ISPmanager is a commercial control panel for hosting providers, offering support for a number of platforms, with a wide range of third-party software.
If you’ve been a Web hosting provider for any length of time, then you know how difficult it can be to find a Web hosting control panel which helps you manage all of your servers, accounts, users, and domains without becoming a chore in and of itself. ISPmanager addresses that issue by covering most, if not all of these points. It is a comprehensive and robust platform for professionals.
ISPmanager was developed by ISPsystem and it is published under a proprietary, commercial license. Despite that, it has an open Application Programming Interface (API), which allows customers and third-party developers to create and deploy new components and services. The software is available in ‘Lite’ and ‘Business’ versions. Lite licenses are designed for personal use, while Business licenses are intended for shared hosting services (the Business license was previously marketed as the Pro license).
A monthly Lite license costs $4.9, while a single business license for a single server costs $14.6. Since ISPsystems is a Russian company, the pricing is actually in euros, so the exchange rate and USD price varies. The euro prices are €4 and €12 for Lite and Business licenses respectively. Discounts are available for annual and lifetime licenses – with the latter costing €60 and €240.
The latest major version is ISPmanager 5 and the latest stable release is 5.22.4, released in late 2014.
ISPmanager features and uses
ISPmanager is designed to uses as little of your Web server’s resources as it possibly can, so that your system can use its energy and storage for what really matters. Since the developers of ISPmanager have made a deliberate effort to keep it affordable, it also uses as little of your financial resources as possible, too.
With specific abilities and duties designated for each spot on a hierarchical tier spanning from server administrator (the highest position) to individual mail accounts (the lowest), ISPmanager has features everyone can use. Server administrators control accounts, domains, databases, scripting, data backup, spam filters, server statistics, IP addresses, PHP configuration and extensions, modules, and plugins.
Resellers (a tier which only exists in the Business version of ISPmanager) manage many of the same things that server administrators do, but with less extensive power. Users are able to oversee their own domain names, Web specifications, email settings, backup plans, and statistics. The two final tiers, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) accounts and mail accounts, allow users to adjust files and directories as well as mail settings.
ISPmanager also features an integrated statistics system to keep track of your server. The software also provides load balancing capabilities to ensure the highest possible level of performance.
ISPmanager system requirements
ISPmanager Lite supports CentOS 6.6 (which is also the recommended OS), Debian 7, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and later. Support for CentOS 7 is also expected in early 2015.
ISPmanager Business can be used on CentOS 6.6 (recommended), Debian 7 and CloudLinux 6.6.
ISPsystems recommends a clean install of ISPmanager, with a minimal version of each operating system.
Detailed documentation is available from ISPsystems, along with support and guides for integration with other ISPsystems products, such as DNSmanager, BILLmanager, VMmanager as well documentation for email, DNS, and Web services and much more
ISPmanager capabilities
ISPmanager allows you to manage a wide range of hosting products deployed across numerous servers. It can be used to manage Apache HTTP servers, Nginx servers, as well as database servers for MySQL and PostgreSQL. Mail servers such as Sendmal, Exim and Postfix are also supported, along with other software.
This means you can utilise ISPmanager, particularly in the Business incarnation, to create and deploy a wide range of products. While the Lite version offers a number of features, the Business version supports multiple servers and also allows you to manage servers from a centralised location, manage server roles, take advantage of CloudLinux and it provides you with resource usage statistics for each server.
Clear-cut task delegation and an unobtrusive presence are what make ISPmanager remarkable. As an added perk, it also has minimal system requirements and functions smoothly across a vast array of platforms and operating systems. Affordable monthly licences and demo versions also allow you to test it extensively before getting a lifetime license, which is always a good thing.
