as well, but that isn't really my point. My point is we should support the open source control panel projects, since that is more in line with our use of the open source operating system, and will contribute to strengthening linux server market which is in our interest!:)

If I had the choice between a free control panel, a single fee control panel or a monthly fee control panel, I'd go for monthly (and do just that with CPanel).

The reasoning I have for this is continued development. By paying per month, developers have a continuous source of incoming funds so they can concentrate on building their product.

In all honesty a very large part of the griping over CPanel is a year old. Many of the issues that were common are gone now. The odd bug shows up now and again, but they've recently been pretty small and quickly corrected. As mentioned higher in this thread the amount of additions to WHM have been amazing, and CPanel itself is getting very tight.

If you look hard enough you can often get a control panel tossed in with the monthly fee on a server anyway so it's often a moot point.

Greg Moore

robin93, have you contributed to this cause? You know - leadership by example? I would say no, judging by your post. If, you say yes, please tell me what project.

While I never have - don't have th eexpertise - I know some who have. You know what one of the biggest complaints is from these people? They hate dealing with the cry babies and free loaders who just bitch about it. "Thats nice, but can you do this....?" or "We really needed this...". No one is ever happy. And when you remember that this work was free and donated by kind people, what right does anyone have to complain?

I love the GPL cause. We use a few things from it to run our hosting business, netsaint for example. I wish it would succeed for a nice CP. But for years now, I have seen the same request to add, yet never see it done. And if I were qualified to add something to the cause, I don't think i would because I don't want to help a bunch of cry-baby winers who have no appreciation for what exactly has been done - for free

Originally posted by UmBillyCord
robin93, have you contributed to this cause? You know - leadership by example? I would say no, judging by your post. If, you say yes, please tell me what project.

While I never have - don't have th eexpertise - I know some who have. You know what one of the biggest complaints is from these people? They hate dealing with the cry babies and free loaders who just bitch about it. "Thats nice, but can you do this....?" or "We really needed this...". No one is ever happy. And when you remember that this work was free and donated by kind people, what right does anyone have to complain?

I love the GPL cause. We use a few things from it to run our hosting business, netsaint for example. I wish it would succeed for a nice CP. But for years now, I have seen the same request to add, yet never see it done. And if I were qualified to add something to the cause, I don't think i would because I don't want to help a bunch of cry-baby winers who have no appreciation for what exactly has been done - for free

You're right I haven't donated to the cause. In fact I'm pretty new at this whole Linux thing. My background is Windows PC software and believe it or not, 20 years writing business applications on IBM Mainframe OS/3xx.

I started learning Linux as a hobby, and discovered the incredible wealth of GPL software.

Recent directions Microsoft have taken, have convinced me to "jump ship" and support the GNU/Linux community. As of yet though, I don't have the skill level to offer much, but I hope to.

I do understand your sentiments to an extent. Perhaps the Webhosting niche is best suited to a closed source commercial system. I'm not sure yet.

However, if I look out towards the horizon I see it becoming more and more important that the Internet empower people to be provide the services MS is fighting for on the peoples own terms and not Microsofts terms.

It may be irritating but I'd rather live in a world where a 15 year old can buy a server and set up his own webhosting company on a shoestring than world where the system is locked down tight and controlled by large media corporations who want to extract a massive amount of money from anyone who wants to participate.

This is going to mean helping a lot of people, even some whiners.

If we succeed at making things easy enough and fantastic enough we will assist in retaining our Internet as we know it. I don't want to live in a world where TCP/IP is replaced by MS/IP. It could happen.

I guess I'm really just saying that if we as the webhosting community could put our intellect together we could make something we could all be proud of and have what we want and more, instead of being stuck with what someone in hollywood redmond or washington wants to shove onto us.

This might be offtopic to an extent, but I think that to a certain extent also it is not. The act of setting up a new domain and it's various services is at the very core of the Internet. As such it deserves a special focus and there is a good reason to make sure that the power to harness the operating system and its tools is available freely.

"Aren't control panels way overpriced?"

Try financing the costs to make one then ask that again if you can stomach it. ;)

Originally posted by Jag
"Aren't control panels way overpriced?"

Try financing the costs to make one then ask that again if you can stomach it. ;)

:stickout ;) :rolleyes: :D

In my opinion, control panel pricing ought to be where I expect they should be. They do their job nicely in cutting down the work of a system administrator and at what cost. I work for a media/hosting company here in Atlanta and the system admin created a control panel for resellers using J2EE, beans, and other JAVA technologies which took him about a month to get the basic contacts database working and simple hosting account process working. Still there was no DNS tools or autoresponders, but the amount of time is justified once you set a programmer to work on it full time.

