Hi,

we're planning to do some webhosting with cpanel.

At the moment we're having a look at modernbill and whmautopilot. does anybody have experiences with those two or any other tools?

What other addon-ons do you suggest? Like rvskin or anything else.

Thanks for every hint and tipp.

Helmi

...it would also be fine if you could tell us if you have experiences with server-management-providers (guys who manage your servers).

Thanks,
Helmi

I would recommend rvskins. Unlike some skin vendors, Pairote stays on top of development and is constantly updaing the skins to accomodate changes in the cPanel software. He is also very responsive to technical support issues.

I can say the same for the fantastico program offered by cpanelthemes.com. There are a few lingering issues that they are trying to work out directly with the cPanel developers, but all in all a good product (if you want to offer such a service to your users).

I do not have any experience with other billing solution vendors, but I can tell you that we are happy with ModernBill and do not plan to look for another solution anytime soon. What was said about fantastico and rvskins can also be said about modernbill.

The thing that all of the vendors I mention have in common is that they monitor their support forums and offer support directly through their forums. To me that is a big plus and is something I feel the cPanel team would be wise to adopt (they are famous for not supporting users through their forum).

Good luck.

[EDIT]I forgot that I was posting on the ev1server forums. A fantastico license is included with your server so it is somewhat of a no-brainer [/EDIT]

Modernbill is known for horrible support. More or less, if you get support, you get it from their user forum from other members. Not only that, they charge you to access the forum -- not that THEY do anything to help people out in there, they just take advantage and profit off of other people's generosity.

Also, when I had the software it's outstandingly complicated and confusing.

WHMAP is simple, effective, and works fantastic. Support is great and anyone can access their open forums. I highly recommend them.

I use WHMAP and I have set it up for a few clients. After its setup and everything is running it runs great and I would recommend it. I have not tried modernbill so cannot speak for them.

I have never had a "horrible support" experience with modernbill. It is true that their forums are for subscribers only, but as a subscriber, that doesn't bother me. Why would a non-subscriber need support? I wish cPanel maintained a seperate private forum for subscribers/admins.

I do not think modernbill would try to shut you down if you felt like starting a public support forum.

I cannot comment on autopilot because I have never used it.

It's not closed to just users of their software, it's closed if you own the software after your 6 months free support unless you extend your support contract.

As for not having bad support experiences... guess you're lucky. Do a search on wht and there's a long thread where many, many people talk about the horrible support ModernBill offers.

I use WHMAP and it works great. Installation is not that hard and support is outstanding!

Is that true? I never thought about them shutting people out of the support forum if their maintainence wasn't current. I just thought that they stopped offering direct technical support. Can someone confirm this?

It is not an issue with leased licenses as they include support for the duration of the lease. For our owned unlimited license, it is less than $80.00 a year for ongoing maintainence.

I have seen a few people scream really loud about not being helped on the MB support forums but this is a small fraction of the overall number of issues (pretty good if you consider the fact that it is a support forum) and all of the threads I have followed complaining about their service were followed up rather quickly by an admin. MB also provides a telephone number that you can call to resolve customer relations issues.

The other thing worth mentioning is that MB licenses also allow you to setup $8 enom accounts. Depending on your volume and/or ability to setup an $8 account (read cash flow) directly with enom, that alone may make the purchase worthwhile.

I am not a MB reseller so I really don't care which way you go, it should be noted however that MB is very actively developed and has a very large user base. Of course more people are going to post rants rather than raves, but even the number of rants are very low considering the installed base.

BTW, you can usually find $7 accounts on ebay

we are using whmautopilot and its amazing... basically everything u need, due a little search on ModernBill and most are complaining its too complicated...

u can check our whmAP forum at http://whmautopilot.com/forum/

Good Luck,
Kevin