Question
The Definitive Thread on Open Source Control Panels/ cPanel Alternatives: Part I
- Posted on June 29, 2013
Asked by pablo
Greetings:
I’ve been digging around the DigitalOcean (“DO”) forums & UserVoice threads, looking for insightful recommendations on the various Open Source Control Panels (“CPs”) out there. DO clients use an array of various CPs and I’m hoping to whittle the list down to 1, 2 or 3 highly-recommended CPs. It appears, based on my cursory, anecdotal evidence, that the following list represents the most popular CPs among DO users:
<pre>Ajenti Domain Technologie Control (GPLHost) FreedomCP ISPConfig 3 Kloxo OpenPanel The Hosting Tool Vesta Virtualmin GPL/Webmin zPanel</pre>
This topic has come up repeatedly in the DO community forums; but, rarely, do any of the responses offer specific, insightful reasons why someone prefers one of these CPs over others and/or why someone prefers one of these CPs over cPanel–despite the cost of a cPanel license.
Based on the number of times this question has been posed in the DO forums and the number of times cPanel has been requested in the DO UserVoice threads, I’m hoping that we can have a robust comparison of all of the Open Source CPs out there; so as to alleviate the need for anyone else to ever ask this question yet again.
Here are some ?s that I’m particularly interested in learning more about:
1.) Which of these Open Source CPs have you tried? 2.) Which CP do you use now? 3.) What did you not like about any of these CPs? 4.) Why did you choose the CP you’re currently using? 5.) What makes cPanel worth the cost, over any of these Open Source CPs? 5.) For those that are not using any CPs, but have researched/studied any of them: What are some of the (a) strengths and/or (b)weaknesses of the various Open Source CPs?
So… what do ya’ll think?
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Hello, all
This is a really interesting question that I’ve seen before and would like to share my opinion with the rest of you.
There a lot of web panels available (most of them are free to use) that you can choose in order to manage your server. What I can recommend is to try them as in this way you can see if it really suits your needs.
I will list the top control panels that I recommend:
CentOS Web Panel Vesta CP Webmin Ajenti ISPConfig
and of course I need to mention Plesk although it’s not free it’s been available for a while and it’s always been the main cPanel competitor. It has a lot of build-in features and a lot of plugins that you can install and you can always reach to their support team if needed which is something that might come handy in time.
You’ve now got some great options if you want to use a control panel with your server but you don’t want to pay for a license. I’ve tried to lay out most of the available options, but which one is best will ultimately depend on your individual needs.
Regards, Alex
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I tested Ajenti, ISPConfig, Kloxo, Vesta, zPanel and Virtualmin. After a lot of testings, my conclusion is: if you want to run big business, you should consider ISPConfig or Virtualmin. Those two are reliable, solid and very complete.
I´m using Virtualmin.
I didn´t like the installation process in a lot of CPs.
I choose Virtualmin because of the easy installation process. One line of code, and it installs everything to you.
cPanel is reliable, solid and easy to use. But Virtualmin too. My transition from cPanel to Virtualmin was very smooth. It also have scripts installer (eg: if you want to install wordpress automatically). One click, and it do it for you.
The only bad thing is the design. The default theme is outdated. However, there are some themes on the web, I developed Finally Virtualmin Theme. You should give it a try.
UPDATE: <br> <br>Just tested Ajenti. RAM usage after clicking around in the control panel is 79MB. <br> <br>Looks potentially promising, however not as nice and intuitive to find things like in zpanel, kloxo, or webuzo. <br> <br>Also can’t find phpmyadmin at all, which is something I need integrated with my control panel.
Wow, this is probably the best thread on DigitalOcean about free cPanel alternatives, so I’m posting my thoughts and questions here!
I’ve had my sites on a VPS with cPanel for about 10 years and am REALLY thinking about moving to DigitalOcean and trying a free web panel alternative.
I’m finding that I’m drowning in options and information and not sure what path to take. The big issue is that once I move all my sites to a new Web Panel, I don’t want to have to move again since doing so is a total pain / nightmare!
Ideally, here’s what I’d like to find:
A comparable system to cPanel so I can host multiple “accounts” (websites) as a reseller and give each account access to manage their own sites. I want something rock-solid and a good mix between features/complexity/ease-of-use
Support for “one button install / update” scripts. These make managing software and especially keeping family and friend’s installs of WP always up-to-date and SUPER easy since I can force upgrade all of them with one button. I currently use Softaculous with cPanel integration and it works great!
There are SO MANY CHOICES!
I think, right now, my top choices are:
Which of these (or any other web control panels) would you recommend based on what I’m looking for?
Also, I’ve heard some people say that “free = not secure”… but is that really the case? I mean, a lot of apps / scripts (Wordpress?) are “free” and a TON of the web is built upon them. Are we really forced to use cPanel if we want a quality and secure control panel?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts and comments!