Which VPS hosting control panel to choose in 2021?

Question

System administration

All categorical greetings.

I have several of my own sites and several sites of friends, they were running on CentOS7 + ISPmanager 5 (perpetual license).
Now I had to move to a new server and ISPmanager 5 can no longer be installed - only version 6, but it is already on a subscription basis. The old 5 to 6 are not updated. There is no desire to pay forever.

In this connection, the question is: what to choose now for hosting? Even a free OpenSource solution is better.
VestaCP? fast panel? Both used for review, ambiguous opinion. Always had to finish something.

Answer 1

I have tried many panels, and had different experience of operation and impressions left after use.
Cyberpanel - the web design of the panel is very bad, but from the point of view of the principles of building a panel for a server that hosts different sites - this panel has no equal among all the panels I have tested described above. And open_basedir, and delimitation of each site under a separate user, and a nice site storage structure ala: /home/user/public_html,log,backup
And nice backups, and the ability to tweak all sorts of things like Lets Encrypt without problems, either access restriction, or WAF out of the box, or a file manager, and so on.
But for a few years, this panel got me. First, she is extremely buggy. It was repeatedly broken, and my hobby projects (static sites) were broken. Secondly, they have bugs with updates through the version, which completely break the entire panel and the ability to enter inside. And it breaks down completely without the ability to fix it, only a clean reinstallation. Repeatedly reported this - no help. Thirdly, these are OpenLiteSpeed ​​bugs, or web server configuration bugs. When sessions for 19 gigs are collected in 1 month in the lsphp folder, this is not ok at all, that the server crashes and the inodes are all busy. And this is one of the bugs. There were bugs with their caching, which is enabled by default, and had to be forcibly disabled in each .htaccess for domains. And there were bugs with backups. Those. according to the principle of creation in the abstract sense - top panel, cool, well done, very well done in terms of architecture. But the bugs are stupid, they just piss me off.
I liked with ols that everything worked relatively well with any project, any rewrites, caching, different versions of php, and took up significantly less resources than Apache, or Apache and nginx. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this board. I don't know what needs to happen to get her back to normal.
VestaCP - used this stub for a long time. Just the wildest disgust for their templates and web server configs. What idiot wrote this? And for what needs? A huge number of times they broke this panel, both in general and for me personally. But visually and in terms of usability, one of the most hassle-free and simple and convenient panels on the market. She is dead in 2021. The last some progress and updates and work on the panel were completed in the year 2017-2018. Everything else is done when there is free time.
HestiaCP - a piece of g. based on VestaCP, after the latter gave up on development.
The author of this panel does not pull the number of problems and bugs in this panel and the community. Incompetent, bad testing. But in terms of security in terms of the admin panel - he did a good job. Everything else is very bad. The installer may not even install the panel the first time. Different installation configs without Apache are not fully supported, for example, on nginx + php-fpm. Extremely poor inherited templates from Vesta with all the jambs and problems.
Regular bugs and problems with LetsEncrypt. Eats a lot of RAM. But visually well done in terms of appearance. Under the hood - nonsense and anarchy, but there are much worse panels.
This panel, like cyberpanel, lacks a strong community and volunteers to finish the panel to the desired condition. Alas - very crude. But no critical bugs like in CyberPanel were found among web components. Regularly you need to finish something in the panel.
FastPanel - for me personally, this is some kind of misunderstanding. Again, the principles and architecture seem to be good, but everything is somehow damp and inert.
DirectAdmin- more dead than alive. Although it is used massively on hosters, this panel has complete seams with security. If we are talking about shared hosting, then hacking one site with almost 100% probability will entail hacking all sites, since the panel has no restrictions within one account in terms of ACL (of various kinds). Out of the box, a lot of absurdity and degenerate solutions ala mysql port block, or a block of other ports via csf. Or file size limits. Previously, 2-3 years ago, the panel was a complete bottom. But after the cPanel pricing policy changes, we increased the base, and accepted pull requests and offers in order to somehow intercept the flow of users who began to migrate to other panels. I can't say that DirectAdmin has been a good panel in my personal experience. I didn't like the interaction experience, and the problems mentioned above especially with php. In 2021, the panel interface and panel features are finally conveniently located and improved for the convenience of users. But I would not sit on this panel. Well, I don’t like this approach to panels in terms of architecture. I consider it unsafe, miserable.
ispconfig is a heavyweight monster with hidden fees ala: "buy our documentation to set everything up properly, otherwise there will be unpleasant problems with server performance out of the box." Used - did not go at all nirazu. Not bad, no special bugs were noticed, but a heavy panel.
centminmod- this is not even a panel, these are scripts, and the author of eva2000 - did a very good job on them, and nginx, myslq, php configs, and so on. This is an example of what should be in any panel out of the box. The configs are well honed, finished, tested, and the developer has a passion for servers and his panel, but he lacks the skills to create a web panel, which this project lacks. One of the best panels in terms of stability and server configs from the list above. But not easy to use. But configs are a real sweetie. But not for multisite at all, although there are options. This panel is a kind of foundation for me, which was set up well before me and put into operation. Handles will have to work a little depending on the web application (if specific), but not as much as in the West. Usually a couple of lines of changes in the configs, no more. But it doesn't work well with multiple sites on the same server.
CentOS Web Panel - I did not understand at all what it is, and why it is needed, and why it has some kind of popularity.
Froxlor - not used for a long time, not bad. Some basic principles of working from web servers with many sites are observed. But there is a story about early hacks of this panel. Therefore, unfortunately, this fact weighed down and forced me to rush to another panel. Nothing special, but a lightweight, simple socket. But there is a little more trust than vestaCP.
I also used the rest of the unpublished panels, but not for a long time.
Therefore, too lazy to write about them, and I do not remember the shortcomings.
One of the most convenient and simple panels for me were: cPanel, Plesk, ISPManager but all are paid and expensive.
Now I'm sitting on self-written scripts and my nginx configs. For it got to finish each panel with handles, or to receive notifications that the site is not working, because there is a bug in the module of the next panel.
And yes, in my "answer" experience from 2012 to 2021.
And I checked all the panels above in 2021 in the same way, and some had significant changes, while others did not have them at all. Those. The review is relevant, but subjective. Maybe someone had a different experience, but mine is what it is.

