15 Best Web Hosting Control Panels for Linux

As an owner of the website, it is very difficult to manage multiple websites without a control panel. However, to suit the needs, we need a custom hosting plan.

A Web hosting control panel is a totally web-based interface that has the capability to manage your web services under a single location. These web-based control panels can manage email accounts, FTP accounts, file management functions, creation of subdomains, disk space monitoring, bandwidth monitoring, create backups, and many more.

The web hosting control panels provide an elegant solution for Linux newbies to host multiple websites on VPS (Virtual Private Servers) and Dedicated Servers.

This kind of hosting panel offers easy-to-use management software to simplify the process of handling servers without the need for expert knowledge of server administration.

The most famous and powerful control panels are cPanel and Plesk. These two popular panels are paid software and the hosting provider will charge a monthly fee for installing it on the server.

Fortunately, there are a few more alternate open-source control panels available to download at no cost with similar features.

Now, let’s move further to explore the 21 most preferred open-source/paid control panels one by one. For your reference, I’ve included the screen grabs along with relevant links to each portal.

1. cPanel

cPanel is a Unix-based hosting control panel that offers an elegant graphical interface that helps you to manage your Website and web hosting accounts very easily and quickly. The automation tools are designed to simplify the process of a website.

cPanel gives you complete control over the various aspects of the website and administration through a standard web browser and also streamlines the process such as creating a database, setting up an email account, autoresponder, and managing website files.

cPanel - Web Hosting Control Panel
cPanel – Web Hosting Control Panel

2. Plesk

Plesk is a hosting control panel similar to cPanel which allows you to manage your hosting account through a web-based interface. You can use this panel with VPS, Shared, and Dedicated servers.

Plesk also enables you to control thousands of virtual hosts under a single machine. The control panel allows you to automate many tasks which in turn reduces the cost and resources. It also increases profitability, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

Plesk Key Features:

  • Create an FTP account for users.
  • Manage and create email accounts and databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL.
  • Add domains and subdomains.
  • Restore and take back up of files.
  • Manage DNS and other resources.
Plesk - Web Hosting and Server Management Software
Plesk – Web Hosting and Server Management Software

3. ISPConfig

ISPconfig is an open-source multilingual control panel that enables you to manage multiple servers under one control panel.

ISPConfig is licensed under the BSD license and comes as an open-source control panel that is also capable of managing FTP, SQL, BIND DNS, Database, and Virtual servers.

ISPConfig Key Features:

  • Manage more than one server from one control panel.
  • Easy-to-use web interface for administrator, reseller, and client login.
  • Manage web servers like Apache and Nginx.
  • Configuration mirroring and clusters.
  • Manage email and FTP servers.
  • And many more
ISPConfig - Hosting Control Panel
ISPConfig – Hosting Control Panel

4. Ajenti

Ajenti is the only open-source feature-rich, powerful, and lightweight control panel that provides a responsive web interface for managing small server set-ups and is also best-suitable for Dedicated and VPS hosting.

It has many built-in pre-made plugins for configuring and managing server software and services such as Apache, Nginx, MySQL, FTP, Firewall, File System, Cron, Munin, Samba, Squid, and many other programs like File Manager, Code Editor for developers and Terminal access.

Ajenti - Server Admin Panel
Ajenti – Server Admin Panel

5. Kloxo

Kloxo is one of the advanced and free web control panels for Red Hat-based distributions that come with ftp, spam filter, PHP, Perl, CGI, and much more.

Features like messaging, backup/restore, and ticketing system modules are inbuilt in Kloxo. It helps end-users to manage/run a combination of Apache with BIND and switch the interface between these programs without losing their data.

Kloxo - Web Hosting Platform
Kloxo – Web Hosting Platform

6. OpenPanel

OpenPanel is an open-source web-based control panel for server administration and configuration that is licensed under GNU General Public and comes with an AJAX Web interface and a command line interface to manage users, domains, email, and other hosting-related services.

