Are C/P's still relevant these days?

[TGITC]

When I got my very first hosting back in about 1999 it had a c/p...

I used to allways be in there, fiddling about, almost every day...

Then things took off, and I went to MojoHost (Or SinHost, as it was called back then) and they didnt offer a c/p...

However (although I shouldn't have) I felt really guilty about calling Brad for every little thing... I wished they had a c/p so I could do stuff myself...

Long and short of it though, is that although my current hosting does offer a c/p I cant remember the last time I logged in ! I just send them an email and they add the domain, or create the blog, or do whatever I need... Often faster than if I used the c/p myself...

So, thats my question... Are control panel's outdated these days? Do they provide you with any value? Do you use them... ? Are they still of any importance when you choose your hosting?

[daveydude]

Webair have a control panel which I use to set up new domains / email accounts & that's about all. Quicker than emailing the host if I want to get working on a domain straight away.

My other host no c/p but they do have a guy chained to ICQ 24/7 so I get him to do everything for me. He hates me, but I hear he gets a slice of bread for every request handled, so I don't feel bad about it.

[dvtimes]

i have them on both my servers.

i log in a lot for stats, that msq thingy databse for adding blogs and cron jobs thingys.

[Brad Mitchell]

When I got my very first hosting back in about 1999 it had a c/p...

I used to allways be in there, fiddling about, almost every day...

Then things took off, and I went to MojoHost (Or SinHost, as it was called back then) and they didnt offer a c/p...

However (although I shouldn't have) I felt really guilty about calling Brad for every little thing... I wished they had a c/p so I could do stuff myself...

Long and short of it though, is that although my current hosting does offer a c/p I cant remember the last time I logged in ! I just send them an email and they add the domain, or create the blog, or do whatever I need... Often faster than if I used the c/p myself...

So, thats my question... Are control panel's outdated these days? Do they provide you with any value? Do you use them... ? Are they still of any importance when you choose your hosting?

Hi TGITC,

I hope this message finds you well! :cheers:

We were so small back then and it was good to serve you while you were aboard. All so many years, over a dozen employees and around 1300 servers later I'm happy to say that I'm not a weak link in support as that was never my skill set.

Control panels are very convenient, for sure. I tend to think that adult clients are best served by staying away from more resource intensive ones such as Cpanel or Plesk. An inexpensive one that works well these days is DirectAdmin, giving a fair amount of functionality without changing up the O/S or system security too much. We have stuck with a ticket based system and with our managed clientele, no control panel as of yet.

I think for most clients it really comes down to two things; how quickly is their host able to respond and get requests done and does the client enjoy using one. The ancillary benefits of not being limited by a control panel type environment are many in more complex setups. Not every client wants to administrate their stuff and in more demanding deployments management assistance will be needed to change environment variables. For our clients who prefer IP diversity, I know that we have much more ability in a non-control panel environment and a faster time setting up and maintaining things over time with the internal scripts we use.

Cheers,

Brad

[Elisha Jade]

totally not with it today, It took me ages to work out what C/P meant. Ooops.

The webair one is okay, I use that for a client of mine, but i prefer it when my host does everything for me, I'm on nat net :D