Which free control panel do you recommend?
- Thread starter H a z
- Start date
No reason to use anything but the BEST https://centminmod.com/
And its FREE!
And its FREE!
The more minimal the control panel, the better; there are fewer expected issues.
You only need these services to run XenForo:
But then most of the free ones are not so stable compared to the paid but cheap options.
The ones I tried several years ago are these:
Free options that are good:
CyberPanel is bloated for XenForo needs.
You only need these services to run XenForo:
- Nginx
- PHP-FPM
- MariaDB or MySQL
- Redis
But then most of the free ones are not so stable compared to the paid but cheap options.
The ones I tried several years ago are these:
Free options that are good:
CyberPanel is bloated for XenForo needs.
You are hosting your own server? Linux? Are you going to do more with it than run XenForo? Such as email, FTP access, etc?
I am using ISP Config on two servers that have XenForo running on them. One of them also has other sites running Mediawiki and WordPress.
I am using ISP Config on two servers that have XenForo running on them. One of them also has other sites running Mediawiki and WordPress.
I too have used ISPConfig like @GrnEyedDvl and enjoyed it for a few years on my dedicated server. Ive recently switched to HestiaCP mainly because I switched server providers and it was a one click install lol. ISPConfig can be alittle confusing to get around at first but it’s very customizable, it would be the ideal control panel if you reselling hosting as you can create billable accounts for users, allocate certain amounts of resources to these users etc, much like a hosting provider.
Free but the paid for support version is cheap enough just get the Pro support. $144 USD per year.
There’s probably no single “best” panel for XenForo. It depends on your experience level and what you prioritize.
Among the free panels I’ve personally used, I liked aaPanel the most. It’s easy to manage, has a good feature set, and I found it quite practical for running XenForo sites.
That said, I currently use DirectAdmin. It’s stable, lightweight, and well-supported. The main reason I moved away from some free panels is that I’m always a bit concerned about security and potential zero-day vulnerabilities in free control panels, especially when running production communities.
If I had to rank the ones I’ve used:
DirectAdmin > aaPanel > CloudPanel > CyberPanel
But honestly, server optimization, PHP configuration, Redis, LiteSpeed/OpenLiteSpeed, and proper caching usually have a much bigger impact on XenForo performance than the control panel itself.
Among the free panels I’ve personally used, I liked aaPanel the most. It’s easy to manage, has a good feature set, and I found it quite practical for running XenForo sites.
That said, I currently use DirectAdmin. It’s stable, lightweight, and well-supported. The main reason I moved away from some free panels is that I’m always a bit concerned about security and potential zero-day vulnerabilities in free control panels, especially when running production communities.
If I had to rank the ones I’ve used:
DirectAdmin > aaPanel > CloudPanel > CyberPanel
But honestly, server optimization, PHP configuration, Redis, LiteSpeed/OpenLiteSpeed, and proper caching usually have a much bigger impact on XenForo performance than the control panel itself.
