dasp — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 19:30:52 +0000

We custom built our own control panel in ASP.NET. We believe that it is better to build your own as a demonstration of your knowledge of technology, instead of using a canned hosting automation system. That is, of course, if you are a technology-centric host. For example, we specialize in ASP.NET Hosting. We also make sure that our website is programmed in ASP.NET as well.

Also, having a custom built control panel and hosting automation system powered by ASP.NET means that we can move quickly to offer new .NET technologies as they are released. Rather than, waiting for the third party vendor to do product development.

If you are not a technology-centric host (eg your focus is SME, designers..etc), then I would say using a third party control panel is fine - there are many to choose from: CPanel, Helm, plesk etc - as mentioned in this thread. It will reduce costs and you can probably find support staff that already knows the control panel. And the previous post accurately mentions that these may be more trusted.

If you build a custom control panel, since many out there now have seen or have experienced the third party control panels, it is best to have a demo.

So what it boils down to is that it depends on who your target market is and if they will find a custom built control panel a value or not.

Our $0.02

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Ashish — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 06:49:46 +0000

yes true, but if a control panel is good and if you are able to keep your customers satisfied it.. then it will mean that your existing customers might stay with you for a much longer period of time.

Busy — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 04:18:28 +0000

On the down side to that, a known control panel can also be a selling point

Ashish — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 03:23:53 +0000

That seems a pretty valid point but, actually the reasoning behind going ahead with a customised panel was that, many hosting companies that use third party panels like CPanel, Helm, plesk etc. etc. and as these panels are basically as is, they do not really fit hand in glove to the services offered by a hosting company, you basically have to work around it and try and modify your services according to the control panel you use. Many times hosting companies are not able to answer questions regarding control panels as they do not have in depth knowledge of these CP's. They know only what came in the manual.

And if you are not able to solve a customer problem then you are as good as gone.

On the other hand a hosting company that makes its own CP shows that they have analysed the market and have accordingly made a CP that will suit the customers the best and will be able to answer any CP related questions a customer asks as they have designed the CP themselves.

Busy — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 11:25:14 +0000

customised if it allows to get rid of all the junk stuff.

Cpanel for example with fantisco (sp?) is 90% useless if you run a deciated site, it's good for joe bloggs but not for business site, most business type sites usually have their own control panel anyways.
Up side for host is everytime the control panel is excessed all the options suck up users bandwidth. - Bring back the old days when it was simple, install it manually and run it. If you wanted thrills you went to a theme park.

I'd be happy with just cron, raw log access (if can't via ftp), email and database (phpmyadmin) options.