It can manage Apache, AWStats, Bind DNS, PureFTPD, Postfix, MySQL databases, IPTables firewall, Courier-IMAP e-mails, and more.

OpenPanel - Server Administration Tool
OpenPanel – Server Administration Tool

7. EHCP

EHCP (Easy Hosting Control Panel) is a free web hosting software for maintaining a web-based hosting server. With the use of EHCP, you can manage MySQL databases, email accounts, domain accounts, FTP accounts, and much more.

It is the only control panel that has built-in support for Nginx and PHP-FPM with completely throwing out Apache and provides good performance for low-end servers.

Easy Hosting Control Panel for Ubuntu
Easy Hosting Control Panel for Ubuntu

8. Virtualmin

Virtualmin is one of the most popular web-based hosting control panels for Linux and Unix systems that is available as an open-source version, and a premium version.

Virtualmin is specially designed to manage Apache virtual hosts, MySQL databases, BIND DNS domains, mailboxes with Sendmail or Postfix, and the entire Server from one friendly interface.

Virtualmin - Open Source Web Hosting Control Panel
Virtualmin – Open Source Web Hosting Control Panel

9. Webmin

Webmin is a super functional and powerful web hosting control panel and system administration tool that is designed to manage Unix and Linux platforms in a simple way.

Webmin is capable enough to manage various components of the web-based environment from setting a webserver to maintaining FTP and email server.

Webmin Key Features:

  • Configure and create a virtual server on Apache.
  • Manage, install, or delete a software package (RPM format).
  • For security, you can set up a firewall.
  • Modify DNS settings, IP address, and routing configuration.
  • Manage database, tables, and fields on MySQL.
Webmin - System Administration Tool
Webmin – System Administration Tool

10. DirectAdmin

DirectAdmin is a premium easiest-to-use web hosting control panel that enables server administrators to manage servers and websites through a graphical interface from a web browser more efficiently.

It is configurable to manage server tasks such as installing/upgrading software packages (such as Apache HTTP Server, PHP, and MySQL), creating/modifying DNS records, and starting/stopping services from within the control panel – simplifying server and hosting configuration.

DirectAdmin - Web Hosting Control Panel
DirectAdmin – Web Hosting Control Panel

11. InterWorx

InterWorx is a secure server management system and web hosting control panel that offers a set of tools to manage domains, emails, and websites.

InterWorx control panel is basically divided into two operating modes.

  • Nodeworx: Nodeworx is an administrator mode that helps manage servers.
  • SiteWorx: SiteWorx is a website owner view that helps end-users to manage their hosting account and features.
InterWorx - Secure Hosting Control Panel
InterWorx – Secure Hosting Control Panel

12. Froxlor

Froxlor is an open-source lightweight server management control panel that can be used to manage personal VPS, and dedicated or shared hosting platforms. It’s an alternative to a very famous software called cPanel or Webmin, which offers the same features to make server administrations easy.

Froxlor - Server Management Software
Froxlor – Server Management Software

13. BlueOnyx

BlueOnyx is an open-source server distribution based on AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, and CentOS. It provides a fully-integrated web hosting control panel that comes with web, email, DNS, and file transfer services.

The latest version of BlueOnyx runs on RHEL 9 and clones such as AlmaLinux and RockyLinux. It includes reseller management, sFTP, SSH key management, PhpMyAdmin, MySQL, web virtual hosts, and email statistics.

BlueOnyx - Web Hosting Solution
BlueOnyx – Web Hosting Solution

14. Vesta CP

Vesta CP is another open-source web control panel that comes with a bunch of features to manage and configure your Linux systems from a simple and clear interface.

It comes with Softaculous which offers an auto installation of web applications on a website using predefined scripts. It is able to install more than 439 apps with one click to build all types of websites.

VestaCP is currently supported by RHEL/CentOS, Ubuntu, and Debian.

