Free VPS Control Panels - Recommendations and Reviews?

[Genesis]

Managing a VPS is completely different from shared hosting. With shared hosting most hosts provide cPanel or DirectAdmin, which makes it a pleasure to manage our Websites. But with a VPS cPanel and DirectAdmin require individual licenses for each VPS, which makes it unaffordable for most. Our super geeks will probably be working with Linux only, but there is quite a large community of VPS owners who are managing their VPSs from a Windows environment.

I've tried out a number of the free control panels that are available and if any one is interested they can read about this in my blog. However I'd be very curious to know about our members' experiences with free control panels. Which ones do you suggest and why do you think they are better than any of the others?

 

[durgapujo2013]

Can i have VPS i like to run few SEO tools 24x7

 

[Genesis]

If you check the TOS for VPS you need to make 100 non-spam posts first. The 100 posts are counted from 1 December 2014.
http://www.gigarocket.net/forum/thread-2759.html

 

[ogah]

some free vps control panel
- kloxo
- vesta
- ispconfig
- webmin
- virtualmin
- mcmyadmin (for minecraft server)

 

[Genesis]

Aha, thanks Ogah. I notice all of them, but haven't tried ispconfig, virtualmin and mcmyadmin. Ispconfig should be interesting to try. Kloxo had a great reputation at one time. And then the owner passed away and it has some major security issues now because it doesn't get as supported as it should be with security updates. Vesta and Webmin are the better ones out of all of them.

 

[ogah]

i also haven't tried all of them. but i hear ispconfig is lightweigh control panel

 

[Dogmatix]

It's nice to see Giga having so many new things. VPS sounds impressive, but I don't know whether for what I need it could beat the shared hosting for me. I wish loads of good luck to our Linux geeks, or geeks in training (self-training). Maybe one day I'll sit down and learn a bit more, but for now I'm very happy what I have.

 

[badjoel]

"we require you to meet the monthly posting quota of 75 posts per month"
so everyone who got freeVPS have to posting 75 posts per month on gigarank forum?

 

[Genesis]

I'd be curious to know where you got the 75 posts per month from? Since you put it in quotes, can you please provide a link to the source of the quote.

You have to make 100 initial non-spam posts and then after that you have to maintain the VPS ownership for 30 posts per month. You can read that in the TOS:
http://www.gigarocket.net/forum/thread-2759.html

 

[xdude]

My favorite free hosting control panel so far is Kloxo-MR. It's a fork of infamous Kloxo panel but the developer is very active and their support forum is pretty good too. Developer and other members actively helping each other and you get answers quicker than in VestaCP or ispconfig forums. I know people say bad things about anything related to Kloxo but I have been using Kloxo-MR in one of my VPS for over 2 years without a problem. All you have to do is make sure you have taken basic security measures like changing ports, disabling root access and simple things like that.

I have used VestaCP too which is pretty easy to install and configure. But it has few short comings like no simple way to create Addons etc. Also their support forum is pretty much Russian.

These days I'm testing the free control pannel called CentOS web panel. It's still new but very promising. Developers are very active and support forum is good too. You get responses fast. I really like this panel but it's not lightweight. You need to have at least 512MB ram to run it in 32bit OS or 1GB is OS is 64bit.

 

[Gregoric]

Some kind of web admin for the VPS is tempting but well, so far I have managed to do everything via SSH

As I suppose, anything like that would consume far too much resources and since I am using free VPS, I'd rather not waste the resources on something I can (at least try to) achieve via SSH Well, maybe someday I'll get some of the suggested above.

 

[xdude]

Unless your vps has at least 512 RAM I don't think it's a good idea trying any of these control panels. Maybe Webmin but none of these. Also I use control panels when I have multiple sites and like to get things done quickly. If you have too many times and also regularly add and remove sites then SSH not exactly easy way.

I use control panels mostly because of Wordpress.

 

[Genesis]

Our VPS has 512 RAM. I found Webmin too slow on the VPS. I tried out a few control panels and in the end got the paid version of WEBUZO which is 25USD a year and comes with full suite of Softaculous scripts. If you want it for Word Press, it is the one they list right at the top of their paid version - scripts are beautifully organized. Installation through WEBUZO is smooth and easy, and very easy to work backups. I recently had need to restore the backups and that took seconds to do. It's not cPanel by a long shot, it also isn't a multi-user control panel, but for a small one-man-band personal VPS I think it is perfect. For now any way.

I probably need to go out there and see what new has happened over the last four months. I know the original team of Zpanel had been working on releasing Sentora. So may be worth checking out. I like to see a File Manager though and Zpanel didn't have it at the time I tested it. Zpanel was also too bulky, slow moving and it also had security issues, no doubt because it was bought out by Hostwinds and most of the original Zpanel team stopped helping to support it. They started a new control panel Sentora, which was still in Beta when I last connected with it in December. Not sure how it is doing now - probably need to sit down with the control panels again.

 

[xdude]

I heard too many negative things about zPanel/Sentora recently specially about security issues. I don't know if these are fixed or not but once a panel gets bad name it stay stuck for long time.

 

[Genesis]

but once a panel gets bad name it stay stuck for long time.

True! Kloxo got a bad name too. Vesta Panel seems to be the darling right now. Although it looks as though they are on the verge of going commercial.

 

[xdude]

Yeah just like Kloxo. They have fixed most of security problems and Kloxo-MR fork is so much better but still many think it's something like AIDs when it comes to free control panels. lol

VestaCP is pretty solid when it comes to security and also easy to install and configure but not very user friendly and lack of some options which other control panels have.

 

[Genesis]

VestaCP is pretty solid when it comes to security and also easy to install and configure but not very user friendly and lack of some options which other control panels have.

True. What made me move to the next CP was a lack of File Manager and sufficient support documentation. They prefer you to fork out some funds for buying support.

 

[xdude]

Yes. also if you check their forum it's mostly covered with Russian language discussions than English. It might take days before you get an answer in English. if not you need to go through old topics using Google translate or something.

 

[Genesis]

Yes. also if you check their forum it's mostly covered with Russian language discussions than English. It might take days before you get an answer in English. if not you need to go through old topics using Google translate or something.

I picked up on that too, but was quite puzzled though as the English that is used every where else on Vestacp is excellent and English First Language through and through. The support is however Russian as you say. Could be they paid someone to design and create the wording for the front end of the Website.

 

[xdude]

Yeah I wondered that too. I have VestaCP running in one of my vps for over one year. I haven't had any problems but I just keep things to basics. Support forum never give any answers in time. They doesn't seem to have premium support or anything either. They seems very concerned about security but seems have no interest in some other areas like interface.