What is the best FREE alternative to cPanel?

B

berks

Guest
Hi.

I am creating a server mainly for the experience of it. I am seeking your opinions as to which free server control panel is best. I have heard many good things about Kloxo, Virtual min, ISPConfig and Froxlor.

My main question is for a server intended to host more than one domains, while working through a Dynamic Dns and behind a router, which would be best?
 


My Personal preference would go to Kloxo, it's a Free-OSS, and lite Multi-hosting control panel. You'll have complete access to a lot of server features and at the same time host multiple clients who also enjoy a lot of features for maintaining their website. It's almost similar to how CPanel is and i love them both.

The next best alternative i could suggest to you is Webmin which is similar to kloxo, Virtualmin is a VPS management software, webmin comes in place of kloxo.
 
I will also go with Kloxo. It's GUI is not so good but It has lot of functions like cPanel. Other than Kloxo, ISPConfig is also good.
 
sam300 said:
I will also go with Kloxo. It's GUI is not so good but It has lot of functions like cPanel. Other than Kloxo, ISPConfig is also good.
Click to expand...

Yeah as you've said and to be honest Kloxo has a very dull and classic look to it, but ofcourse since it's opensource you can always edit the images and CSS. As also there's an iconpack available which looks really good on kloxo, it has been attached as an announcement in the Kloxo support forum.
 
To be honest I tried using Kloxo but I could not get it to work. All my domains were being redirected to a standard page, which stated that I needed to map the domain to an Ip address. I have since moved on to a combination of Webmin/Virtualmin; so far it works wonderfully and I actually like the control it gives over the server via the control panel.
I will probably try ISPConfig to soon to be able to give a better comparison between them all.
 
Kloxo is simple to setup, well i got it as a one click installation as Host in a box with Cent OS 5.7 and i had it installed.

I had no hassle setting it up, actually once you get used to setting it up you'll remember how to do it every time. I understand the issue that you were facing with your domains.

Basically Kloxo has a default index page setup for every client or domain you create, so basically you'll have to go to the file manager and have that replaced or deleted. If you delete that page you'll have a 404 page not found which would prove that everything is setup fine.

Also, Webmin is pretty simple to use too, i wouldn't mind use it either.
 
I actually tried deleting the index.html page, I think the problem was that I have the server behind a router and as such the Ip the domain was pointing to and the Ip in Kloxo was registering was different.

Well that is my theory, On the page it said I needed to map the Ip to a domain. However when I tried that I got an error stating that the domain did not resolve back to the Ip I was trying to map it to. An example of the page id provided below.

http://forum.lxcenter.org/index.php?t=getfile&id=1471&private=0
 
I have used Kloxo. Actually I am still using it. I just need to check to see if they have released a 64-bit version yet. It's free. It's easy to install. And it works. What more can you ask for?
 
I haven't heart of EHCP before, i just took a look at the screenshots on their site, it does look quite simple and unique. The problem with most hosting panels at their beginning stage of development is that they are a bit buggy and might have loopholes and could be vulnerable to hacking.

Kloxo faced the same issue at the initial stage, but now it has a couple of developers working hard to release updates regularly.

Another problem is you don't really get all the billing softwares to work with every Control panel. I was struggling to find one for Kloxo, but later i found that The Hosting Tool was a free Billing software for Kloxo panels.
 
I have heard of that before, didn't really like it that much. Having installed ISPConfig just now, I really prefer Virtualmin, about to reinstall that now. This entire process has been really thrilling, I must say I really enjoy exploring this OS.
 
I've not heard of used ISPconfig, Does it have the same features and abilities of CPanel or Kloxo? I wanted to try their Demo but i think it is down at the moment.

I liked how Kloxo tried to keep things similar to how CPanel was.
 
ISPConfig varies a lot from cPanel, I never attempted to explore its features fully, however, I was able to install it and have a website running in under 2hours using their instructions.

I chose Virtualmin over it due to the fact that I find it easier to work with that either ISPConfig or Kloxo, and unlike ISPConfig it boasts an install script. ISPCOnfig is relatively easy to use but didn't quite suite my tastes.

When I was just beginning my research I found an article that did a good job (IMO) at comparing the various Control Panels available. The article can be found here: http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/10-free-web-hosting-control-panels-to-manage-servers-easier/

The Online Demo is operational at the moment, I just accessed it via this link: http://www.ispconfig.org/ispconfig-3/online-demo/
 
Thanks for the article, I noticed that there are a couple of Free alternatives that i've not heard of like OpenPanel, GNUPanel and OpenOnyx... and maybe i remember reading this article some time before, which i might have found through google in hopes of finding a free alternative, but i cared less to take a note of those panels.

The demo of ISPConfig looks really nice, everything has a tabular menu. In kloxo we had this, but they were not well organized.
 
Webmin+Virtualmin. It's very light on resources yet full of features.
If you use RHEL, CentOS, Debian, or Ubuntu it even has an automated install script. :rolleyes:
 
miks said:
Webmin+Virtualmin. It's very light on resources yet full of features.
Click to expand...

The main reason I decided to stick with it, I am actually using an old netbook as my server and as such resources are a bit limited.
 
For me try Ispconfig. Goes fine and have a lot of support. Actually have 2 servers and they have been working since 2009 without troubles. Hope helps
 
diegosuse said:
For me try Ispconfig. Goes fine and have a lot of support. Actually have 2 servers and they have been working since 2009 without troubles. Hope helps
Click to expand...

How's their user support and regularity of patching bugs by the community? I need to know this cause i've seen a couple of bugs in the bug tracker that haven't been looked upon lately.

I have the same issue with Kloxo, their development team is small and slow, I was waiting for them to release a Language pack in NL and a couple of modifiable themes.
 
Webmin is the best free alternative to cPanel. Webmin is an open source server and hosting control panel. It provides lot of similar feature as cPanel. Some of the features include bandwidth usage, user account management, backups, SSH access, and email management. Webmin is built on modules, and more third party modules can be easily added. This further enhances the functioanality of Webmin. Latest versions of Webmin can be installed on Windows based servers as well.
 
I have been using open panel - it seem s to do the job, there are just a few issues with backing up but nothing that I can't handle - I was a bit sick of cpanel hanging when publishing, I have never had that trouble yet with open panel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Members online

Total: 497 (members: 5, guests: 492)

Latest posts

Top