Informed Webmaster

If you have decided to move up to a VPS for your hosting needs there are a lot of things you need to consider before you buy it. Unless you are guru a control panel is one of the big ones. We will discuss VPS plans in a different thread.

Chances are good your current shared hosting account uses one of the big 3 control panels: cPanel, DirectAdmin or Plesk. All 3 of those are pricey options for managing a VPS. There are some good free options out there but that topic is once again a different thread.

cPanel will cost you anywhere from $15-$45 dollars per month.$ The $15 plan is only available on cloud servers and only for one account. $20 per month gets you 5 accounts, the pro version is good for 30 and the Premier edition is for up to 100 accounts. Hey comfort is expensive.

Plesk has a 10 domain license for $9.16 month, a 30 domain version for $13.75 and the unlimited edition is $41.25 per month. All of these require annual payments.

DirectAdmin has three service levels. A personal license is good for 1 account and 10 domains for $24 per year. The Lite version is 10 accounts and 50 domains for $15 per month. The standard edition with unlimited accounts and domains is $29.00 per month. All of these must be paid annually.

At one time or another in past 15 years I have used all three of the panels and they all work. Except for the GUI I can't see much difference between cPanel and DirectAdmin. They each have a slightly different approach to doing some things but both get it done.

Plesk was my least favorite and the least intuitive of the 3 but again it could do the job if you learned its way of doing things.

Do keep in mind that some VPS hosts are licensed under old licensing agreements and they may be able to offer a slightly discounted price from the prices listed above.

Tell us about your experiences or ask questions if you have them.