All in one solution

[Nick]

It's 2013, providers come and go by the day but we only have a couple of software products that truely stand out and beyond from the rest.

Billing Software

• WHMCS - been the most stable, slow to release new updates or implement additional features
• Hostbill - amazing software but run by a lunatic with no sense in business.
• Blesta - basic software but looks like we have exciting features coming in with V3. Very affordable and opensource modules and gateways!

Shared Hosting

• cPanel - all round, great product.
• ByteCP - too expensive, no monthly option, owned by hostbill and lack of features
• Webmin, zPanel, Directadmin, Lxadmin, etc.. - all of these products are still too far behind cPanel in both development and support.

VPS Hosting

• SolusVM - great price, easy to use, fast support and ongoing development.
• OnApp - Reasonably expensive, great support, feature rich and looks like it'll have a great future.
• Proxmox and others - still a bit behind the alernative which is SolusVM. There's many open source panels making their way at there as VPS Hosting becomes more and more popular in the Web Hosting industry.

To sum up, 80% of hosts will require 3 different peices of software to manage their clients and products when a one-way solution would make everything go a lot smoother.

Do you expect to see an all-in-one solution in the near future or will integration between the 2, 3 or 4 different peices of software become stronger that it'll all be in one central location?

 

[SeriesN]

Excell + Putty,

Halilullah\!

 

[jarland]

I believe that we will see more custom implementations in the near future. The first of which will be when people finally realize that the SolusVM admin API is public information. After that, the combination will become more than cosmetic and people will actually start developing or hiring developers more. This is a big deal. You can't hold a snickers bar in each hand and promise the customer that the one in your left hand is different forever. As the market truly becomes saturated, the innovation must come on the front end. If you want people to think you're different, you need to show them.

Just my 2 cents. It's time to take on the status quo.

 

[Awmusic12635]

I believe the integration of them will be bigger.

I have been slowly doing that with Fliphost, less logins makes it easier and therefore a happier customer. Integrating them into WHMCS to make one seemless panel.

Progress:

Completed:

DNS

RDNS

Backups

In Progess:

Solusvm

cPanel

Offloaded SQL

Completed just awaiting me to not be lazy and write some scripts:
VPS Automatic Script installer (Ex. Wordpress)
 

 

[D. Strout]

BuyVM is hard at work doing this sort of thing. I understand billing and ticketing will be integrated in to their "Stallion 2" panel. It really is a distinctive feature that puts you light-years ahead of the competition. Unless someone develops a new backend virtualization method with the resource "cheapness" of OpenVZ and the isolation of KVM/Xen, this is where the fun lies.

 

[MannDude]

BuyVM is hard at work doing this sort of thing. I understand billing and ticketing will be integrated in to their "Stallion 2" panel. It really is a distinctive feature that puts you light-years ahead of the competition. Unless someone develops a new backend virtualization method with the resource "cheapness" of OpenVZ and the isolation of KVM/Xen, this is where the fun lies.

The Stallion 2 looks ultra nice, IMO. I wish more providers took this inititiave to do something 'different'. I guess i'm guilty of this too, though I am an employee and not an owner. But I still think more should do this!

 

[shovenose]

ModulesGarden is making a SolusVM module with more integrations than the stock SolusVM WHMCS Module.

 

[Awmusic12635]

ModulesGarden is making a SolusVM module with more integrations than the stock SolusVM WHMCS Module.

What will it include?

 

[shovenose]

What will it include?

No clue. Not gonna post what they told me in public, but I would be happy to screenshot our communication in private.

 

[Coastercraze]

Sadly, probably not a whole lot of "AIO" solutions will be available. We will most likely see more "core" based software with plugins as the norm for integrating different products using APIs and such to make the illusion of an "AIO" to the end users.

Blesta v3 will hopefully fill that need well.

 

[drmike]

I welcome integrated AIO solutions from end user perspective.

I hate the three logins for every VPS account.  Maddening.

 

[AnthonySmith]

Yep this is what I have been thinking for some time, the only product I am aware of that does this now is HCP but it is ultra $$$$ or used to be.

Really all we need is a hosting panel frame work that allows you to build your own features with logic and your own functions.

 

[SkylarM]

A more well rounded Solus module will be nice. ModuleGarden's list price for it is a bit more than I was expecting though ($99 I think it was?) so hopefully they do a promo on it and it isn't as bad as the Solus supported module.

Blesta v3 is looking quite nice. Excited to see where it goes. Owner seems to have his head screwed on straight, if he doesn't go the route of Hostbill Blesta may be a real competitor to the market.

 

[Tipsta]

OnApp is pretty awesome,

The support team and the product is well worth the money..

Just not good for your summer hosts who can't cost in a $500USD / Month startup fee..

 

[Abdussamad]

I think the problem is that any solution requires rigourous testing in the wild. People trust WHMCS and SolusVM because they've proven to be secure (relatively speaking). Any upstart is going to face an uphill battle in proving that their product is equally secure and free of bugs!

 

[Francisco]

I think the problem is that any solution requires rigourous testing in the wild. People trust WHMCS and SolusVM because they've proven to be secure (relatively speaking). Any upstart is going to face an uphill battle in proving that their product is equally secure and free of bugs!

I think the bigger problem is that the alternatives are batshit insane. Look at hostbill! They were proclaimed the killer of WHMCS.....then they sat in a corner sniffing glue for a year and now they randomly move a decimal point around.
If there's a solid team that's willing to really go at it? They'll do well. People are always looking to be unique in some way and really, software side is about the only one.

The even bigger problem with the software side is the developers take off or are just really terrible business operators. The guys @jarland was using straight up died for 12+ hours for what I assume was a billing related outage. To this day he still hasn't been told what happened. They simply send him new invoices.

Francisco

 

[Ash]

They simply send him new invoices.

That's not surprising, i signed up for the free trial and they continue to invoice me for that as well even though i cancelled the trial days after registering.

Blesta is really promising and its probably the most secure, but v3 has been development for agessss.

 

[Francisco]

That's not surprising, i signed up for the free trial and they continue to invoice me for that as well even though i cancelled the trial days after registering.

Blesta is really promising and its probably the most secure, but v3 has been development for agessss.

I have a friend that does security audits for companies and he said he did one on either hostbill or blesta and he had to walk away for a little to grasp the amount of security issues there was. I can't remember which it was but I know it was one of them.

On the topic of stallion since someone brought it up. Our billing would most likely convert into a much simpler setup. Users would load credit on their account and all services would be charged on the 1st. Upgrades would be inlined (read: You go on your ip addresses page and click 'buy' with how many) as well as an easy upgrade/downgrade option.

We don't need the massive domain ordering system whmcs has or all the tax code options so why develop it?

Francisco

 

[SPINIKR-RO]

I have a friend that does security audits for companies and he said he did one on either hostbill or blesta and he had to walk away for a little to grasp the amount of security issues there was. I can't remember which it was but I know it was one of them.

Would be interesting to know, the very little I have seen of HB seems well coded. 

 

[Enterprisevpssolutions]

Hostbill works great and has the features, just not the management that is required to succeed.  h34r: Proxmox is great and stable, solusvm has its plus as well as onapp but let me ask a question would you rather have HA that works correctly and the ability to run both KVM and openvz on one system. Proxmox 3.0 has the cloning and template features added now and works great haven't had issues yet. Not to mention quick install, multi-master node, stable and open source, great community support as well as paid support if required. Security is the main thing I will always request in a CMS first then everything else follows.