As a result, it's to the point where I can come in manage new accounts while he can work on other tasks significantly reducing costs of support and hiring new people without making sure he's able with 'root' access to the system.

To the average hosting company, control panels are priced appropriately, but to the individual who just needs a control panel, then it maybe a bit out of their shoe string budget.
Besides, a control panel allows customer to help themselves. If you did not have a control panel to offer to your customers, they would be calling you and leaving emails left and right which is probably be more time and money spent then having a control panel doing it all for you.

Finding someone who has skills in programming application and server administration is hard. I for one am a PHP programmer and I'd love to code up FreeBSD control panel however I lack the skills of the appropriate commands to manage accounts on the command line.

I'm sure many people out there have skills in server administration but lack the skills to create such an application as it requires much dedication, time, and testing.

Maybe those who want a cheaper control panel can stop flacking their lips and help contribute with feedback to beta tests or clue information to programmers who might be interested on server administration portion which why most good programmers will shun away and not develop a stable release.

I don't think control panels are overpriced... Heck, Ensim Webppliance 3.1 is only $199 for unlimited domains.

Originally posted by Jag
"Aren't control panels way overpriced?"

Try financing the costs to make one then ask that again if you can stomach it. ;)

It shouldn't be that much money if only one or two people program it. I'm not sure if a large team is the best approach. Perhaps your approach, financing, or collaboration is flawed. If your HostGUI ever comes out, it would be interesting to see a detailed breakdown of all costs involved.

I'm not saying that Control Panels should be free; but they shouldn't cost an arm and a leg and a half either. :)

Personally I don't think $99 a month (at it's top end for CPanel) is an arm and a leg for a control panel that allows the bulk of your customers to go about their day to day maintaince with no interaction with us at all. It's to a point where there's very little they actually need us for (pointing domains, changing account stats, and some zone file issues for example).

Considering the alternative of doing it all for them, it's money well spent.

Greg Moore

For you $99 may not be much but for a new startup company on a low budget with a new server costing in the $200's/mo then you have to add a $99 cp onto that...

Originally posted by chrisb


It shouldn't be that much money if only one or two people program it. I'm not sure if a large team is the best approach. Perhaps your approach, financing, or collaboration is flawed. If your HostGUI ever comes out, it would be interesting to see a detailed breakdown of all costs involved.

I'm not saying that Control Panels should be free; but they shouldn't cost an arm and a leg and a half either. :)

Even one person working on a system (would take forever) but also would at least cost you some cash. Do you know how much truly skilled programmers make ? Unless you are that one person, but in that case you still need a way to eat and so likely have another full time job. Bottom line is control panels are expensive, financing wise as well as time wise.

Originally posted by Jag


Even one person working on a system (would take forever) but also would at least cost you some cash. Do you know how much truly skilled programmers make ? Unless you are that one person, but in that case you still need a way to eat and so likely have another full time job. Bottom line is control panels are expensive, financing wise as well as time wise.

Yes, I know that skilled programmers make from $75-$150 an hour. The key is in the word "skilled". I consider myself a skilled perl programmer; yet there are expert programmers that can write a perl programmer in a 3rd less time than me, and better.

I bet someone like Randall Schwartz and others could write one in 24 hours maximum, if they wanted. Let's see 24x$150=$3200. Even double that, and I see no reason why a control panel should not sell for a one time fee of $200 ($500 at the most), where the programmer recoups his cost over time like most businesses do.

As far as me writing one goes, I've already written a file mgr, an SSH program, etc. I need to learn more about Apache administration before I can complete all the necessary tools for a control panel. So, I'll probably pay for one, and take my time writing my own control panel. The release date will be July 4, 2005. :)

This has turned into an interesting discussion.

Originally posted by chrisb

I bet someone like Randall Schwartz and others could write one in 24 hours maximum, if they wanted. Let's see 24x$150=$3200. Even double that, and I see no reason why a control panel should not sell for a one time fee of $200 ($500 at the most), where the programmer recoups his cost over time like most businesses do.
.

What is 24 , write an entire control panel in 24 hours? Not possible. But take the rate a programmer makes writing full time per month, multiply by several programmers for several months. That alone takes you well into the $50k range just for a few programmers.

Originally posted by Jag


What is 24 , write an entire control panel in 24 hours? Not possible. But take the rate a programmer makes writing full time per month, multiply by several programmers for several months. That alone takes you well into the $50k range just for a few programmers.

