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Admin Panel for FreeBSD/Linux Dedicated Servers

Choosing an Admin Panel for your Linux/FreeBSD Dedicated Server

Admin panels or control panels are a very useful tool for administering your web server using a GUI (graphic user interface). Loading a GUI onto your FreeBSD server or any dedicated web server for that matter is a good idea for anyone who is not a highly skilled server administrator. And admittedly even System administrators like admin panels for if they host other clients web sites as the clients can then easily make changes to their web site in a safe manner.

Commercially Available Admin Panels

There are a number of commercially available admin panels for FreeBSD and Linux dedicated servers. The following is a list of some of the more popular ones:

Plesk made by Parallels Inc. - Looking for a Plesk dedicated server then see out list of plesk hosting services where we list providers of dedicated servers that offer the Plesk control panel.

Parallels Pro Control Panel (formerly known as Ensim Pro) also made by Parallels Inc.

cPanel and WHM made by cPanel Inc. - If you are looking for a cPanel dedicated server you can view our directory of providers of cPanel dedicated servers. cPanel is a robust server admin panel that I use and recommend.

For those of you who want to install cPanel yourself, you need to have experience with administering FreeBSD servers, especially when it comes to upgrading ports.

Free Admin Panels for FreeBSD and Linux

While the commercial admin panels mentioned above are very good and have a large user base, there are some free admin panels that are worth mentioning. The benefit of a free version installed on your dedicated server is that there are no monthly licensing fees or up front fee to pay as it the case with the commercial versions.

WebMin was mostly developed by Jamie Cameron along with countless volunteers Visit the repository
With a web-based control panel you can configure some aspects of the operating system while still free to tweak as you like. A system administrator for a hosting company once told me that he felt it was the best control panel that balanced control panel usability with the hands-on command prompt system administration.

ISPConfigwas developed by projektfarm GmbH and is a Linux open source admin panel Visit the site
From personal experience I found ISPConfig to be very easy to set up and configure. It runs on its own apache server independently of the apache that runs the web sites you would host on it. While their site says that the current version of ISPConfig does not support FreeBSD I have heard of people using it on FreeBSD.

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Please note:
(1) FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
(2) WEBSERVER CONSUMER GUIDE is in no way affiliated with The FreeBSD Foundation