Which is better for a semi-newbie?

ensim seems to be more simple and provide unlimited domain hosting ... but since plesk is more widely use and has more features, i think as a newbie as well i will go for plesk

Just started with RS's 2nd Webpliance box.

Seems pretty good, also, they don't tell you this on the details, but these badboys have Redhat 7+ (7.2 I think, don't quote me on that tho)

Good old kernel 2.4!!

I want to use it only as a DNS server. I think, ENSIM does not have an option to add a DNS domain only. Whereas PLESK has the option not only to add a DNS domain, but also to modify an entry in the zone file of any domain name.

plesk is 100 times batter ,
thats what i think
i hope they will keep giving the option to choose ensim / plesk .

btw : i think ensim use RH 6.2

Jack, try to create multiple Mysql databases on a domain in Ensim

As far as I know its one database per domain. I hope I am wrong

This article might help:

http://www.hostingtech.com/hs/01_11_panel.html

Well. I was told first hand that Ensim 3.0 will not be able to just point and click your way to more than one database per domain. There will have to be some coding involved

webppliance for the semi-newbie? webppliance is quite
easy to use, and the gui flow works.

i have a few answers to some of the questions in this
thread...

ensim webppliance 3.0 uses redhat 7.1, not 6.2.
the applications bundled are quite new versions, as well.

in response to the question about one database per
domain, when a domain is created, yes one database
is created. however, the appliance admin can easily
create one or more additional databases for the domain
through the gui provided, thus no coding is involved.

concerning DNS, webppliance provides a gui to not only
create new zones, but manage DNS records as well.

concerning the hosting tech article, that was a review
of webppliance 2.4, and 3.0 has expanded its feature set.

there are several features that webppliance has which
other control panels may not have:
- bandwidth tracking for mail (smtp),web,pop,imap,
https,telnet,ssh per domain (regardless of whether or
not its IP or namebased) with email alerts.
- frontpage 2002 support (with usage reports enabled)
- web based file manager
- ability to telnet/ssh/ftp as a mailbox user of a virtual domain
(this is something you can enable globally for a given site,
and on a user by user basis). for example: create a
name based site domain.com (and enable telnet, ftp,
ssh for the site). create user mailboxes for joe,bill
for domain.com in the siteadmin gui. then, via the
siteadmin gui, give joe and bill
ssh, telnet, ftp access. joe and bill can now telnet, ftp or
ssh to domain.com as though it were a regular server
(of course, they are jailed in site's own directory structure,
and cannot navigate to other sites).
via shell, joe and bill can navigate around and do things like
edit their web pages in /var/www/html, copy & move
files around, make directories, change permissions, run
perl/shell/python scripts as though it were domain.com's
personal server. for those familiar with webppliance
2.x, this feature was previously only available to ip-based sites,
but is now available to both name-based and ip-based
sites in 3.0. i have yet to see this feature in any other
virtual domain management product.


... lots more ...

i'm curious to know what features you find in plesk that ensim
does not have.

regarding Mysql database's, thats contrary to what employess of Ensim have said

Its also in their forumds

However, I do hope you are correct

furley,

The negative that I see with WEBppliance is that it works on 2 levels, admin and user, whereas Plesk also has a reseller level.

Am I correct?

Robert

Robert,
Kinda..
Webppliance works on 3 levels.
1- Appliance Level (for the server)
2- Site Level (for the domain)
3- User Level (for the individual users)

There is no level for a "reseller" off the box.. The Appliance Level can add domains, but you only get 1 Appliance Level Administrator. This is where Plesk has the advantage on Ensim Webppliance.

Laterz,
raqworld

one more feature i'd like to add to the webppliance list:
- backup/restore: you can backup a domain on one
webppliance, and seamlessly restore it onto another
webppliance.
(this includes backing up web, mail, users & user
home dirs, responders, etc...)

Just to add my comments about this; I believe you should just go with one control panel, then stick with it. You'll be able to get everything out of it you need in some way or another. Ensim has a bigger install base at Rackshack at the moment, so there are a lot of people with ensim on this board who are able to help you out (me included). I went with Ensim ~4 months ago, and although there may be situations where you think it can't be done, post to this board and you'll probably get an answer back on how to get around it.

I don't think you can say one is better than the other - it is down to personal preference on what you want to be able to do with it. You should not take a biased view on any control panel until you have tried and used them all. I was a newbie 4 months ago (until that time I had a cobalt raq for 4 months) and decided to go with Ensim - I've not used Plesk before, but I've been able to do everything I need with Ensim.

Also:

WEBppliance 3.1 has 4 levels of control panel - including reseller.

You can create multiple databases under Ensim using phpMyAdmin - it auto creates one database when you create the domain. This has caused confusion in the past leading people to believe that it only supports 1 database per domain.

Ensim does DNS better than Plesk does. If you want to add/edit DNS, without adding/editing a domain, just go to "Services"->"Bind"->"Zone" in the control panel... That'll let you do whatever DNS supports.

From my opinion, to know which is better just look at the forum itself. Simply COMPARE problem that arise between 'Ensim Support' and 'Plesk Support'

sky

I've got plesk and love it, I'll soon be takin a new server, I've got 3 solutions but I'm not sure which to take :
1) ensim 3.1 (seems alot better than precedent versions and seems to include same functions as plesk
2) plesk 2.5 is great but 200 domain licence is a pain (I had to upgrade to unlimited so that I could offer free subdomais.
3) Webadmin + Useradmin, on linux 7.2 box. I've tested neither, do they offer together all the functions that a normal hosting service need to provide ? This would be the cheepest solution if I could get it running...


Richard

Take a look at the demo's of each... Ensim has more features, and is also more customizable, while Plesk is simpler and more stable.

Just match form and function.

I like to tweak things, so I use ensim -- other's may prefer Plesk.. It's all about what you're comfortable with.

This is much like a Windows vs. Linux discussion because they are two DIFFERENT products. Despite the security holes found almost daily in Windows, I've managed to keep my Windows servers un-hacked for three years. It's all about what YOU are comfortable with.

Plesk is really suck!!!
That's why I move to Ensim now...

Plesk isn't bad. It does all I need. OK I had to tweak my 2.0 rackshack installation a bit (upgrade to 2.5 then to 2.5.3, php, phpmyadmin, ssh, mysql max connections etc ...) and the webmail is not as good. But they do more updates, supply better support, their CP is faster and is supposed to be more stable then ensim, well I don't know what ensim 3.1 is worth. I'm getting a new server soon, I might give ensim a try but I don't want to have a CP that stops working when the server is heavily loaded.

Richard

I have plesk and I have to say i like it. Don't like the look or feel of ensim, but i've never had an ensim box. In my opinion get a plain redhat 7.2 box and install CPanel .

Plesk offer free updates quickly which cover all the main security holes. It's simple to use. What more can I say. I'm not complaining, it has done the job for me for about 5 months now. It also has backup utilities (i think ensim does too) which are exceedingly good to use, especially if you have to get your box restored.

rhordern: how did you update the limit to mysql max connections? Which conf file to i edit?

James

MySQL Max does NOT mean max-connections... Instead it's a special build of MySQL that has additional features such as different DB types, etc... Check the MySQL website to learn more about it.

see : http://forum.rackshack.net/showthread.php?...=&threadid=8181 it was max connections that I was talking about but I don't think that you read the line below...