If I were getting another server - with the intent to re-sell webspace - and I had my choice between Ensim, Pleak and CPanel - what should I choose.

I have no real knowledge of any of them - other than they all allow me to offer people a "user-friendly" interface to administer their site.

What is better?

Plesk

Version 6 (currently in Beta) looks very good - and Plesk are today going to announce the merging with another company whose name escapes me.

They are also developing a Windows version as well.

Plesk reminds me a lot of threads - it is often the quality product that is ignored & criticised for no reason (apart from a alack of knowledge), whilst the more inferior ones are supported by many more people.

Ok, I am going to be slightly biased and say cpanel because I own a few cpanel licenses But to be honest, I have used plesk, cpanel, and ensim in the past. Ensim was ok, did what you wanted it to, but didn't have a lot of the bells and whistles of cpanel at the time. Plesk, used that for a good 8 months or so, and thought it was decent. It was fairly straightforward, no flashy graphics or icons, like Ian said, kinda like threads. But at the same time, I think the learning curve was a tad higher than with other software.

Cpanel, well, I guess it is sort of like the windows of control panels. It has a ton of features, a very easy to use GUI.. but at the price of more frequent bugs than some others. Typically though, like windows, these bugs are minor and fixed automatically with the cpanel updates that run nightly.

All of my servers run cpanel, but not as much for the admin useage, but for the clients. The actual admin area of cpanel is called WHM (Web Host Manager). This is easy to use and powerful, but the strong point with cpanel is how it appeals to hosting clients and the ease of use packed with a lot of features.

So it is a tough call Josh, it depends on how comfortable you are with server administration, and of course, price. If you want to find out even more opinions, check out the control panel forum at www.webhostingtalk.com

There are always debates going on about the various control panels, and you can read many good reviews about each of them

At least 3 threads a week

I have had shared hosting accounts where I used Ensim.... I think Infopop uses it. I think it works well - but it's not my favorite.

I've used CPanel and that's the one I was leaning towards - just like you said - it seemed easy and offered a TON of features. Sort of value added.

I've never used Plesk.
I guess I might lean towards CPanel because I seem to like it best and won't have much of a learning curve myself.

It's good to know you like it and are happy with it.

Thanks.

Plesk has been losing money like crazy and just got bought out. We tried it. Didn't like it.

Search our support forums for the number of times plesk is used (and cursed) which is another reason we stayed away from it.

Ensim is no picknick, and needs to be installed on a brand new install, it cannot be laid on an existing server.

Haven't tried cpanel recently but we did like Ensim better a year or so ago.

well, we have etrinix on my server, and it is AWESOME.....

other than the shotty support from them. It's cheap, and I think once you get it all running right, it's probably the best solution. Ask Nikos though, he's the one taking care of it.

[]navaho said:
Plesk has been losing money like crazy and just got bought out. We tried it. Didn't like it.

Search our support forums for the number of times plesk is used (and cursed) which is another reason we stayed away from it.[/]

Can't agree there I run plesk - and apart from a problem, where threads would not write to the directory it has been fine - after I figured that one out - it has been fine. Also you will find many are either using 2.5 still or the standard version, rather than the RPM version.

Like most pieces of software - and especially control panels, the newbie server admin is expecting it to take away all of their problems and do everything for them. Life is not like that!

A CP also will not install firewalls, disable telnet etc.

If anyone had plesk issues, chuck them my way - as I have been there, done that and bought the tee-shirt

Hehe - I usually have to defend threads like this, when VB owners say it is useless

I will say that I signed up and got CPanel.

It's pretty slick. Wow - easy control panel for users.
I made an account and went in.... one click and it installed phpBB. Under another tab I clicked and it Installed Invision Board.

This might not help my threads work.

Really though - it's slick.

This n00b got it up and running.

Would be really great with these panels, if IP, were to allow them to install a trial version of Threads - seen hacks for most other panels, but never threads.

Etrinix is Windows 2k only from what I've read. Am I wrong, shortbus? Are you on windows or a Unix flavor?

Josh, you'll notice it installs freebie ware, right?

Yeah.... but it was easy.

