Web hosting control panels

[karll]

I've been considering installing some kind of (free) web based control panel on my server, because I want my co-admins to be able to help out if there is some kind of serious problem and I'm not around. Unfortunately, they don't have the same appreciation of the Linux command-line as I do, but at least one of them is used to cPanel. Of course, I don't have cPanel and it costs money, of which I have none. So I need to find a free alternative.

Any recommendations? I've been using webmin a little in the past, and that was okay. I found this list on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_hosting_control_panels

Tried any of those? Were they any good?

 

[Slavik]

Webmin is your best free alternative.

 

[Jon W]

Webmin is your best free alternative.

I've used Webmin/Virtualmin for the past 10 years (maybe more). I wouldn't want to use anything else now, but still clients insist on having cPanel.

 

[RickM]

I used to run a large VPS hosting provider so used a lot of free panels with our clients. A few of them are decent enough for personal stuff.

Free ones that I've used are:

- Webmin (and Virtualmin at times)
- ISPConfig (Great on Debian, horrible on anything else - a HUGE number of tutorials for it on howtoforge.com)
- OpenPanel (not very well known, but a nice panel - http://www.openpanel.com/)
- Kloxo (not really developed anymore but still works and has a decent feature set if you dont mind it looking a bit ugly)
- ZPanel (Stay away - horrible panel, very VERY buggy)
- GNUPanel (very ugly but stable, only developed by 1 person and he's not the most likeable person from memory)
- SysCP (works ok on its supported platforms, but lacks a lot of features)

Webmin is likely your best option. Personally I hate it, but it does the job just fine.

Hope that helps

 

[Ernest L. Defoe]

I used to run a large VPS hosting provider so used a lot of free panels with our clients. A few of them are decent enough for personal stuff.

Free ones that I've used are:

- Webmin (and Virtualmin at times)
- ISPConfig (Great on Debian, horrible on anything else - a HUGE number of tutorials for it on howtoforge.com)
- OpenPanel (not very well known, but a nice panel - http://www.openpanel.com/)
- Kloxo (not really developed anymore but still works and has a decent feature set if you dont mind it looking a bit ugly)
- ZPanel (Stay away - horrible panel, very VERY buggy)
- GNUPanel (very ugly but stable, only developed by 1 person and he's not the most likeable person from memory)
- SysCP (works ok on its supported platforms, but lacks a lot of features)

Webmin is likely your best option. Personally I hate it, but it does the job just fine.

Hope that helps

I have used zPanel and as stated by RickM it's not very good. Flashy looking but couldn't get anything to function right. Kloxo is a good free alternative. It actually works as well as cPanel. Those are the only free ones I have used so I can't be of more help.

 

[Cool]

because I want my co-admins to be able to help out if there is some kind of serious problem

what could your admins do thru any control panel if they don´t know/understand how things work. it will not help you in any way if they don´t understand the complex setup of a server. so what you need is a co-server-admin.

 

[Adam Howard]

Webmin has improved much. I had tried it originally when they first released it and basically all it was; was a portal to edit your config files manually (saving you from using ssh or sftp). I never touched it again until recently and learned a lot has changed.

It's no cPanel and I still could not get it to actually make user accounts, but its getting there. I'd say its worth watching.

Kloxo is still being developed, but its buggy as all hell. Its also not secure. I found out I could do a few thing without even logging in. Which is to bad, because on the outside it reminded me a little bit between cPanel and Direct Admin.

ISPConfig as someone else said, very good on Debian. Don't use it anywhere else though. I'd recommend this one, but DO NOT follow all those howtoforge.com guides. Some of them actually tell you how to make your system less secure. You're better off following the official guides on how to set it up.

 

[karll]

what could your admins do thru any control panel if they don´t know/understand how things work. it will not help you in any way if they don´t understand the complex setup of a server. so what you need is a co-server-admin.

That is a valid point, of course. I suppose with time I hope they will learn a bit, especially if they can start out with a control panel instead of the scary command-line.

 

[SneakyDave]

I've used webmin in the past, but eventually, you'll probably find you don't need it, if you know your way around command lines. I wouldn't trust a co-admin with webmin if they didn't know a command line interface, but that's just me.

If I had co-admins, I'd probably just set up some restart scripts and the like for them to run rather than give them webmin access.

I think webmin helped me pinpoint a courier email problem I had once, but that was about it.