Hi everyone - We recently re-located to lunar pages.
While the staff is nice enough - their control panel is just short of pure ass....Anyone know of any webhosts out there that still use Helm 3 or 4 ? Bigger the better of course. Just can't live with a stripped down Plesk panel for another minute. TIA

Hang on a second, Plesk 8.6 has the same features on Helm 3. Can't be that bad, can it?

http://www.helmhosts.com/ seems to focus on the Helm control panel.

I will move this thread to the Windows Hosting forum.

Well I cant speak for everyone on this current host. But in my panel alot of the icons simply do not work or are missing...

Yeah I would it's that bad - Plesk was completely unable to upload/create a mssql db from .bak (had to use mylittleadmin after 2 weeks of fail)

From the desktop - icons to add / delete / manage mail accounts dont really connect to anything or do anything.

Same with anitspam/anvirus controls
Domain Alias Icons - Missing
Cant really forward or alias emails because of mentioned above.

I guess i was just really spoiled on Helm

Thanks very much Idcdc :)

I host with appliedi.net - they run a customized version of HELM 3 which is very nice. Solid uptime, instant support via all the known methods. Check 'em out

Well I cant speak for everyone on this current host. But in my panel alot of the icons simply do not work or are missing...

Yeah I would it's that bad - Plesk was completely unable to upload/create a mssql db from .bak (had to use mylittleadmin after 2 weeks of fail)

From the desktop - icons to add / delete / manage mail accounts dont really connect to anything or do anything.

Same with anitspam/anvirus controls
Domain Alias Icons - Missing
Cant really forward or alias emails because of mentioned above.

I guess i was just really spoiled on Helm

Ah, okay. I agree that Plesk is slow and sometimes falls short of what's needed but it still works. Most of the items you've described are actually there, including the MSSQL backups, which seem to work last I tested.

Well I cant speak for everyone on this current host. But in my panel alot of the icons simply do not work or are missing...

Yeah I would it's that bad - Plesk was completely unable to upload/create a mssql db from .bak (had to use mylittleadmin after 2 weeks of fail)

Helm 3 itself does not have feature to backup/restore mssql db.
Helm 4 is sometimes very slow with hidden background processes.

That's correct. We have used (and are still using Helm 3) for some of our Windows 2003 boxes and it has been rock solid. However, as PremiumHost pointed our earlier, Helm 3 does not have feature to backup/restore/truncate MS SQL db. I would really recommend you to consider DotNetPanel as it has quite a few handy features including database backup/restore/truncate functionality.

- Rick

Hi everyone - We recently re-located to lunar pages.
While the staff is nice enough - their control panel is just short of pure ass....Anyone know of any webhosts out there that still use Helm 3 or 4 ? Bigger the better of course. Just can't live with a stripped down Plesk panel for another minute. TIA

If you don't mind me asking, why do you want Helm control panel? The reason I am asking is because when looking at the Helm community forum, there does not seem to be a lot of users saying that Parallels is actively working on it. On the contrary, the replies seem rather bleak in that none of the users there seem confident that Parallels is doing anything with Helm (I could be wrong but that's just the impression I get from the Helm forum).

Unless, there are things that Helm offers that other control
panels don't offer, why would you want to continue to use Helm?
Based on the responses here, it seems there are other control panels (custom-built and/or third party control panels), that have the same functionality as Helm.

When choosing a web host, if one of your criteria is a strong control panel, then you should ask the host if they have a demo of their control panel. That way you can see for yourself what functionality the hosts' CP has. Who knows, you might find a CP that is better than Helm.

Hi Doug you made a very good point about testing their control panel.

When I asked Lunar pages for a demo of the control panel
they sent me to parrallels.com to try a fully funtional plesk panel.

Unfortunately thats not what I got after signing up...While I mentioned the staff is nice. I still havent gotten my domain aliases setup even after asking them to manually do it for me since their Plesk is stripped down (or hosed). I also found that the Hot Link Protection isnt functioning either.(more fun)

After and entire day (2 days now) they told me I could only set up aliases for domains under my account.(the run-around)
Of course im trying to set up a alias for my own domain (geez)

I mentioned Helm earlier because I used it for years and while it didnt have as many features as Plesk, everything WORKED. Im not knockin Plesk but I definitely have a bad taste in my mouth from this Lp experience.

Who knows, you might find a CP that is better than Helm.

Helm is actually pretty good- though I find V4 a bit cumbersome compared to V3. DNP is also looking good at this point but lacks some features that Helm has.

