Control panels
A control panel is a trade: you give up some control over how the machine is configured, and you get hours of your life back. Whether that is a good trade depends on what you are running.
What a panel actually does
It installs and configures the stack — web server, PHP, mail, DNS, database, certificates — and then gives you and your customers a web interface to manage them. The real value is not the interface; it is that account creation, virtual hosts, certificates and mailboxes stop being manual work that you can get wrong.
If you host other people's sites, a panel is close to essential: it gives each customer a boundary without giving them your root password.
DirectAdmin — included with every server
We include a free DirectAdmin licence with every dedicated server. Not a trial, not a discount, not a limited edition: a working licence, because a panel is a sensible default and we would rather not have you pay twice for your machine.
DirectAdmin is light, fast and considerably less resource-hungry than its competitors, which matters more than people expect on a busy box. See the DirectAdmin licence for how to activate it.
The alternatives, briefly
- cPanel
- The most widely known, and now the most expensive by a distance since its per-account pricing changes. Familiar to most customers, which is a real argument if you resell.
- Plesk
- Strong on Windows and on mixed estates, good interface, licensed per server with tiers by number of domains.
- CyberPanel, HestiaCP, CloudPanel
- Free and open source. Capable, smaller ecosystems, and you are the support department when something breaks.
- No panel at all
- The right answer for a single application. Nginx or Caddy, your runtime, a database, certificates from Let's Encrypt, everything in configuration management. Fewer moving parts and nothing listening that you did not put there.
When not to use one
If the machine runs one application that you deploy from a repository, a panel is overhead and an extra attack surface. Panels listen on their own ports, run their own privileged daemons and have their own vulnerability history. For a single-purpose machine, see choosing a web server and running your application as a service.
Practical cautions
- Decide before you install. Panels take over the configuration of everything they touch. Migrating between them, or away from one, is real work.
- Do not hand-edit what the panel manages. It will overwrite you, usually at the least convenient moment. Use the panel's own hooks and custom templates.
- Keep it patched. A panel is internet-facing administrative software. Treat its updates with the same urgency as the kernel's.
- Restrict the admin port to your own addresses with the firewall. See firewalling your server.
Whichever you choose, the machine stays unmanaged: the panel is yours to run. We keep the hardware and the network underneath it working.
Still stuck? Mail support@novogara.com — an engineer answers, at any hour. Back to the knowledge base