Vesta CP - Clever Hosting Control Panel
Vesta CP – Clever Hosting Control Panel

15. aaPanel

aaPanel is a simple, but powerful control panel for managing web servers through a web-based GUI (Graphical User Interface). It offers the one-click installation of LNMP/LAMP developing environment and software on Linux systems. Its main objective is to help system administrators to save time in deploying and focus on their own projects.

aaPanel Control Panel
aaPanel Control Panel
Conclusion

That’s it for now, these are the best Open Source/Commercial control panels, which I’ve gathered from the web according to their popularity. From the list, you can choose the best, one that suits your requirements also do tell us which control panel you’re using to manage your Linux Servers, and also tell us if you know any other tool that is not listed in this list via comment section.

Ravi Saive
I am an experienced GNU/Linux expert and a full-stack software developer with over a decade in the field of Linux and Open Source technologies

Each tutorial at TecMint is created by a team of experienced Linux system administrators so that it meets our high-quality standards.

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116 thoughts on “15 Best Web Hosting Control Panels for Linux”

  1. Hello, everyone, it is a really nice article thank you, but there is more I think cool but I’m a noob.

    So I will ask you about these following control panels information.

    1. Cyberpanel
    2. cwp

    Thank you
    Have a nice time:)

    Reply
    • @Mohammed,

      CyberPanel – Hosting Control Panel for LiteSpeed Web Server and CWP – CentOS Web Panel and Web Hosting Control Panel.

      Reply
      • Thank you for the information…

        Why they are not on the list (article)? I’m not sure which one should I choose :), I’m so confused…

        thank you again for the awesome article.

        Reply
  2. Hi Guys,

    I got confused here…

    I’m looking for some software to download and create my own open source based hosting, private server with some sort of control panel.

    Instead of that I see tons of links to hosting providers and their services.

    So something is not right here.

    Is there any open source solution for someone who is tired of paying for hosting e-mail accounts and websites? and at the same time willing to learn something :)

    Reply
  3. You should also check out CentminMod and EasyEngine. Although they don’t have a GUI, they’re still great for managing websites on a Linux server. Easy to use for beginners too.

    Reply
  4. thank you Mr. Ravi Saive, I’d deploy a VPS for my website and still confusing to manage it, this list Help me and now I’m using webmin. thankyou once again

    Reply
  5. Hello Ravi,

    I am looking for an opensource tool to manage my Linux server, we have 1500 servers. We want to manage servers like reboot, shutdown, poweron and to run commands remotely, what tool do you recommend? Does any of the above tools will work for my requirement?

    Reply
    • @Amar,

      Go for Webmin or CentOS Panel, both these are open source Linux control panels, which provides all futures that you’re looking for.

      Reply
    • Check CloudEgg Linux Server Management Services with initial server setups, server monitoring and administration services.

      Reply
  6. Very good to your list, I really liked this information however you also should not know the Centos Web Panel I use and found it interesting if you put in your list.

    Reply
  7. Great List, thank you. As I’m from Plesk – please note that we are an independent company from Parallels now. Could you update the logo as well as the link to Plesk.com (there is a typo :-) . Here is a direct link to the new logo: https://www.plesk.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/plesk-logo.png

    And you may also look into the new plesk onyx – http://www.plesk.com/onyx that we recently released – becoming more and more a PaaS platform and not “just” a control panel anymore. :-) happy to support you – feel free to send me direct email as well.

    thanks
    Lukas

    Reply
    • @Lukas,

      Thanks for updating, we’ve replaced old image with new image, about logo in the featured image, not possible to replace now, but will definitely update the logo image when we update the whole article with new information soon..

      Reply
  8. For 5$ i give you VestaCP liftime lisence for Filemanager. I only need acces to your VestaCP panel files and in 10 ​minutes all works great! I added screenshots from my vestacp file manager panel where all works great!
    In official vestacp website lifetime license cost 50$ but i give you it for 5$

    PM me [email protected]

    Reply
  9. Thank you for the article. Over the years i have tried the most, and for me the only options is VestaCP and Ispconfig, plus Webmin with Virtualmin. They are all great, safe and lightweight panels.

