5 Best Open Source Web Hosting Control Panels

In the early ’90s, when I tried to host my website, it was a big nightmare for me. It was not at all an easy task to host websites in the 90s.

In fact, nowadays also, it’s not an easy job to host and maintain websites if you only have the CLI ( Command-line Interface) to execute all your tasks.

I know many people love to execute web hosting tasks using CLI. They might have worked on CLI and have experience working on Linux.

But people like me who have never been into CLI or never worked on Linux may find it very tough. Right?

The situation becomes worse if you use a VPS hosting or dedicated server. In that case, the host only gives you a bare-bone OS machine, and you have to set up everything.

That is where Open Source Web Hosting Control Panels come to the rescue.

Although you can still set up things by following tutorials, there is a big chance of making a mistake. If any issue arises, the situation becomes worse. That’s where a web hosting control panel comes into the picture.

What Is Web Hosting Control Panel?

A web hosting control panel saves you from executing all tasks using CLI. Instead, it provides an intuitive GUI ( Graphical user interface) to perform day-to-day hosting activities.

It’s a piece of software installed in the server machine and provides a dashboard to manage hosting infrastructure.

It comes in handy for people who do not know anything about web hosting. It becomes effortless for them to host a website even though they may not have much technical knowledge.

At present, this web hosting control panel space is dominated by two big names, WHM/ C Panel, and Plesk.

Unfortunately, both are paid, and rates are not so competitive if you are an individual website owner. But don’t get disappointed. This article will list the 5 best open source web hosting control panels which are absolutely free

What it means by “ Absolutely free” is that all features of those control panels are available in the free version.

Control panels having a trial version are not listed here. However, they all have a PRO plan which is only needed if you are an advanced user and may not be needed for beginners. So let’s find out the 5 Best Open Source Web Control Panels

What Does A Web Hosting Control Panel do?

The list considers only a few points. A control panel does more tasks than what is mentioned here. In fact, even a few articles also won’t be enough to list a web host control panel’s capabilities.

Best Open Source Web Hosting Control Panel

Here are the top 5 best open source web hosting control panels that can be used if you opted for a VPS or a dedicated server.

CentOS Web Panel

This is the most popular and widely used free control panel. If you are using a VPS server or a dedicated machine, then the CentOS web panel is the preferred choice due to its simple user interface.

All commands and options are there in the dashboard, and a newbie will find it very easy to work with. It has all the features that you need to manage your hosting infrastructure. Though not as feature-rich as the C panel, it still does the job with all the required features.

One of the main problems with CentOS is that it works best when you install it on a new server. If you install another control panel and then decide to install the CentOS web panel, it creates many problems.

Also, I found that if you uninstall and reinstall modules like Varnish, it makes a hell lot of issues. So my suggestion would be to keep CentOS in default configuration with all your required modules and don’t try to do experiments.

Minimum Requirements Of CentOS Web panel

Features Of CentOS Web Panel

ISPConfig

ISPConfig is one of the most popular and widely used control panels for Linux servers. More than 40000 downloads happen per month for this control panel.

Available in multiple languages and can manage multiple servers. It is available for almost all Linux distributions and provides different access levels like a client, reseller, administrator, etc. ISP Config works on both the physical machine and virtual server.

Minimum Requirements Of ISPConfig Web Panel

Features Of ISPConfig Web Panel

Vesta Control Panel

Vesta is one of the best open-source web panels that is widely used for VPS hosting environments. The interface is a bit confusing but after you accustomed to it, it becomes much easier. The front end is written in PHP and JavaScript.

One of the salient features of Vesta is the iptables /fail2ban firewall which can block any IP to access the panel after multiple login attempts. Other features are almost more or less the same as other web panels.

The free plan of Vesta is enough for beginners but if you are an advanced user you can opt for their paid plan.

Minimum Requirement Of Vesta Web Panel

Features Of Vesta Web Panel

Ajenti Web Panel

Do you why Ajenti is so popular among web developers? It’s because it can run only on 30 MB RAM and 75 MB storage. So if you are low on storage and RAM in your server machine, then Ajenti should be chosen to manage the hosting.

Back-end codes are written in python and the front end is written in JS. It supports modularity due to the GEvent framework at the back end and the Angular JS framework at the front end.

Minimum Requirement Of Ajenti Web Panel

Features Of Ajenti Web Panel

Virtualmin Web Panel

The virtual admin web panel is one of the feature-rich web panels available for Linux servers. It is available in free and paid versions, whereas the paid version offers some nice extra features. But the free version is enough for casual web administrators.

Written in Perl and support major Linux distributions. The interface is quite simple, and beginners will find it easy to locate stuff for server management.

Conclusion: Best Open Source Web Hosting Control Panel

These are the top 5 Best Open Source Web Hosting Control Panels. I personally used Cent OS web panel and Vesta and found both to be very nice and intuitive.

Mostly, CentOS web panel is offered by most web hosting companies and in fact, they install that for free.

If your web host provides you just the bare bone machine with one of the Linux distributions, then you can go for ISPConfig, which is feature-rich and easy to configure.

That’s all we have in this article on Open Source Web Control panels. I hope you liked the article and found some useful information.

If you have any queries, please write in the comment section, and I will be happy to answer.