Thinking of a Free cPanel Alternative? CentOS Web Panel (CWP) is here!
The hefty cPanel pricing and licensing structure has caused plenty of dislike among web hosting companies and individual users alike.
cPanel web hosting control panel no longer offers unlimited accounts. Instead, a multi-tier licensing structure.
Due to this many users have searched for Cpanel alternatives, and switched their control panel.
However, before you decide on a control panel, a few things need to be considered;
- Quality
- Amount of support available,
- And age being the most important of all
In light of these three conditions, cPanel is quite a good control panel. It’s stable, provides support and there are large communities from which you can get support. Most of the hosting providers use cPanel and hence, cPanel community is larger than any other. So, whenever you need help, the cPanel community can come to your rescue.
There are a bunch of free cPanel alternatives available in the market, yet none of them offers complete features. Check your requirements and be smart while choosing any cPanel alternatives. Centos web panel is one of them, As a web hosting provider, we have witnessed their user base grow during the recent past. So we decided to explore it and showcase its features and benefits to our customers.
Why CWP?
CWP is a free open source web panel designed to help you quickly and easily manage both dedicated and VPS servers. It’s incredibly feature-rich and offers a variety of modules to help customize your setup.
Highlights of the core features of CWP
- System management, including service and hardware status, network configuration, and a backup manager
- MySQL database management, and live monitoring
- Easy user management, permissions, and monitoring
- FTP and file manager access
- DNS manager
- Email management including RoundCube access, and built-in anti-spam and antivirus
- Shell access manager
- Built-in firewall
- SSL certificate creation and management
Further, you will find all feature lists on the following URL.
http://centos-webpanel.com/features
If you’re looking to extend the functionality of your control panel even further, then you can use the Softaculous auto-installer. Plus, if you’re switching from cPanel to CentOS, there’s a migration tool that will help restore your MySQL databases, users, and website files.
Server Requirements
Hardware Requirements
- 32 bit operating systems require a minimum of 512 MB RAM (not recommended)
- 64 bit operating systems require a minimum of 1024 MB RAM (recommended)
- Recommended System: 4 GB+ RAM so you would have the full functionality such as Anti-virus scan of emails.
Software Requirements
You must have a clean/fresh installation of supported operating systems:
- CentOS 6, RedHat 6 or CloudLinux 6, MINIMAL installation and English version only!
- CentOS 7 is also supported, we recommend a minimal version.
- CentOS 8 is NOT supported yet.
With Minimum system requirements of 1 GB for a 64bit system, CWP is a highly performant system that is lenient on system resources, thus being an effective solution for server administration.
Detailed Installation guide can be found on the following URL
Security
Both control panels have their own security measures.
This does not mean both control panels are heavily focused on security and that no further steps need to be taken to harden the server configuration.
The point is you will have to build security measures, whether it is cPanel or CWP.
Read the instructions on how to secure the CWP server.
Support
They do not offer any free support for their control panel, however, if you need their managed support, it can be availed.
CentOS Web Panel – Support Services
Demo
Experience the root/admin Panel as well as user end interface by browsing the demo URL.
Few points on how CWP differs from other free control panels
Migrate from your account in cPanel to CWP free control panel with very few clicks within the CWP admin interface and you are ready to enjoy your awesome modern control panel.
CWP Migration wizard restores all MySQL databases, MySQL Users and all your website files from the public_html folder. No other free control panels provide this feature.
Also, people who have used cPanel before can easily adapt CWP.
CWP team is releasing updates regularly. This makes CWP more secure when compared to other free control panels.
Final Thoughts
It is no doubt that the best option is Cpanel itself as they have the largest online support and community support. Cpanel is a paid service whereas CWP is free of cost.
If you are ready to pay a little amount on a panel there is no doubt it is Cpanel, which is totally worth it. It gives complete control on your account and it has a great and simple user interface. Regarding the community support, Cpanel has the largest, also any queries you ask will be there already or replied.
If you are not ready to pay any money for the panel, and you have the knowledge to handle the control panel on your own, you can definitely go for CWP.
If you have staging environments or maybe not so important websites, give it a try with CWP – play with it as much as possible and then make a decision.
If you have just 2 or 3 websites and never even log in to control panel once the site is uploaded and live, there is no point in paying high price per month when you only use less than 5% of the features available in cPanel and those features are already available in other free control panels like CWP.