Hi all,

I have seen a few geed and bad reviews on Ensim ... my question is why do a lot of people insist on NOT getting Ensim in their dedicated package ... especially if people like rackshak include it for free ?


Thanks

we use ensim on all our servers, where di you hear it is "sooo bad" generally thats a cpanel host trying to persuade a customer to go with them rather than an ensim based provider.

We use it and love it.

Just a thought... for those who had used both, what's the pros and cons of both? I guess there's probably a thread somewhere that already addresses it. But I am just curious since we are at this thread. And better still, if someone used the other alternatives like the sponsor of this board, and one of them which regularly advertise here (can't recall offhand who it is)

i will start----

cpanel - nicer looking
ensim - more efficient

Lots of people like CPanel over Ensim because it's easier to nice and you can make it look pretty; however, Cpanel is a bit buggy but they have gotten a lot better.

Along with CPanel, we also have Ensim servers. Ensim is not as user friendly as CPanel but I have yet to run into any problems with it. It also runs sites in a chroot which is awesome for security. There are was to break out of a chroot but proper security precautions can help limit the possibilities. :)

i love the chroot - thats the best feature of ensim.

We have used both and by far cpanel kicks butt. They really are 2 different beast, in all honesty. Though I hear the latest version does come with a few more options then the version I tried. I feel that cpanel does its job well. I found that when software & securty updates were released, it took a while for ensim to send out an upgrade.. with cpanel it is almost instant. I have had nothing short of a great experience with cpanel and would recommend it to anybody. Its far more than a control panel. If your simply hosting your own web site, and are not sure how to get around unix or linux ( maybe windows ) then sure ensim will do the job just fine. But I would never ever subject paying clients to ensim, we tried it once and learned our lesson. Not just that, but in my own personal opinion, I dont think ensim have what it takes to be a proffitable control panel, same thing with plesk.. hsphere and cpanel seem to have that under control. Thats one thing that really worries me about ensim.

Can you 'rent' CPanel licences .. cos U$200 for 5 domains and U$1000 for the once off fee is a bit much for starting out ??

"I would never ever subject paying clients to ensim, "

That is rubbish.
Soooo many hosts use ensim, as do we - no complaints at all.

Originally posted by UH-Matt
"I would never ever subject paying clients to ensim, "

That is rubbish.
Soooo many hosts use ensim, as do we - no complaints at all.

Hey thats my own personal opinion from my own personal experience. Call it rubbish if you want, but we started offering ensim to our budget hosting clients and they themselves chose to move up to our cpanel server and we ended up getting rid of it completely. Mate, im not saying you shouldn't subject your clients to ensim, im just saying *I* will never again.

Originally posted by HingyGuy
Can you 'rent' CPanel licences .. cos U$200 for 5 domains and U$1000 for the once off fee is a bit much for starting out ??

You can go direct with darkorb ( cpanel.net ) or you can go with a distributor, where you can pay as little as $60 per month for an Unlimited account license. Its well worth it for the nightly automatic updates ( both security, third party software and cpanel itself ) in my personal opinion.

Ensim isn't as open and easy for invaders, unlike Cpanel having all this open access to integrate it with many other programs.

so as usual, I guess everyone agrees to disagrees. Anyone with experience with other than cpanel or Ensim ? Eg. Plesk.

Ive used all three, ensim, plesk and cpanel. cpanel remains to be the one that gives alot of problems especially when my host upgrades it.. argh. however the other two are pretty stable and i guess thats what counts the most.

Plesk is alright, I was considering getting it, but after I had a customer evaluate it, he complained it was confusing.

And I can see why he said it is confusing with all the options and terms used on it.

I use both with my 2 hosts. I like Ensim, it's not bad.. and that's it about that. But this was my time time using cpanel.. and I love it. The only think I like more about Ensim, is when you add a user.. it creates everything for you, unlike cpanel where you have to create everything seperatly.

I used to love Ensim, but first the Bandwidth monitor disappeared and now the site stats have been down for about a week. So frustrating

Carboran, please change the domain is your sig, my browser doesn't like it :(

My clients have the option of CPanel 5 or Ensim 3.1 . I've yet to have complants from either. I think we are reaching a "Ford vs. Chevy" type of discussion.

