Now that I’ve actually been using this amazing system for several months, I’m wanting to better understand some things that still don’t seem obvious to me.
I know Vmin is built on top of Wmin, and by installing Vmin I have access to both.
I also understand that the VirtualMin UI provides in many ways a more simplified and/or organized view of the more extensive underlying capabilities of Webmin.
Yet VirtualMin has extensive features of its own.
Before I go do this myself… … has anyone created a comparison table of the two, assessing various big picture features?
I’m thinking it would help to have a table with icons… perhaps selecting between options like: Not a part Basic support Comprehensive/detailed support or Smart/Simplified support
If you’re managing websites, particularly in a virtual hosting environment (whether all your own domains, or hosting clients is irrelevant…if you have a bunch of domains), you need Virtualmin.
Webmin is a general purpose systems management tool. It’s like a GUI version of SSH. It can configure almost anything on a Linux/UNIX system, but it doesn’t do anything on its own.
Virtualmin is a web hosting control panel. If you have websites that have users, databases, apps, etc. it’s the only sensible way to manage them in a Webmin system. You could spend hours in Webmin setting up the stuff that Virtualmin does in seconds.
If you don’t have websites, well, you probably don’t need Virtualmin. (For just mail, Virtualmin is useful, but not mandatory. Many people manage mail servers with just Webmin, but if they do that they’ve manually setup their own mail processing stack…maybe system-wide MailScanner+Dovecot Sieve instead of procmail.)
Usermin don’t care. You can use it for webmail in either scenario (though Usermin requires Webmin to manage it, since it can’t configure itself, since it drops privileges when you login).
We come alongside many initiatives involving one or the other of those options.
So, my proposed “decision tree” now looks like:
Is this a Linux-hosted environment? If so, at least Webmin.
Is there a need to also host a web site and/or users (web, ftp, mail, or other) and/or database(s) for some kind of hosted application? If so, install Virtualmin (+Webmin)
Or better yet, use the Automated Virtualmin Installation – Virtualmin guide to install Webmin + Virtualmin on a fresh system. Adding Virtualmin to Webmin is quite a bit more laborious than running the automated Virtualmin installation script.
Took me a long time understanding (or trying to) the naming convention used, and services supported under Virtualmin, Webmin and Usermin. Then you have Cloudmin and so forth. Many names. I see the purpose of and how services are differentiated but it was confusing - I feel it was derived from a technical point and not necessarily from UX or end user/ front end.
If latter it would have been a single name for branding purposes (stronger presence) and modular within. Similar to Webmin and its modules but covering the whole *min estate of services. Default slimline service for those who want only the basics or pro/advance utilising heavy modules to make it more complete. Many options today are not used as people dont know what they are for/do to the system. FAQ/guides very helpful, something that has improved last few years.
Agree with you. There are elements I still dont get, or spend ages trying to figure out. We need more feedback from users/owners. Considering there are thousands of thousands of users, not much being posted in the forums - apart from the usual new starter errors.
… has anyone created a comparison table of the two, assessing various big picture features?
Not a part
Basic support
Comprehensive/detailed support
or 
Smart/Simplified support