I would like to request that you consider becoming a cPanel partner so that you can offer your clients VPS cPanel licenses cheaply.

I know that I can obtain a cPanel license for $15 which is not unreasonable, but if you could sell us an internal license at a rate of a dollar or two profit per month you could sell it to us for about $7 - $9 a month

I'm not proposing offering any installation service or anything like that, just allow us to grab a valid license and install cPanel ourselves.

I'm here because I love what you all offer for the price - I'd just love to have access to cPanel for less.

/whine

Thanks all

That's quite an interesting idea, I might consider getting one for that kind of price. Only if it didn't impact the other services though XD

cPanel has a VPS version of cPanel that minimizes its resource usage. The cost is also reduced. My previous vps host charged $12 per month for a cPanel/whm license.

Jeff

Yes that is what I am referring to. The cost of obtaining the VPS cPanel license from an external reseller is at least $15 per month - the minimum we can obtain a license for because Linode does not offer one.

The cost of an internal license to Linode would be about $5 - $7 per month per license depending on how many they sell and then whatever they want to mark it up. The $12 you were paying was likely at least $5/month profit for your previous host but its still cheaper than our alternative.

I definitely understand that people get attached to admin panels . cPanel is a pretty nice product, but I've grown quite fond of ISPConfig (http://www.ispconfig.org) over the years for web/email/database server management. If you haven't used it before, it's really an excellent product, and it's also open source / free software.

It's been under active development for a long time now, and the project just released a stable version 3 a couple of weeks ago. Personally, I still prefer version 2, which is okay as it's still actively developed and maintained. Version 3 has a completely new interface; personal preferences may vary. Version 3 apparently has seamless support for managing multiple servers, as well.

It manages everything most folks need for a production server, and there are easily installed plugins for things like phpMyAdmin and webmail. If you were so inclined, you could easily extend it by writing your own plugins. It has support for reseller type stuff, although I've not personally used that functionality.

One of the better benefits for me is the fact that because it's free, I can install it across as many development systems as I like, without having to worry about control panel differences between dev, test, and production systems. There are excellent HOWTOs on the net that can guide you through the process of setting up a VPS to support ISPConfig "out of the box."

Good luck in your endeavors.

_________________
Educational resources for parents and teachers: http://www.ClassHelper.org

For my own use, I prefer the command line. Whenever I offer space to others they seem to expect cPanel.

cPanel and WHM use a lot of resources, even the vps version.

Jeff

Can't agree more. I absolutely hate cPanel, it eats resources, and command line is just so much easier, and more reliable.

And most of all- it's free!

Couldn't agree more.

Not only cPanel/Plesk/etc are complete resource hogs, they sometimes configure the server in the worst and most stupid way possible ..

The bold is my primary concern.

I administer a community of several thousand members and I like to provide them with an easy means of setting up their own projects.

With the command line that means I end up doing everything for them... I actually do use ISPconfig now which helps a ton, but is still not quite pick up and play ready like cpanel.

From an ease of use standpoint I think cpanel is the best offering I've come across.

Anyway just a suggestion - all I'm proposing is the option anyway.

Well, ISPConfig3 is better than cPanel. It uses less resources, and integates nicely with your web server of choice. cPanel's forced aliases (/cpanel, /whm, etc.), and constant RAM usage are horrible, not to mention that it's retail.

Command line is still the best, though.

Command line is best to you.

For a user that doesn't know how to set this up, it's completely foreign. ISPConfig does not handle this stuff anywhere near as friendly as cPanel. If you're trying to give some control to non-technical users, one of the commercials is a much better bet.

I have a "reseller" account at a shared host that I keep because I have users setup for a bunch of my family. My dad can handle adding email addresses, etc through a real CP. I'd shudder to consider giving him command line access.

I never said that cPanel wasn't user-friendly. They do a good job on simplifying a gigantic amount of services.

I would have to say I concur with this.

Please lets have no more "no, use command line" talk. The reason I and others have looked at cPanel (and others) is not because -WE- want them but because -OTHERS- need to be able to manage their own content. As has been said previously, these are quite often non-technical people.

I would like one server with a Control Panel to move other services. At the moment I can't because people would not be able to manage their own services. I've also looked at ISPConfig from a non-commercial perspective, but CPanel seems to win as far as completeness and user-friendliness goes, even if it creates sub-optimal configuration.


* This would just be one linode for me, I already have three. The other servers I will continue to manage as is because I am able to.

Slightly OT but I use virtualmin pro on my 360 and it works really well. Apparently the virtualmin people are meant to be introducing a cheaper VPS licensing model soon too which may be worth exploring....

One thing that's put me off VirtualMin is from the demoes finding they require Java plugins for file management and other tools. I'd be more likely to run with VirtualMin if they had a web/javascript based tool.