alternate control panels for hosting companies

There's currently a control panel for web hosts called 'CyberPanel' which is being developed by the community, and it's fully open source with zero paid Addons or licensing costs.

I've enquired with them and there's no plans to make it paid, and community feedback is taken seriously, and feedback is constantly taken on board.

Recently they made a website preview (like cPanel has) for people to use before nameservers prorogation and I've suggested feedback such as changing the login page name and they are planning to do so.

It might not be ready yet, and I'm not a huge fan of the design, it's going to be very strong competitor for cPanel in the future, as it's completely free.

Design wise, it's a modern design based loosely on the metro theme that windows has, it's great for clients. But for resellers and admins, it isn't very user friendlly and it's not hugely customisable.

We will see what the future brings, in a couple years time it could start to replace cPanel.

If my hosting business was fully built on VPS servers, I'd certainly use something like CyberPanel for my free hosting, as it has the features clients need and it heavily saves on costs.

I believe it also has a built in script installer, I've not heard anything about a website builder, but no doubt they'll partner with one in future.

Once they have theme documentation, lots of developers will begin to make cool themes, hopefully more than cPanel did. Maybe someone will even make a cPanel design copy, I don't know.

I've seen people copy the old cPanel design before and put it in their own control panel, so I don't see why not.

Anyways, if anyone wants to checkout CyberPanel, you can download the latest version (Currently 1.5) at https://CyberPanel.net.

If you have any thoughts regarding CyberPanel or other freeware, please tag me (if HD allows that), so I can read your responses and pass on feedback where needed.

- Kieran
 
I don't believe I've even seen CyberPanel before, it certainly has the looks. How active is the development? Is it already employed by anyone?
 
The development is very active, I got the software a few days ago, and they've just pushed a bug fix with some new features and although it can take a few hours for a response on discord, the community is very helpful.

I'm not aware of anyone employing it, most people, including myself are just using it for free services or for testing purposes.

I'd say it needs another dozen or so updates with features, until I'd be ready to fully release it for public use.

It also has whmcs integration which I find pretty neat, as whmcs is the most popular billing soloution by far in the hosting industry.

If your in the hosting industry yourself, or you personally know people in the industry, I'd recommend joining the discord and making suggestions or suggesting others do.

I'm a pretty picky person, however the CyberPanel developers don't mind, the majority of my suggestions are agreed upon.

For example, upgrades are command line based at the moment, and I suggested a GUI for it, and everyone online at the time agreed to it.

It's definitely a community driven project, and it's got a small but productive community.

They've even got translators, hence why they have a handful of languages already available.

They will one day become the next big competitor after cPanel in my opinion.

Now all we need is a WHMCS Competitor that is much better than BoxBilling and costs nothing.

I've currently got a friend developing such a system, however he will charge a one-time fee. He's planning to charge between £50 & £70 Per License, which I find to be more than reasonable once it has a generic theme and low cost development for custom themes (like the one he's currently making for me).

- Kieran
 
For Linux you can try ISPconfig. It allows you to manage one or more servers from one control panel no matter if it is a physical server or a virtual machine.

I also like CentOS coz of the antivirus+antispam capabilities.
 
I would recommend alternative control panel Centos Web Panel - it is free of charge, easy to install, easy to use and has many common features with cPanel. Please note, to install it OS CentOS 6.x is required on your server, it is impossible to install it on other OS.
 
cPanel will surely win! It is very easy to access and handle. It has number of options which you can handle easily by just one click. Plesk is good for the Windows web hosting service.

DirectAdmin is one option but cPanel is the best for the security as well for the ease of use.
 
There are many good and cheap control panels in marketing like Ajenti, Kloxo, Open panel and Zpanel etc.
I used Ajenti once but now I am using Cpanel.
 
There are many control panels out there like Vesta, Directadmin, ISPManager, etc. other than cPanel and Plesk

cPanel is easy to use, so most web hosting companies prefer this. Clients are well versed with cPanel so technical input is needed less.

I have used Directadmin too, but felt it a bit confusing compared to cPanel, my vote goes with cPanel.
 
We did used Webmin and CentosWebPanel before but people still looks for CPanel...

If you dont have any specific purpose of changing from CPanel, just stay with it....
 
Other than cpanel is VestaCP as it has secure and fast interface with keyboard shortcuts which helps in managing servers really fast
 
DirectAdmin is best. we used it for more than 10 years! but its new skin will make it more user friendly.

test it, you will forget Cpanel!
 
After cPanel & Plesk, I would recommend you to try the Directadmin control panel. Used it for quite some years and I personally like the features and interface.
 
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