Of course you're right. I read somewhere that Linux today represents billions of dollars worth of software in terms of software developement. Yet is is free. These programmers must see some benefit in contributing to the cause of free software.

Originally posted by Jag


What is 24 , write an entire control panel in 24 hours? Not possible. But take the rate a programmer makes writing full time per month, multiply by several programmers for several months. That alone takes you well into the $50k range just for a few programmers.

With all due respect, I disagree. I don't think you need several programmers, and that it has to take several months, and end up costing $50K or more. I may be wrong, but I think that figure could be reduced waaaaay down with good results.

Hell, if I knew more about Apache admin, I think I could write you one in a month. How about just giving me that 50K and we'll release HostGUI in 30 days? ;) Bug-free, of course. :)

Originally posted by chrisb


With all due respect, I disagree. I don't think you need several programmers, and that it has to take several months, and end up costing $50K or more. I may be wrong, but I think that figure could be reduced waaaaay down with good results.

Hell, if I knew more about Apache admin, I think I could write you one in a month. How about just giving me that 50K and we'll release HostGUI in 30 days? ;) Bug-free, of course. :)

Hey if that were really a possiblity we would have taken that route... but hostgui is more than just a control panel. 30 days, ya , we all wish ;) .

Actually, Jag, I probably should eventually write my own; though I only know perl and am not sure that it is the best language to write one in. I think C would be better. For now, I'll probably just post some of the perl programs I've written such as my file mgr, ssh client, ftp program, multiple search and replace program, etc. in the ad forum sometime soon, and try to sell them to hosts looking for add-ons; or maybe I can strike up a partner deal with someone else wanting to add programs to a CP they are working on.

Chris, no offense, but I think you are just a little bit naive in terms of your expectation of programmer productivity.

A control panel isn't just a "control panel" its more than that. Besides just "controlling," there is a lot more going on that are not really "control panel-related", but more as general software requirements.

For example, just controlling apache is easy, what about a database that is capable of integrating all the servers(mail, web, ftp, etc...) AND at the same being extensible? Not too easy.

What about software packaging? You think plesk's install script is easy? Yes it is, easy to run, but certainly not easy to code.

How about updates? Should every updates be a new install? If not, how do you update packages on a component-by-component basis? (I don't know, that's why its so hard).

How about brandibility? Creating a skin for the control panel? How do you code the skin layer?

Finally(no, not the end of any actual development list, but just the end of my imagination), how about testing? The control panel will be used on a variety of platforms. From the differences in software versions, to hardware compatibility, to intalling on a variety of clean/non-clean systems. Just the testing itself takes time.

I am not even a control panel developer. But I look at your claims, and I think of how ensim, plesk, h-sphere and other have teams of developers, I get the sense that either all the players have done completely wrong, or maybe you are just a little bit too optimistic.

Peter

Originally posted by ckpeter
Chris, no offense, but I think you are just a little bit naive in terms of your expectation of programmer productivity.

Peter

Naive? No one has referred to me as naive since I was 20. :) I must admit though, in the Control Panel area, that I may be ignorant of the total development process for a control panel, and that Jag and other people that have the experience of writing a control panel probably know more about it. I was also playing devil's advocate, and just having some fun with Jag while getting his input.

I guess I have the honor then.

I did get the sense that you are playing the devil's advocate. But then again, I can never be sure. (until you verify it yourself).

Peter

Originally posted by chrisb


Naive? No one has referred to me as naive since I was 20. :) I must admit though, in the Control Panel area, that I may be ignorant of the total development process for a control panel, and that Jag and other people that have the experience of writing a control panel probably know more about it. I was also playing devil's advocate, and just having some fun with Jag while getting his input.

;)

Unless you go with Burst, CPanel usually works out at around 1k per year per server. I have to agree this is too expensive.

Personally I think a model of a once-off purchase price of about $400, plus a yearly price of about $100 for updates would be reasonable. Take a look at Photoshop for example. It's constantly being updated, its market is limited to graphic designers, and yet they manage to charge less than 1k a year. Not to mention that I would assume that Photoshop is a lot more complex than Photoshop.

Originally posted by avara
Unless you go with Burst, CPanel usually works out at around 1k per year per server. I have to agree this is too expensive.

Personally I think a model of a once-off purchase price of about $400, plus a yearly price of about $100 for updates would be reasonable. Take a look at Photoshop for example. It's constantly being updated, its market is limited to graphic designers, and yet they manage to charge less than 1k a year. Not to mention that I would assume that Photoshop is a lot more complex than Photoshop.