[]navaho said:
Etrinix is Windows 2k only from what I've read. Am I wrong, shortbus? Are you on windows or a Unix flavor?[/]
You are right Dave. It is on a Windows host and it comes with its own mail server. You must have IIS installed on it with one FTP site, the default WWW site and the SMTP site.

Installation is a bit slow but it does work well when it is set up properly.

Just to update if anyone else is curious.

I ended up getting 2 servers with CPanel. Actually I manage a total of 3 Servers with CPanel.

It's wonderful..... feature rich and makes updating all the server software a breeze. I would recommend it to anyone else who is looking.

Have you upgraded to cpanel 7 on your servers yet? I have on one of mine, and it's really slick. The new x2 skins are awesome, as well as a lot of little features here and there that have been added, as well as using Exim 4 instaed of Exim 3

Just an FYI for anyone looking for a FREE web administrator enviroment to play arround with www.webmin.com is very easy to use and has a lot of the features you would find in these other "control panels" as well as a webfront for user email etc. I have installed it on my server and it is very easy to figure out.

Yup! Installed it on 2 servers last night - upgraded everything.

Yes, the X interface is really cool looking.

And the upgrade was pretty slick and painless.

I have webmin installed too.... as I am used to it from my old server. Yes, defaintley a nice interface to manage the server with as well.

I have a plain RH server and use Webmin as much as possible. I will be moving servers soon and would love CPanel based on the added admin benefits, since I'm rough at true RH administration. I have 2 questions..

- I was told a while back that these front ends (Esim at that time) wreak havoc on the file system and makes it a nightmare when doing installs and other system level admin outside of the front end. The person also added that if I was to require a server move back to a plain RH server, it would be an issue since scripts may have to be corrected for file paths. How true is this?

- Based on what I have read in this thread... it sounds like you can use Webmin even if CPanel is installed. Is this correct?

- OH.. I gues the most important... Would there be any significant issue moving my UBBT from plain RH to CPanel? I was hoping to set up the file structure the same on the new system and just tar the user directory to the new system.

THANKS for any insight that may save me time

"I was told a while back that these front ends (Esim at that time) wreak havoc on the file system and makes it a nightmare when doing installs and other system level admin outside of the front end. The person also added that if I was to require a server move back to a plain RH server, it would be an issue since scripts may have to be corrected for file paths. How true is this?"

Ensim currently only supports an older version of Redhat.
Once you go Ensim you cannot go back. Only way to get rid of it is to nuke and pave the machine.
Ensim gets it's fingers into everything. Updating one component on your own breaks everything unless you really really understand how the Ensim system is built and are willing to take a lot of time to do the most minor updates. From that point on you're on your own. You'll not be able to use Esnim's updates any longer.

I have not tried CPanel. I'll bet it is not vastly different.

navaho is correct about cpanel.. as since the backend essentially automates everything, the software itself has it's hands in a lot of aspects of the machine. As a general rule, do your research before making a decision. Try out as many demos as you can, as trying to switch systems can be quite a task.

I'm not as familiar with Ensim, but I know cpanel does allow a bit of freedom when it comes to installing server software. For example you can install mysql, php, various perl modules, programs like imagemagick, etc etc all manually, without the need of the control panel. So if you don't want to use the backend to do the updates for you, you can compile and install pieces as you see fit.

can mysql be upgraded from the 3 series to the 4 series on plesk 6.01?

Yes - there are some custom RPM's around to take you to 4.0.14. The problem with 4.0.x is that it will not just drop into Plesk without some hacking. As of 4.0.x they've added a new restricted word, called "ssl".

The modified RPM's get round this and ensure that things like Horde (webmail) do not break.

This should actually work on verion 5 as well - although I haven't tried.

Versions are available for RH 7.3 & RH 9.

thank you these hosts are reluctant to update it and yeah, it's a dedicated server.

[]JoshPet said:
I've used CPanel and that's the one I was leaning towards - just like you said - it seemed easy and offered a TON of features. Sort of value added.
<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> [/]

I should vote for cPanel too. There I have the Fantastico autoinstaller and that eases my life a lot. I can test one of the best open source scripts for a day and delete it and have another one instead.
cPanel!