    CPanel is bloated, expensive, and total overkill unless you are an internet provider, or selling hotels in one or another way. One can have 2 great servers for the price of CPanel. I do not like it.

    Thanks again for your effort with the article.

    Reply
  10. Hello,

    We are developing Panilux Panel over 4 years. Its have a free version. Please visit and review it. i think we need your advices.

    Thanks

    Reply
  11. i am using C panel for all my websites and really very happy about it, i have used plesk but Cpanel is the best.
    Btw very useful article.

    Reply
  12. Zpanel is no more. It was purchased by a Hosting Company, then the Dev’s decided they didn’t like things so left and forked it to Sentora. However, it has many security flaws that make it not worth using.

    I would support VestaCP completely. It’s been an amazing CP.

    Reply
  13. Is there any free Web Hosting control panel for Tomcat server ? I have tomcat server for java site hosting that I maintain via console. I am running multiple website here, problem can’t share to my developers to upload data to apps directory … Please help me to resolve the issue .

    Reply
    • @Ananda,

      In this list we’ve already discussed some free/paid control panels for Linux, just dig in and select one that best suits your needs..

      Reply
    • @Hempel,

      Thanks for updating us, let me cross verify them, if they dead will remove and include new tools as suggested by you..

      Reply
    • @Pete,
      It’s our bad that we’ve missed the ISP leading control panel in the list, thanks for reminding again. Now we are in process to update this list with some new control panels, till then stay tuned.

      Reply
    • @Shane,
      That means PHP or PHP modules missing in the Ajenti installation, try to install PHP and all related PHP modules via yum manager.

      Reply
  14. I recommend VestaCP – it should be added to the list. Very straight forward installation, excellent features, easy to use, and it works!

    Reply
  15. Thanks to your article, i decided to use ZPanel on my Centos server.

    So far everything is working correctly, but in the upcoming days I will test some new configuration like Nginx+Redis.
    Again, thanks for this article.

    Reply
  16. I’m using Vesta for CentOS 6.0. I think it’s quite good, easy to install and admininstration. Why is it not listed here? :)

    Reply
  17. Hi friends ….
    I think the best one Webhosting CP for managing web sites is Interworx.com.
    It is able to be configured in CUSTERED mode with LOADBALANSER in front ob clustered servers …
    You can configure which service (http, https, pop3, pop3s, smtp, smtps, imap, imaps ) on which servers (cluster nodes) will be running …

    This gives to admin very nice toll to manage work-loadbalase of whole IT infrastructure used for WEBHOSTING

    Reply
    • @Arun,
      No idea, never used so far, but surely we will give a try with detailed review and installation instructions soon….

      Reply
  18. I’m trying to set up some long-term, low-maintenance servers. RHEL/CentOS 7 seem to be the only releases out there with long-term security updates. I’ve tried a couple of panels–VirtualMin was easy to install, but doesn’t seem ready to manage the new CentOS 7 firewall and other security features. ISPConfig takes a lot of steps to install, and I’ve had a lot of problems getting roundcube, mariadb, and apache to play nice together. I think I could make both do the job, but it wouldn’t be worth the necessary time investment. It seems with all of the changes in CentOS 7 none of the control panels is quite ready, even though the RHEL 7 beta is more than a year old.

    Has anyone found a free, easy-install/quick-install/low-maintenance/secure control panel that works well for a CentOS 7 LAMP yet? Automated full-system backups(including configuration and sql dumps) and full-security application (firewall, rkhunter, modsecurity, fail2ban) management would be pluses.

    Reply
  19. Direct Admin is NOT open source, you have to pay for it`s usage. Although that being said, you have created a great post here. Well done.

    Reply
  20. Nice article… keep posting this kind of informatics article ….

    – In point number 11 you wrote Psotfix instead of Postfix. :)

    Reply
    • @Ritesh,
      Thanks for going through the artilce and finding such silly mistakes..:) that was typo and we’ve corrected in the writeup.

