Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Software and Control Panels : Evaluating Control Panels

[pfoutran]

I currently have in my list Ensim, C-Panel, Plesk and H-Sphere

I am looking for evaluating the Control panels on the market to choose the one I feel best for the hosting company I would like to launch. Could you tell me about your experience with those softwares and what are those you've come accross and would recommand or not?

Thanks for any help

Piefou

[enis]

I would add "Direct Admin" to your list... but it all comes down to your needs.

[mcraft]

H-Sphere - not easy to setup, though quite flexible, built-in billing system and scalable. All features included, no need to worry you have to pay extra to add extra features.

Plesk - quite a complete beautiful user friendly CP but extras are chargeable, no billing system.

C-Panel - Lots of features/functions, not as user friendly as Plesk, no billing system. Because of fastastico it is a CP many luv at first sight. But if you are not a system guy fastastico support can be a pain.

Ensim - a nightmare when I use it, so have not use it for 1&half years not sure how it has become.

Directadmin - Hope to try it one day, heard a lot of good comment about it.

Finally I would use H-Sphere fully though I like plesk and using it for production. I see HSP scalability a plus for future if expecting biz to grow big.

[pfoutran]

I'd like to support Php and MySQL and have Linux servers exclusively. Do you know what CP works best for this?

Piefou

[superprogram]

Cpanel is the most popular control panel and works best with php and mysql....AFAIK

[mcraft]

Originally posted by pfoutran
I'd like to support Php and MySQL and have Linux servers exclusively. Do you know what CP works best for this?

Piefou

All the CP! All the CP work best with the above. What you know best is more important than which is the best.

[ironcom]

Im a cPanel man myself, have been for years. cPanel provides a huge administrative backend, and a super easy to use end user front end without skimping on the features.

cPanel also has a large user forum were web masters using the program hangout to discuss feature requests, bugs, and the such

[artzweb]

Having used Plesk, cPanel and H-Sphere, I think Plesk has won my confidence whether about it's stability, the SW-Soft support, customer feedback and installation issues.

The newest release (7.5) looks well promising!

[pfoutran]

Anybody who had used Directadmin for a while and could tell me what he/she thinks of it?

Thanks in advance for any help

Piefou

[fusioncroc]

i prefer cpanel but pleask is supposed to be good

[boonchuan]

I have about 3 servers running on Directadmin, quite good esp if you add in installatron. Ease of installation and maintenance. Neat and tidy to use.

[Haddy]

Just from playing with the demo a little bit directadmin just seems to load faster and seemed just over all quicker than the other cps I have used before...

[pfoutran]

Just found a new potential recruit; Helm control panel.
www.webhostautomation.com/default.aspx

Anybody who had experience - good or bad - with this one? It seems to be made by a british co.

Also wondering which control panel is the easiest to get into and the most convenient if I want to have reseller programs.

Piefou

[Inthrive]

I've used Helm as a cilent--very easy to use, very nice interface.

I would recommend H-Sphere as the overall most complete hosting automation software available. You can have it professionally installed for a small fee. H-Sphere is the only hosting software I know of that doesn't group all services on one machine. For instance cPanel, where web,email,dns,mysql,etc. all run on the same box. For scalability, H-Sphere can't be beat. Their licensing is also more flexible, with packages of user licenses as small as 25, compared to the monthly fee for cPanel or the huge upfront cost.

[RacingCatche]

I may be wrong but I think Helm is a Windows platform. I have used DirectAdmin, Plesk and Cpanel and finally settled on DirectAdmin.

Pros: Very light, allows you to install software outside of Direct Admin without any problems. Also can use with Installatron to install software like Fantastico in cPanel. Once you get the hang of it, it is very easy to use.

Cons: DA is slow in keeping with the wishlist and upgrades. Very little support. They have a forum that is pretty active. They don't have an efficient email user version, just user version. If you had customers who only need emails, they will be not be able to create forwarder-emails, change pwd, etc. without being a user. This is my biggest complaint with them, and I don't think it is on their list any time soon to add an email user version.