I got a coin here.... heads for ensim.... tails for........ ;)

Well since I started this thread .. and didn't expect this to turn into such a debate .... I'll sum up my question .... I was wandering if it's worth the U$800 for a CPanel licence or can I go half and get a Ensim licence for U$800 ... unfortunatelly from the answers ... still not sure ... The only thing I picked up is that since CPanel was force fed (like Microsoft) everyone wants it .... but ensim (like Linux) is a bit better and stable .. but like linux you have to recompile the kernel everytime u want to make a change ...

I wouldn't mind giving two options ... just can't afford either .. or even one now ... I think I'll just write my own and realase it open source :)

ensim is a resource hog, and doesn't allow you to perform upgrades or install certain software for clients without breaking the contol panel (and sometimes it breaks on its own anyway)... cpanel is a lot better but expensive and still has a lot of problems... haven't used plesk, can see that it would confuse clients too much...

i'm developing my own control panel for my next hosting endeavour... imo really the only way to go...

Originally posted by UH-Matt
i will start----

cpanel - nicer looking
ensim - more efficient

might i add cpanel is very buggy too.

Ok I have used Plesk, cPanel, Ensim.
I find cPanel the better of them all.

I find Plesk slow, and my users find it confusing, resellers cant oversell.

Ensim is a bit like a CobaltRaq, you must set everything up for customers such as 404s, etc you must edit DNS for your resellers, etc. See Ensim is great if your hosting just one site or doing shared hosting only, not targeting reseller market and if you can get it free on your dec server, and only want to do shared hosting go for it. Remember Ensim has no unlimted options, so you would have to set everything to 999.

cPanel is great a little buggy but customers love the skins that you can get. Resellers can oversell... cPanel sells very well. Just check out the request forum and you will see "cPanel Please" type posts.

Originally posted by interactive


might i add cpanel is very buggy too.

Care to explain?

Have you ever used cPanel????

Ensim is great.

Everyone that uses our customised ensim loves it:
http://www.stx-hosting.com/panel/new.jpg

Simple to use, and good looking. Also we have no problem upgrading packages/modules, you just need to know what your doing!

Wow Ensim has skins now..
:D

Having used both, I find CPanel/WHM to be HIGHLY superiour.

First of all, there is NO database managment in Ensim. None. So if you want to create a mySQL database you have to ask your host. Nicely. MAYBE he'll eventually get around to creating a database for you. With CPanel it's instant.

No cron managment in Ensim. What's that you say? You can just go in the shell to create cron jobs? Wrong again, as Ensim DISABLES cron (although I've heard that you can un-cripple it a bit).

The real problem with Ensim is that it's an all-in-one package - the server software, the version of PHP & mySQL, etc. It's all the "Ensim" version of those programs, and you may have greater needs than those that Ensim sees fit to bundle for you.

Cpanel is also faster, easier to use, more feature-rich, customers like it, it's skinnable, etc.

Some may argue about how much better Cpanel is than Ensim, but let's put it this way: is there anything you can do with Ensim that you can't do with Cpanel? No. How about the inverse? Yes. So go with the features.

The reason so many hosts "love" Ensim is because it's cheap and they don't want to spring for a CPanel license. It's just that simple.

bloom

Originally posted by STX-Hosting
Ensim is great.

Everyone that uses our customised ensim loves it:
http://www.stx-hosting.com/panel/new.jpg

Simple to use, and good looking. Also we have no problem upgrading packages/modules, you just need to know what your doing!


Umm... isn't this the Media Temple Ensim skin? Do they know you are using their copyrighted images and skin look?

http://mediatemple.net/demonstrations/ss/webcontrol/

UmBillyCord play nice.. :D

Bloom i have to agree with you 100%.

I've weighed in on this in another thread. I offer both Ensim and CPanel. After receiving some snide remarks in support tickets about Ensim I decided to offer those customers a free move to a CPanel box. After seeing the demo, 70% of them snapped up my offer. The remaining 30% either didn't care or are satisfied with Ensim and want to stay with it.