      Reply
    • @Theodor,
      I know that, but it isn’t stable yet, I’ve tried it in CentOS 5.x but didn’t worked out..and even it didn’t support CentOS 6 and 7. So, no use at all for now….

      Reply
  21. Dear Ravi,

    Thank you so much. I am planing to open a small hosting company especially for wordpress. My aim is to provision my Private Cloud into Cloud Servers especially to run Managed WordPress installations. I will be providing managed services for Single and Multisite wordpress.

    After reading your article, I would love to know Which Solution in your opinion or you recommend, or is it possible to advise a list of Software and tools you recommend to run small hosting company? I would love to find a solution that can integrate smoothly with the Front end of the website Website.

    I am willing to pay for a professional list of software and tools to run on my Cloud servers that can provide me with complete solution from A to Z and be able to run a successful small hosting company especially for WordPress.

    Thank you again for that amazing article.

    Reply
    • Dear Imad,

      All I can say, go for Cpanle, it is the only commerial panel which comes with all features and best suitable for small or big hosting setups.

      Reply
  22. Thanks all for your information
    Could you please let me know is there any basic and secure control panel to manage just one site in a server ?

    Reply
  23. Here is my advise to anyone out there who wants to use a free or open source control panel instead of a commercial control panel: think twice.

    I started my company in 1999. We used BlueQuartz, BlueOnyx, ISPConfig, DirectAdmin, Plesk and WebMin. We’re using cPanel now.

    We will NEVER use a free or open source control panel again. cPanel is not just ‘better’, cPanel is ahead of all the others by miles. The rest doesn’t even come close. In fact free controls panels cost us more than cPanel because we had to hire server administrators to fix problems. We’ve never had any significant problem with cPanel. And no, I’m affiliated with them in any way. I’m just telling you what I have learned in the past 15 years.

    cPanel is particularly trouble-free for the most part out of all the panels available.

    Ask any server administrator. Most of them will agree.

    Reply
  24. Hello everyone,

    For the last 3 years we have been working on a Linux Server Control Panel named Panilux. it can configure both Apache and NGINX. Its fast and really easy to use.

    We would love if you could review it and give us some feedback.

    demo on:
    https://demo.panilux.com:1453/

    username: demo
    password: demo

    Regards

    Reply
  25. Hi Ravi,

    I need a bit of suggestion from you, i need a opensource control panel which is free of cost and through which i want to maintain a e-commerce site, my e-commerce platform is magento which runs on apache server and need to install LAMP on it, iam using centos 6.5 in VPS, first i installed cpanel and found it is a paid version so iam looking for some other cpanel which suits best for my requirements.I need to have e-mail,cronjob,ftp,phpmyadmin optionsin my cpanel. Please suggest me some ideas.

    Reply
  26. Hi Ravi
    Good to see your work
    I am having my 2 full dynamic application website which is developed in php and mysql. The site is currently hosted on shared server. As the traffic is increasing I want to set up my own linux(LAMP) dedicated server at my office. I would be obliged if you can guide me about the per-requisites and help me in setting my server.
    Tapan
    09415466551

    Reply
    • Dear Tapan,

      Its quite very easy to setup LAMP environment in any Linux platform, please use our search form at right top corner to find out articles on LAMP related to your specific distro.

      Reply
  27. Are there any Control Panels out there that would make it easy to set up ROR apps on virtual domains – to manage and set everything up from one control panel?

    Reply
  28. Hi there,

    We’ve created a server administration panel called Core-Admin that allows to handle hundred of servers using a single web administration console. Webpage is located at:

    http://www.core-admin.com

    What makes different Core-Admin is that it integrates into a single solution a powerful checking system, security supervision and applications that allows Core-Admin to be used in ISP and many other environements.

    Anotehr interesting thing about Core-Admin is that it uses BEEP and BEEP over WebSocket to provide access to all servers you have connected to the panel with a single connection. Thanks to BEEP’s channels support, it possible to manage servers from different locations using a single BEEP session.