CPanel is a feature rich control panel thatt not only provides excellent services to your clients, scripts etc but also provides a very easy to use server admin package, you wouldn't get server admin for $1000 per year or less via a human ... Sorry avara not picking on you, just that it's Sunday.... just the facts how I see them LOL...

Disclaimer.... My opinions are mine, not yours, so don't flame me!! :D

At the moment I'm paying about $5000 a year for CPanel licenses for 5 servers, and it does not replace a server admin. I'm not asking for anything for free, rather I think this is a somewhat unreasonable price, especially considering that there is virtually no support provided, not to mention that random bugs.

Now if DarkORB provided customer support, updates were free of major bugs, and so on, it would be worth what it's costing now. However considering that for 1k per server I am getting absolutely no support from DarkORB, updates often riddled with major bugs, and so on I don't think it's worth what they are charging for it.

If you use a partner DC (good examples are Pwebtech, AffordableColo, VDI, VO) then you can get the license waaay cheaper. We pay as little as $250 a year on some licenses.

Well if I had written CPanel, then I would see the monthly fee as being trivial too, even as a host who uses it, it is trivial for the sales value - Then again, you don't have to use it, you can make your own or use another control panel, such as Plesk, does not have even half the features of cpanel - cpanel is a marketing tool too - I think that CPanel gains clients with it's functionality and ease of use.... It's worth every cent you pay for it in my opinion.
:D

Robin made some good points. And if she is paying $1K/yr for CPanel while Matt is only paying $250/yr... something is wrong with this picture.

I know there are differences in price depending on who you get CPanel from, if you got a special or whatever, but this difference is staggering.

Control panels requires lots of work and dedication to build and for the ongoing maintenance and support. I've built a portal application and that has taken me several months (6 months) already to get it to the point where it's at right now. We all have our own jobs more than likely and life outside of this forum which we all attend to.

A control panel is similar to a portal yet it ties into the command line environment which doesn't provide an easy to retrieve data method. Building a structure to query a SQL database is easier because SQL provides all the commands for you, but implementing control over a command line requires parsing and more parsing of data to get the results you want.

Not only that, if you get beyond the ability to handle a few server administration functions, you want to consider whether you want to skin this or not. CP should be some what skinnable to enable branding for resellers. Then you have to think how do you want it skinned so that resellers can hire a designer and he would have no problems making a better layout.

Then you have to think about extra functions that ties to billing, maybe perform recurring billing for you or print invoices. That is an entirely a seperate application, but it would be cool to have.

Personally, as a programmer, I strive for the best and to be the best, you want to put as many of your ideas into a product before it's released. That doesn't happen over night nor in one month. Those who releases a free control panel with a few months, look at their quality compared to the commercial ones.

If you want to see a good control panel for free, it's better to join some one who has the motivation for a free one and help out, otherwise they'll lose interest and development sorta fizzles out before it ever reaches the end.

WEBppliance 3.1 for Linux

Has anyone else tried this control panel and what do you think about it if you have?

NewMerchant, please don't take the thread off-topic.

Lots of people have tried ensim 3.1. (No, I did not). You can search the forum archive for their comments.

Peter

Originally posted by ckpeter
NewMerchant, please don't take the thread off-topic.

Lots of people have tried ensim 3.1. (No, I did not). You can search the forum archive for their comments.
Peter

Look, this thread has been off topic in several places. I have read the whole thing. I am asking about a control panel and asking if it's worth the money. I don't even see that my post is off at all.

Topic "Control Panels Overpriced"
Someone posted: I dont't think so I use Ensim for $199.00.
I asked about the panel and if it's worth the money.


SEE ANY CONNECTION????


I happen to be about ready to fork out 2,800.00 for panel licencing so I think I have every right to ask.

I didn't realize this thread has gone off-topic before.

I also did not realize you wanted to discuss "if ensim is worth the money." Sorry if I misinterpreted your words, but your original post sounded like a typical "what does everyone think of this panel..." (which I am sure you are aware are a tons in the archive).

Peter

<NewMerchant was editing his post while I was replying>

Yes, now the connection is apparent(after your elaboration), but your original post wasn't.

If you quoted the previous comment, it would help others understanding the context of your question.

Peter

Sorry,

I didn't know I was supposed to elaborate for you.

I think panels are pretty expensive myself. Cpanel would be my choice but it is pretty expensive. I've saw some posts claiming that the support isn't what it should be as well. If you are paying this kind of money for a license, the support should be there I would think.

No need to apologize. Now you know how a simple post can confuse a feeble mind of mine. :)

Cpanel is actually going down on pricing. I noticed a few big special lately. The support also seemed to have improved. (I don't have a cpanel license, but the volume of complaints seemed to have dropped).

