The last days I was testing many control panel scripts and so I found Virtualmin. But this discussion shows me that Virtualmin Pro is just not affordable for us. We’ve used PLESK in the past and are looking for an alternaive since PLESK is to expensive too with many domains.
But now we found two quite good but not so expensive panels:
DirectAdmin (which costs $89 unlimited domains)
ISPmanager (about $150 with unlimited domains)
I don’t really understand why there is such a big gap in price between GPL (free) and Pro (very expensive). In my understanding there should be a “medium” version without some “first class” features just for small companies.
actually I started with GPL, went to a 10 domain license and upgraded step by step as the demand asked for it. Now I have unlimited license.
the great and important difference between subdomain and subserver is that I can create a sub.server.com with its own login/DB’s/dns/mail/ftp etc.etc.
This alone has a sales value as I can sell these sub.servers.com to clients who have no domain name of them selfs (yet).
So i dont see the "complaints" from small companies as I am one myself too. You can even start with the GPL and get some clients on board first before spending money on a lisence. What more does one want?
As for the other panels…I worked with almost all of them but I like life without headache. So I stick with Virtualmin/Webmin
I would like to keep it on a more general level to avoid giving other hard working people a bad pun but I tried about 8 or 9 different panels. Variations of annoyances like hard installation, unclear navigation, expensive, buggy, sloppy documentation, slow and/or expensive support and so on.
In the end you pick a piece of software you feel comfortable with in every aspect. When I say every aspect I take into account the developers behind it, their support, the way of communication and the community as well.
Whichever choice you make, just give each panel you try a fair shot at it and decide for yourself with which one you can build and maintain a business.
( Btw I dont know where you got the prices you mentioned for the other panels but I suggest you calculate again )
I don't really understand why there is such a big gap in price between GPL (free) and Pro (very expensive). In my understanding there should be a "medium" version without some "first class" features just for small companies.
Virtualmin GPL is an Open Source project that we work on for love. Virtualmin Professional adds a number of features that we don’t work on for love. We work on them because people wanted to pay us to work on them.
If price is your biggest priority, I would humbly suggest you compare Virtualmin GPL to DirectAdmin and ISPManager. I suspect we can save you $89 or $150, for unlimited domains. Virtualmin GPL is more powerful, in almost every regard than even our more expensive competitors. And, Virtualmin Professional isn’t even in the same category, in my not so humble opinion.
So, I can assure you that we have no plans to reduce the price of Virtualmin Professional. It is very competitively priced with the products we compete with. If you don’t need that level of capability, Virtualmin GPL is probably going to be a great fit, and it is beyond competitively priced with the products that it competes with (which are the low end products you’ve mentioned).
Hope this helps with your plans. We certainly wish you the best with whatever software you choose (and, I’ve always been told DirectAdmin is a good product, by folks who were moving over to Virtualmin Professional because it provides capabilities not found in DirectAdmin…I’ve never known anyone using ISPmanager, so I’m wholly unfamiliar with it), and we’ll be here to help if you decide to go with Virtualmin GPL or Virtualmin Professional.
I already tested throughly DirectAdmin, ISPmanager and Virtualmin.
From the aspect of installation and user friendly GUI from my experience ISPmanager ist far the best solution. It has a very clear and fast GUI and works very fine.
The only disadvantage so far I see is the fact, it has a very low customer base, the community is very small. The software comes fom a russian hosting company. The only reason why I didn’t buy it is what happens if this company just disappears and shut down their license server. From the technical point and usability I give a “AAA” to this software.
The second one is DirectAdmin. It’s quite cheap, is well supported, secure, and written in C++. The installation was without any problems. The GUI is clear and user friendly too. DirectAdmin has a really large and helpful community.
I don’t know if Virtualmin GPL is really more powerful then the other mentioned solutions. Yes, it is free but it has some restrictions of course.
Yes, it is free but it has some restrictions of course.
I don’t understand what you mean by “some restrictions”. It is Open Source software. There are no restrictions, other than having to abide by the terms of the GPL v2.
By the way, the . characters inside the REGEX should be escaped with a backslash, but the forum software stripped that and I should’ve probably used code blocks:
[code:1]
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^subdomain.domain.com$
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://domain.com/subdomain
[/code:1]
)