Server Control Panels: Comparison

The Server Control Panel is an indispensable tool that simplifies the process of setting up the right environment for your websites. It is also necessary for those who do not have sufficient skills to work "manually" on a Linux server.

To decide on the choice of the control panel, consider the availability of certain features in each of them and choose the most suitable one for your needs.

Also, if you have never used any of them, you can try to work with the one you like to see if it suits you.

To do this, you can follow the links given in this article to the demo versions of the panels (they are presented in front of the comparison table), or order a server with an installed panel of your choice.

Please note that changing the control panel implies a complete reinstallation of the OS on the server. The data can be saved and restored after reinstallation.

You can carry out all the work on saving and restoring yourself, or create a request to technical support to replace the control panel while saving the data (as standard, these are website files and their databases). In order to avoid misunderstandings, we immediately inform you that it should be remembered that standard data recovery procedures are not always sufficient for your sites to work correctly, especially for non-standard projects.

In this case, it may take an indefinite time to "adapt" the site to the server environment, which in most cases is quite successful.

Sometimes during the "adaptation," we may ask you for information regarding the requirements of the site scripts for the software, as well as some other questions. If you know of any nuances regarding the requirements for the software or any other settings on the server, you should immediately inform us to reduce the recovery time of the site.

This does not mean that we are incompetent at server administration. This only means that each site can be unique due to the script code used, and it is impossible to predict absolutely everything that may be needed for correct operation. However, we make every effort to ensure that your site works correctly.

We have compared the following dashboards based on basic criteria:

• ISPmanager (to access the demo version, click "Demo" on the page that opens)
• VestaCP
• HestiaCP
• DirectAdmin
• aaPanel

The ratings were based on our experience. They may differ from your personal assessment.

In the future, the values in the table can be changed depending on your feedback.

* HestiaCP is based on VestaCP. Supported OS: Debian (9,10), Ubuntu (16,18,20).

** starting from version 1.56

Many people have probably never heard of aaPanel.

We have not previously used this control panel on client servers. However, in the future, it may gain our trust.

Therefore, we will list separately the pros and cons that we want to draw your attention to.

Advantages:

1. Open-source
2. There are some unique tools, for example:

• WebSite Speed (website acceleration, support for dynamic acceleration of major website projects)
• PHP Guardian (PHP-FPM work status manager, needed to prevent a lot of 502! errors)
• Flexible optimization of MySQL settings for given resources
• Convenient system for monitoring server load, which eliminates the need to install third-party software for these purposes
• Convenient implementation of server security
• PM2 Manager (Node.js manager, built-in node.js + npm + nvm + pm2)
• Java Project Manager (tool for developing and debugging JSP programs)
• Docker Manager (open-source application container engine management)
• MongoDB (requires at least 2 CPU cores)
• Management of multi-version Python and projects (available only for CentOS)

Disadvantages:

• only English is supported
• Little-used on our servers
• Articles with basic instructions are in progress, but you can check the official documentation.