Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Software and Control Panels : looking for a control panel?

[berry05]

any good ones out there? is there any bad reviews abput any of them? i was thinking of getting plesk because tis a one time payment but then i saw bad reviews about it...cpanel though you have to pay i think 425 a year just to keep it...so its not a one time payment...but anyways is there any good ones out there like cpanel but is a one time payment?

[markfrompf]

cPanel for the win!
• Flexibility: Integration with all major billing software
• Set it and forget it: Once you have your initial configuration under control, it pretty much runs itself
• Stability: It's a really solid control panel
• cPanel Support is awesome: We have tickets with them with 2 minute response times
• Popular: End-users love it, and pretty much every server management company supports it, which is good - It'll cut costs in the future.
• Easy to run: You don't have to be an RHCE to keep a cPanel server running.

Those are my key points. Used it for 6 years and no regrets!

[berry05]

is it true you have to pay yearly though or else it will stop working?

[Rizie]

Originally Posted by berry05

is it true you have to pay yearly though or else it will stop working?

You have to keep your license current, yes.

[uptimefacilities]

Cpanel for own machines and shared hosting (more professional)
DirectAdmin for dedicated (cheap)

[berry05]

thxs guys! ill look into it further

[hD-Scott]

I would highly recommend DA.

[gplhost]

I really don't get why the only software that you would buy in a server would be the control panel, and then all the rest is open source... That makes no sense to me. I vote for 100% open source.

Thomas

[hD-Scott]

The problem with opensource control panels is that they don't always have the feature set or ease-of-use as the bigger guys.

[jphilipson]

Originally Posted by powerMonster-Scott

The problem with opensource control panels is that they don't always have the feature set or ease-of-use as the bigger guys.

And lack any accountability

[gplhost]

I do think the opposite way. Give me examples, and I'll prove you are wrong. I saw many control panel that doesn't have features we do have like:

- Full billing system (including dedicated & VPS services)
- Support tickets
- Full Xen VPS support AND shared AND dedicated on the same panel
etc.

I have found some commercial panels with a total lack of usability, like Plesk for example. Some people like using cPanel, I never understood why...

Most important: none of the commercial panels that I saw are well integrated with the distribution, and impose a specific version of everything. This makes absolutely no sense, and is very bad for security.

And I'm not even talking of the fact that most would work only with such retardated distribution like CentOS, that has so few packages available (even the most common one in hosting env. are missing like courier, nssmysql, maildrop, mlmmj, pam_mysql, etc.), and working with it's ugly yum that takes so much memory for nothing, and that is so slow...

Thomas

[awanbadai]

I would highly recommend CPanel/WHM if you do a hosting business.

[Euvps]

Cpanel is the beest one for linux

[hstsupport]

Cpanel is this market's leader, that's a fact.
However it's competitors (DirectAdmin, Plesk, lxadmin) are worth considering as well.

[mellow-h]

Most of the popular control panel do the same trick until you have some affection for any control panel. And if you do Hosting business, cpanel will most likely contain the highest number of clients for you.