An introduction to Web hosting control panels!
Are you a beginner in web-hosting field? Then, you must have a basic knowledge about different control panels available around you to manage your business. Here I am listing the web-hosting control panels which are commonly using to manage/control hosting accounts.
It will be a useful article for you, dear Admins. Before staring this, you need to learn the advantages and uses of control panels over a server without control panel.
What is a Web-Hosting control panel ?
It’s simply a panel to control the server which you want to create as your web host. It must be a difficult process to start/manage your web-hosting business with-out a control panel. There are a lot of open-source and commercial control panels are available around us.
Another advantage is, a control panel includes almost all necessary things to manage web-hosting. On the other side, without a control panel, you must need to install/compile necessary tools like Apache, Php, MySQL etc on your host server.
The main and important thing is, you must know how to control the server. That means, for a Linux server you must have an idea about the commands to manage the server as a web-hosting-server. It’s quit hard for normal people.
I, Important commercial control panels
1.1 ISPmanager
1.2 WHM/cPanel
Simply, I can say here is the solution for your search regarding control panels. It’s very easy to manage all things related to your hosting business. By using cPanel/WHM as your web-hosting control panel you can manage all things simply and painlessly.
It is easy to create/manage hosting accounts from cPanel. Every user has their own control panel with predefined functions to control their websites.
By using WHM/cPanel, it’s very easy to manage re-sellers. The root(you) can define the rules for a particular re-seller account simply. You can also create different packages for different hosting accounts simply from cPanel. I recommend cPanel your Linux host server.
Read : How can I install cPanel?
More about –> cPanel
1.3 Parallels Plesk
It’s an alternative hosting controller, which is suitable for both Linux and Windows. The installation and activation process for plesk is also simple and painlessly one. You can use it in any of the environments like VPS, Dedicated, Shared etc easily.
The Plesk also has the ability to create thousands of virtual accounts. By usind this you can simply manage mails, ftp, backups etc simply and fast. From this blog you can find something more on the Plesk.
More about –> Plesk
1.4 DirectAdmin
It’s little cheap compared to cPanel and Plesk. it’s installation require a valid license to complete successfully. We can also control different things like create an account, create email accounts, ftp accounts etc simply from the panel DirectAdmin.
In Directadmin control panel, we can simply change the login as Admin, re-sellers, users from the right section of the panel. Directadmin offering a demo user to test the panel >> DirectAdmin Demo <<
How can I install DirectAdmin ?
More about –> DirectAdmin
These are the main three commercial web-hosting control panels.
II. Open-source/free Web-hosting control panels.
A number of open-source control panels are available right now. Here I am listing some good open-source control panels to manage your web-hosting business.
2.1 Webmin/Virtualmin
A number of options are available in this control panel. The installation and usage is quite simple. This control panel is available for any OS architecture. Separate installation methods are available for both Deb based and RPM based servers.
We have already discussed different installations of Webmin. Check the link here for more details.
installation on centos
installation on Debian 4, 5, 6
installation on Ubuntu 10.04
installation on Ubuntu 12.xx, 13.xx
More about –> Webmin
2.2 ZPanel
This is also a commonly using weh-hosting control panel. It is available for for Linux, UNIX, MacOS and Microsoft Windows. Zpanel is written in purely PHP language and runs on Apache, PHP and MySQL. The core features includes Apache Web Server, hMailServer, FileZilla Server, MySQL, PHP, Webalizer, RoundCube, phpMyAdmin, phpSysInfo, FTP Jailing and many more.
ZPanel – Install for CentOs
ZPanel – Install for Windows
More about –> ZPanel
2.3 ISPConfig
It’s an another commonly using open source control panel in web-hosting industry. ISPConfig is licensed under the BSD license. The important feature is, it can control more than one server at a time. By using this control panel we can simply create and manage FTP, DNS, Databases, domain etc quit simply. If you wanna a demo, click here >> DEMO <<
Here I am including some features of the control panel ISPConfig,
1, It can control morethan one server.
2, Easy configuration for webservers Apache and Nginx.
3, Simple web-interface for Admin, re-sellers and users.
The download link for ISPConfig
More about –> ISPConfig
2.4 OpenPanel
OpenPanel is a free open source control panel. It has lots of functionality, an attractive interface and is very user friendly. OpenPanel is a platform for developers. Because it is extremely open and modular it can be utilized to control any process on a Linux server.
Will add more soon…
You forgot Interworx, an excellent control panel.
Ohh!! Thanks for pointing out, will be updated shortly.
Thanks for the information. I am installing ISPconfig following the guide at rosehosting.com/blog/how-to-install-ispconfig-3-on-ubuntu-16-04/. It seems like a nice control panel. Do you have some recommendations?
You forgot MachPanel that supports Microsoft CSP Direct and Indirect partners by offering complete business automation for office365 & Azure and also supports enterprise applications like Microsoft Exchange, Skype for Business, SharePoint, Hyper-V, Dynamics 365 & Windows Web Hosting.
Kindly add it to the list.
These screenshots are pretty dated (even given the date of the original post). If you need help getting new ones, please let me know!
Thanks Benny.
Glad to see your comment on my Blog.