I just wrapped up a little project with cPanel, my first time ever using their GUI. I have to be honest I wasn't overly impressed. All in all I think I would give them a "fair" rating still well below Ensim and Plesk. I was just wondering why they seam to be so popular?

aNc

The features :)

Originally posted by Darth
The features :)

Nah, I hate to disagree with you but this is the same case as in vBulletin for example: People think they must use it in order to look PRO.

If a bulletin board pops up with f.e. InvisionBoard everyone says "Oh how "cheap" although iBF is lightyears ahead of vB.

Same with CPanel trust me. I sold like 100-someting servers in my life so far and had 500+ client negotiations ABOUT servers and I can tell you that THIS is the message I always got. Hosting Account = FTP account (maybe even SSH) and a decent Gui for mail etc. Nothing that Plesk or even SimpleCP (which is even better then Plesk in many areas and FREE!) can't handle.

But no, everyone wants CPanel, CPanel, CPanel. vBulletin, vBulletin, vBulletin. Blondes, Blondes, Blondes (other topic though) :rolleyes:

NocSol : thanks for the information :)


but there are some necessary features that plesk doesn't have. for example you cannot have the same user name for different mysql databases. which cpanel allows but plesk doesn't.. hmmm ?

Ahh but with ensim you can have users with the same username but with cPanel you can not;)

I have a server with CPanel and one with Ensim. I like certain features of both. Seems to be the general opinion of hosting clients though (not mine, as I'm not a host) that CPanel better. Maybe it's only because visually it's more appealing?

I have used CPanel, Plesk, Ensim, HSPhere, Alabanza, and Webmin and they all have their advantages and disadvantages.

Consistently the full featured, icon-arranged panels such as CPanel and Alabanza have been most favored by new customers. My reviews below:

WHM/CPanel: I have used for several years and experienced the tremendous reduction in problems. In fact, I have had virtually no issues with it in the past year. The only drawback was pricing, which has now been reduced to a reasonable level through competition. With knowledgeable technical support people, I do not find the bugginess for which it had a reputation to exist today. I think most problems today result from lack of knowledge on the part of the distributor or installer or the user. The reseller features work well and are quite popular. Also, a previous weakness was the lack of a manual. Their manual is now quite useful.

Ensim: I first used Ensim approximately 2 years ago. I have never experienced any problems with it, but new users do not find it as intuitive as they do CPanel. Until recently, the lack of a reseller system was a major Ensim weakness. Now that is remedied. As long as they remain the lowest priced, I believe they will continue as significant players in the control panel field. However, I equally feel that if their price was not lower, they would lose market share to CPanel.

Plesk: My experiences with Plesk were quite positive as it has always been stable and problem free. However, it is the least aesthetically pleasing of the major panels and pales in comparison to the features of CPanel. Simply, I really like Plesk, but potential customers do not necessarily share that feeling.

HSphere: Great ideas behind an all-encompassing product. HSPhere was designed to match and even surpass the functionality of the Alabanza product. However, it still has significant weaknesses which have not been resolved. As those who have used it most are still struggling with it, I have declared it "not ready for prime time" and do not currently use it. I also liked the fact that is was cross-platform for Unix and Windows. Too bad it just doesn't deliver a dependable, easy to use product yet.

Alabanza: The first of the true multi-function control panels. Had it been marketed as the others, I feel it would have led the market from the outset. However, until a year or so ago, its use was confined to Alabanza located customers. The release to the general market was cost prohibitive. Furthermore, Alabanza has tarnished its reputation and is not currently a company I would deal with.

Webmin: Does the job fine, but most users want more than Webmin, SimpleCP or others offer. However, I do use Webmin with no problems for servers with only a few high traffic accounts which do not justify the expense of a control panel.

Originally posted by Incognito
HSphere: Great ideas behind an all-encompassing product. HSPhere was designed to match and even surpass the functionality of the Alabanza product. However, it still has significant weaknesses which have not been resolved. As those who have used it most are still struggling with it, I have declared it "not ready for prime time" and do not currently use it. I also liked the fact that is was cross-platform for Unix and Windows. Too bad it just doesn't deliver a dependable, easy to use product yet.

Can you elaborate on this one please. What significant weaknesses are we talking about here?

Can you elaborate on this one please. What significant weaknesses are we talking about here? I would encourage you to search the forums here, but basically there have been conflicts with certain scripts. I do not profess to be an HSphere expert, but those such as Vortech and Web Authorities who have used it more than I could elaborate. The hope is that now that they have added Carlos from Wizards Hosting to their team, they will be able to work some of the usability issues out.

I would suggest starting with this thread:

http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81992

It probably contains most of the problems encountered by the most experienced HSPhere users.

I like cPanel because it's ease of use for clients and some of the features are nice :) I like the looks of it too.

From my experience Ensim seems to be very well coded as I have yet to run into any bugs. I like the added security of putting each user in a chroot although I realize it is rather easy to break out. However, because there was such a high demand for CPanel we had to get it.

Originally posted by Vex
I like cPanel because it's ease of use for clients and some of the features are nice :) I like the looks of it too.

We did a cursory test with about a dozen small business owners that were not very web-savvy (our target clientelle for an upcoming project). Cpanel was preferred by them. Looks were definitely a part of it, but for whatever reason, they could navigate it and understand it easier. I still have yet to see a user-friendly, stable, affordable panel, but its the best so far IMHO. Other panels may be better on our end, or for resellers, but for the clients, they seem to like it better.

BTW, is your sig for someone special, or just me? :love:

has anyone else done any studies about control panels? We'll be doing a more in-depth study in Jan.

The features, ease of use, and themes etc all sell cpanel for you..
it's well known.. popular.. provides a great reseller interface and much, much more... cpanel markets itself.. making it easier for you to make money and your clients to run websites.. isn't that a good thing? :)

Just 2 cents :D

Originally posted by Incognito
WHM/CPanel: I have used for several years and experienced the tremendous reduction in problems. In fact, I have had virtually no issues with it in the past year. The only drawback was pricing, which has now been reduced to a reasonable level through competition. With knowledgeable technical support people, I do not find the bugginess for which it had a reputation to exist today. I think most problems today result from lack of knowledge on the part of the distributor or installer or the user. The reseller features work well and are quite popular. Also, a previous weakness was the lack of a manual. Their manual is now quite useful.

Ensim: I first used Ensim approximately 2 years ago. I have never experienced any problems with it, but new users do not find it as intuitive as they do CPanel. Until recently, the lack of a reseller system was a major Ensim weakness. Now that is remedied. As long as they remain the lowest priced, I believe they will continue as significant players in the control panel field. However, I equally feel that if their price was not lower, they would lose market share to CPanel.


I have used CPanel, Ensim, H-Sphere and Webmin and I must admit Incognito's comments word by word.

While I love Cpanel for it's features (It is very very attractive for my users) I prefer Ensim. It has less features but it is very stable instead. I have had no problems with Ensim at all (at least for 8 months). It is a control panel for newbie as it has less options and for professionals as you will need to do many tasks manually.

I have found that H-Sphere has a lot of critical bugs. Billing problems and design loses customers. Some ustomers hate its billing system (including myself). As I have heared there are some critical problems with its DNS features. It needs some time to become bug free.

Also I do not like its licensing sheme.

Mac