Hi Doug you made a very good point about testing their control panel.

When I asked Lunar pages for a demo of the control panel
they sent me to parrallels.com to try a fully funtional plesk panel.

Unfortunately thats not what I got after signing up...While I mentioned the staff is nice. I still havent gotten my domain aliases setup even after asking them to manually do it for me since their Plesk is stripped down (or hosed). I also found that the Hot Link Protection isnt functioning either.(more fun)

After and entire day (2 days now) they told me I could only set up aliases for domains under my account.(the run-around)
Of course im trying to set up a alias for my own domain (geez)

I mentioned Helm earlier because I used it for years and while it didnt have as many features as Plesk, everything WORKED. Im not knockin Plesk but I definitely have a bad taste in my mouth from this Lp experience.

Well you are not going to talk your hosts into changing control panels for you so you can either live with it or try another hoster.

I am using Arvixe.com which has DotnetPanel and some of the hosters who have responded in this thread are on my list for anyone to consider such as SoftSys with DotnetPanel and Applied-i with Helm and DiscountASP with their own custom made panel that they are very proud of.

Hopefully DiscountASP can be allowed to describe their panel in a technical non-marketing manner so we can all learn how it compares to the others mentioned in this thread...

We have been using HELM 3 for six years and I can say it is much better than HELM 4. HELM 4 is crap piece of software and it should not be used on production servers. Just visit HELM 4 forums and you will know what I am try to say.

The things got worse when it was sold to Parrallels. They fired all the HELM developers and now not interested in developing it further.

For the most advanced Windows Contro Panel check out Dot Net Panel or ask me for a free demo.

^ DNP is good but its missing quite a few features compared to Helm 4.

^ DNP is good but its missing quite a few features compared to Helm 4.

Such as? the bugs :D

^ ROFL. Have to agree on the bugs part. But some ColdFusion related stuff is missing. Check out H4 in detail and you'll see what I mean.

As much as I like DNP, I'm thinking of H4 as the future control for our servers.

DNP has coldfusion support along with blackberry, sharepoint, exchange, hyper-V, Dynamics. Worth another check.

I have seen all that and thats whats frankly attracting me to DNP. But its not an easy decision; involves over 30 servers.

Anyway, not to take this thread off topic any longer.

We have a couple of hundred servers and DNP works great with its remote server architecture. One central control panel and lots of remote servers. Thats how we designed **** and IDS.

Majority of the hosts who were on H3 stayed on H3 and didnt upgrade due to the fact that H4 upgrade was too difficult and H4 itself not great. Customizing H3 was much easier. So majority of them have customised H3 and lived on. I am not sure for how long.

To the question why one doest change the control panel.
Well.. if you have few thousand customers using H3 you won't even thinking about changing to H4 let alone think about changing to a different control panel altogether. Just imagine the amount of issues it an create. Just see Hostgator they still using MB4 because they are probably too scared to change with the amount of customers they got.

We thought about it and decided against it. Its best for now to leave it alone and rather convert the new users to H4 or to a new control panel.
I don't like Parallel's + Plesk.. They seem to have monopoly over this game now.

if you are thinking of helm V4 its quite user friendly but by the performance the helm v3 is good...in the new v4 the ftp AW stats never updates or either it works..the best running panel with fast response time is the Cpanel hosting then you can secondly think about plesk parllels

Hi,

Helm3 is a good control panel, by default they is not any backup/restore/truncate DB tools, however we found away around it by linking in MyLittleBackup (www.mylittlebackup.com) so it is do-able in Helm 3.





The things got worse when it was sold to Parrallels. They fired all the HELM developers and now not interested in developing it further.

True, I left a working for WHA (Originally Helm Developers) a few months before the Parallels take over, shame it happened as Parallels killed Helm, rather than make it really good, Helm 4.1.1 is due out shortly and all they have done really is even more plesk-like including the parallels application installer.

^ DNP is good but its missing quite a few features compared to Helm 4.

THis is very true, if Helm4 was fully functional and had a working upgrade tool from Helm3, Helm4 would probably rock any control panel, I often think if WHA were still around, Helm4 would be fantastic now.

.... as Parallels killed Helm...

I believe, this was Parallels' intention while overtaking Helm and they have succeeded in it. Helm was on a right track to reach its 'Helm' when big $$ contract came in place and that started the downfall.

We'd just like to stay hoping that such thing does not happen to DotNetPanel down the roads!

- Rick