In this guide, we will be taking a look at what we feel are the best free control panels for VPS, dedicated, or Cloud hosting. When it comes to managing your server and sites you are going to want to use a web host control panel or admin panel.
Luckily if you are on a tight budget and pouring all of your money into the server, there are free control panels that are available that will help you easily manage your websites and server.
All of the free web control panels have different benefits, so below I have tried to list what each panel features. Then you can compare which one will suit your needs and server best. I have also added links if the panel offers a live demo that you can try out before installing it on your server.
If you do not like the look of the below web panels then there are always paid alternatives, such as Plesk or cPanel these are the most popular. But depending on how many sites you are hosting will determine how much they will cost.
Table Of Contents
What is a web host control panel?
So the question is what is a web host control panel, well basically a web host control panel, also known as a hosting control panel or server control panel, is a web-based interface that allows you to manage many different settings of your web hosting services.
It provides an interactive GUI also known as a graphical user interface that makes the management of websites, domains, email accounts, databases, server settings, and other hosting-related tasks easier to manage.
Without a control panel, you would need to do everything manually by using SSH commands in a terminal, which takes longer especially if you are unsure what commands you need to use, and could also lead to more problems and errors.
So basically using a control panel makes life a lot easier when managing your websites and server.
Best free web host control panels
Below are what I feel are the best panels for VPS, Dedicated, and Cloud hosting. And yes they all have a free version of the control panel.
ISPConfig
ISPConfig can be used on many Linux distributions making it very flexible, Just like other panels it has a nice easy to use website interface, that allows you to carry out many different tasks to keep your sites and server running smoothly.
Features:
- IPv4 support
- IPv6 support
- Websites
- FTP users
- MySQL databases
- Shell users (jailed and non-jailed), SFTP, SCP; password- and key-based logins
- DNS
- Virtualization (through OpenVZ)
- Firewall
- Webalizer, GoAccess & AWStats statistics
- Quota/Traffic Limits
- And more
Virtualmin
Virtualmin has been around for a long time and is again another great web control panel for Linux and BSD systems. The interface itself seems a little outdated, and has many options and settings so it can be a little overwhelming at first. But once you figure out where everything is it becomes easy to use.
Features:
- Domain Accounts
- User and Reseller Accounts
- Security
- Alerts, Graphs, and Logs
- Backups And Cloud Integration
- Cloud DNS Providers
- Databases
- Install Scripts
- Terminal
- And more
CentOS Web Panel
CWP Control Web Panel is a Free and PRO web hosting panel that gives you the flexibility to manage your server, to be able to use CWP you will need to be running CentOS, Rocky Linux, Alma Linux, or Oracle. It also comes with CWP Secure Kernel providing the highest possible security level for your server.
Features:
- File Manager
- Upload Manager
- Resource Viewer
- Advanced Email
- Domain Management
- And more
Check out Control Web Panel here
Hestia
Hestia is another free open source web server control panel, it’s easy and simple to use and has a nice looking interface with a modern design. Your server will need to be running Debian or Ubuntu to be able to use Hestia control panel. The panel also comes with all the features that you would expect to see.
Features:
- Users
- Web domains
- One-Click Install Apps
- DNS
- Databases
- Server admin
- And more
Check out Hestia Control Panel here
Froxlor
Froxlor is a lightweight server management control panel, so if you are after something that requires a little less server resources then Froxlor might be the panel for you. To be able to use this control panel you will need to have either Debian or Ubuntu installed. The panel has a nice modern look and is simple to navigate around.
Features:
- Multiple MySQL Servers
- SSL enabled by default
- PHP-FPM enabled by default
- New CLI Tool
- Bookworm & Jammy Support
- Support for PHP 8
- True Multi-Stack
- Advanced SSL
- Traffic calculation
- Themeable interface
- And more
CyberPanel
CyberPanel is another easy to use modern looking web panel interface, it has many of the features that the other web panels have to offer but it comes with one added bonus. That is to be able to integrate LiteSpeed into your sites with ease. A LiteSpeed web server will really help improve the performance of your websites and boost their speed.
Features:
- Open Sourced for Continuous Development
- LiteSpeed Web Server for the Ultimate Performance
- LiteSpeed Cache
- Easy to use File Manager
- ModSec and CSF integrated to keep the hackers away
- One Click Install
- Backups
- Staging Sites
- One Click SSL
- Free Forever Plan with No Restrictions
- And more
Final thoughts
As you can see there are many free web control panels available, some with better features than others. So you will need to go through the list of features and requirements to decide which panel is best suited on your shared, dedicated, VPS, or cloud server.
Unfortunately, I can’t say which panel is the best as they all have their pros and cons. I hope you enjoyed reading this guide and it helped you choose the best free server control panel.