Although in general, with all the competition, I think panel pricing are worth the value of the feature-set. If you focus on $99 dedicated server with 400Gb, a control panel may seems expensive, but the real value of a control panel shouldn't be a percentage of your monthly hardware expenditure, but rather the time and trouble it saves you.

Peter

Originally posted by ckpeter
No need to apologize. Now you know how a simple post can confuse a feeble mind of mine. :)

Cpanel is actually going down on pricing. I noticed a few big special lately. The support also seemed to have improved. (I don't have a cpanel license, but the volume of complaints seemed to have dropped).

Although in general, with all the competition, I think panel pricing are worth the value of the feature-set. If you focus on $99 dedicated server with 400Gb, a control panel may seems expensive, but the real value of a control panel shouldn't be a percentage of your monthly hardware expenditure, but rather the time and trouble it saves you.

Peter

I've just spent the last couple of nights working into the wee hours trying to configure a "play" RedHat server I have laying around here, getting ready for my dedicated to come online. I did a fresh install no X, just Webmin and the good old pico editor. Started trying to configure sendmail to use SMTP-AUTH which is a major goal of mine and a feature I don't see in control panels.

(As an aside one reason I dont like the expensive control panels is they are one size fits all, if you don't like the software offerings, too bad! It makes everyone's offerings pretty much identical which is bad business in a competitive market)

OK, I just wanted to say that some of my naivety has worn off. Using Linux as a desktop isn't so bad, but when you get into the server side configuration, it can be a real pain. I still don't have SMTP-AUTH working after about 10 hours of messing with stuff, and now I have to wonder what is the current state of my play server after all that, and are my latest changed even going to be repeatable.

I love linux in many ways, but there is some serious baggage that is being dragged along while on the surface we have tons of fancy skins and desktops. Underneath this thing need an overhaul :) I guess it is no wonder most people fork over big bucks for control panels rather than wading into server administration. Wouldn't it be great if there was an underlying XML layer for all the settings. :D

XML configuration files only raise the problem a level further (and they create another problem: they're overly verbose). You have uniform first-level syntax but the second level is completely arbitrary (not to mention the arbitrary distinction between attributes and tree-elements). That's why there exists DTDs. Unfortunately, XSLT and the rest are a whole big mess. However, having a tree structure is probably better than relying on regular-expressions. At least, unless you start using regular-expressions to parse the tree structure!

But this is now really getting off-topic.

Since cPanel has been the topic in a lot of these posts, I feel I should comment. Mods: please feel free to dump this post or parts of it if I'm out of line here (I just wanted to set things strait and stop any future confused posts).

cPanel's MSRP is $90 a month. Distributors sell license from anything in the range of $60 and up per month. This is only for license sold outside of their datacenters. Partner Nocs usually have much cheaper pricing. You can find a list of distributors at http://cpanel.net/dist.htm. DarkORB does have specials every so often .. ie 20% off, 50% off, etc. Distributors choose at their option to extend these to their customers. If you are unhappy with the support you are recieving from your distributor you are always welcome to switch to another one (assuming you are paid to date). At a last resort http://support.cpanel.net/ can be used to obtain support or file a complaint about a distributor.

If you have any questions you can contact billing@cpanel.net

Thanks Nick for posting that useful info. JFYI, I didn't start this thread to put cPanel down. I still think cPanel is one of the best, if not, "the" best Control Panel out there. I just thought the pricing was high; but admit that I did not know the facts that you posted above.

I really was hoping that others would discuss more about the other Control Panels' pricing too; but I guess when cPanel is the most popular, that's the one most people know about, including myself. IOW, you can't really discuss control panels without cPanel getting mentioned and/or compared.

Keep up the good work!

It would take 2 / 3 programmers 1 year to get the beta out.

2 really good coders - working extreme hours is 100k per head minimum. now in order to write a cpanel you need to be a system adminstrator also, to know in the ins and outs of what needs to be done. a regular programmer is not going to be all that.

Take Cpanel for example - between Nick working with us, and moving on. He`s got at least 5 years under his belt. Nick is a expert system adminstrator and programmer in several lanuages.

There are very few people that are all that.

also important thing about Cpanel, Nick is writting it for Nick.

I`m not even going elaborate on how much our 2 new cpanels are costing us. plus it will be a monthly fee after it is completed to keep maintaining it.

So the bottom line is, you either like or don't like it, but somebody somewhere will pay the asking price.


if anyone can say they can write a Cpanel "fully funtional" in less then 3 months, or even 6 months. I would have to say that is Impossible. Even with a Full crew.