If you ever tried to manage your web server manually (i.e.: modifying each configuration files, restarting services, etc.) you’ve probably already realized it’s unrealistic to work this way. Fortunately, there are quite a few great web hosting control panels like DirectAdmin, cPanel, Plesk, vDeck and many others. The thing with these control panels is that they are quite expensive, especially if you’re planning to buy a lifetime license.

If you want to save your money, there is also the ever popular Webmin, but in my opinion this control panel is totally overkill if you don’t need to manage the whole operating system from a web interface. And for those who know little or nothing about system administration, they’ll just get lost in Webmin.

This is why I prefer using some free control panels dedicated to web hosting only. They sure aren’t as secure, flexible or powerful as the commercial products (or even Webmin for that matter), but they can handle the job very well if you do not intend to provide a control panel to your customers. While there are a handful of free control panels, today we’ll try ISPConfig.

ISPConfig is nice free control panel written in PHP. It uses its own copy of Apache HTTP server on port 81. It’s currently available as version 2.2.16 and has been around at least a couple of years although I don’t know exactly when it came out.

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