Answer 2

I really like BrainyCP. Able to automatically renew free SSL certificates, any version of php to choose from, auto-backups and a bunch of other useful features. Seriously, this is the richest panel in terms of functionality.

Answer 3

At one fine moment, everyone comes to one thing - that all these panels are nonsense and life is much easier and easier without them. Especially, after your competencies grow, look at the configs that the panel creates and the hair on end, after hacking the panels, and this is usually direct access to the server and other adventures. Not to mention the extra consumption of server resources. In extreme cases, it’s better to throw in some kind of minimal panel for certain specific tasks.
In most cases, the server is configured once - then everything works, if something needs to be updated, this can be implemented with scripts, at the same time there will be automation. You can have your typical configs at hand for various things, up to your server configuration script from 0.

Answer 4

If for yourself, then Fastpanel. No options.

Answer 5

Ispmanager lite 6 for 10 domains for a year costs 5 thousand rubles.
If you have all the sites of charitable organizations, then write to the ISP - they will provide a free version.
If you have commercial projects but the profit from the sites does not allow you to allocate the above amount, then maybe you are doing something wrong? Or just really greedy :)

Answer 6

Check out https://www.keyhelp.de/en/ - not open source, but free.

Answer 7

Check aapanel.com. free. in my work I tried a bunch of panels, but none of them reach the acceptable functionality. Somehow I ran into aapanel .. I've been sitting on it for half a year)) and there is no desire to switch to something else. I don’t know about security .. there were no such cases, but the functionality is chic + comfortable and beautiful.