    Maybe you could consider including it into your list.
    Cheers!

    Reply
  29. Hi Ravi,

    Great list. I’d appreciate it if you’d consider adding our control panel, ServerPilot, to the list.

    https://serverpilot.io

    ServerPilot is substantially different from traditional control panels. Our goal is to be the best control panel for developers hosting websites on cloud servers and VPSes. We have a heavy focus on performance, monitoring, and security.

    Take a look, try it out, and please don’t hesitate to email me if you have any questions.

    Thanks!
    Justin

    Reply
        • Not sure why you gave that advice Ravi. Its wrong.

          To be able to use ServerPilot your target server must be a brand-new clean install running either 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

          ServerPilot supports all Ubuntu LTS releases starting with Ubuntu 12.04.

          The latest LTS release is Ubuntu 14.04.

          Terence.

          Reply
    • Justin, if you read the “about” blurb from each of the ‘top’ players, they all say the same thing ~ they want to be the biggest. None of them says ~ they want to be the best.

      And this leaves a huge gap in the market for ServerPilot to fill because most people are not interested in how big you are, they’re interested in how good you are, i.e. what you can do for them.

      To put it simply, ServerPilot is a SaaS platform for hosting PHP websites on Ubuntu servers. I think of it as a modern, centralized hosting control panel I can access and use remotely.

      As you know I have been trialling ServerPilot for about a month or so now and I’d have to say, its a very different animal from cPanel/WHM/Plesk and not aimed at the masses who want all the bells and whistles ~ most of which they have no idea how to use.

      From the get-go ServerPilot has delivered faultlessly the fastest web server configurations I have ever owned. And so far I’ve used it to set-up and administer servers on Linode, Digital Ocean, Green Qloud and one or two others.

      It is without a doubt the best (and quickest and least expensive) way for a web/app developer, to set up a website ~ bar none! And not only that but it installs all of the software your server needs such as PHP, MySQL, Nginx, and Apache automatically.

      ServerPilot then secures your server with a firewall, updates your server’s packages and make sure they stay updated as well as monitoring your servers and websites.

      You might get the feeling I am impressed with ServerPilot ~ I am! Its a much better, cleaner, and simpler way of doing things than the cPanel/WHM/Plesk model.

      Keep up the good work!

      Terence.

      Reply
      • Terence, you are quite rite about ServerPilot, but you forgot to mention main diference regarding security. Serverpilot does not support user chorooting, nor Jailing, all websites and services run as the same user, which is by my opinion not quite good security-wise.
        Despite that, Serverpilot is really something different, de-bloated CP with just the minimal features needed for Admin. It does not have multi-level administration structure, like admin, reseller, user, but is only admin/developer oriented.
        I’d suggest Serverpilot to sole developers, which want to run their own projects and web sites on really FAST server setup.
        If mentioned security would not be concern, I’d put Serverpilot as my No.1 choice, because it is rock-solid, stable and incredibly fast! And I mean fast from hosted web-sites point of view – for example, I could not manually setup any web server to run Magento near so fast, as it runs on Serverpilot managed server.

        Reply
  30. Great info Ravi,

    I was looking for something to manage apache, mysql and FTP only. Is there any simple software to manage the same other than Webmin or Virtualmin? If some panel allows me to remove mail and additional features, I could use that too.

    Thanks.

    Reply
    • I haven’t heard of any gnu/linux control panel based on ROR. ROR in general is quite slow and bloated, so I guess that’s the reason for not having one. Anyway, I think OnAPP’s control panel (cloud hosting control panel) is based on ROR, though.

      IMO, a VPS/Server control panel needs to be as fast and as lightweight as possible, so that, all other resources can be used for other things such as a webserver, database server, mail server, ftp server etc..

      I know DirectAdmin is written in C and can tell for sure that it’s blazing fast and pretty decent control panel, even though the screenshot provided in the article is too old ;)

      kudos

      Reply

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