Both cpanel and h-sphere

[electricfox]

I've been with Vortech for some time, using h-sphere exclusively. I don't have any specific complaints about h-sphere, other than the unfun fact that the disk space is based on allocation rather than usage.

I don't currently allow my customers access to their control panels - I manage everything. Other than the odd mail changes, this seems to work well, and saves me the nightmare of h-sphere billing.

However, I'm reaching the end of the useful life of the Cypher account, and don't want to upgrade to the pointless Morpheus account - so I'm thinking about trying Cpanel for my new unix customers.

So my question is this - I'm sure there are members out there who use both - is there any disadvantage to doing this? Do you find cpanel holds its own against h-sphere? Is it down less? I guess I'll need to choose another main domain?

[Vixen]

CPanel is not as automated as Hsphere.

[jsoren]

Our company is pretty well devided over which is better, H-sphere or Cpanel.

The pro's for using H-sphere seem to be: automated billing, access to client control panels from the reseller control panel and sitestudio.

The pro's for using Cpanel are: more features and a friendlier interface. (if using something like Xskin)

I prefer Cpanel. It is an all around "better" control panel for the end user, so long as they don't have need for a site builder.

Since you don't allow your customers access to the control panel you may want to stick with H-sphere if you rely on it's automation and sitestudio.

[Brangwyn]

Personally I'd say stick with H-Sphere and just get a second h-sphere cypher account, if you want windows hosting you'll have too anyway.

[somereseller]

CPanel looks nice and that's about it. Version 7 is a nightmare. So many things never work the way it's supposed too (worse than Hsphere).

I personally like hshphere better myself, for some odd reason I get lost in XSkin(I know I could choose another skin)

[antic]

My HSphere is slow... so very very sloww... at times it takes up to 20-30 seconds for a page to load. It seems to be the response time between me and cp.hsphere.cc

Actual page download is ok, but it takes aaages to wait for the HTML responses - first the page, then each image - I can see IE waiting to hear back from the server each time.

Why is the Vortech web site (and my client's site) reasonable in response times (though not snappy), but my HSphere is so ponderously slow?

I'm in Australia by the way... and the West coast at that, if it makes any difference.

Anyone on the East coast or NZ have such lag using HSphere?

[jmbeach]

HSphere is notorious for bogging down after a period of time. Typically Matrix will do a vacuum to get it back up to speed. That usually does a good job, but then after a week or so you'll notice the speed issue again.

Not to worry, it's not just you that sees the speed issue. I will say, though, that I've never seen it this slow before (except, of course, when the CP server is down completely)

[antic]

And you're in the US I see... what a drag, especially since we're using it all the time (or at least I am while I'm learning)

Why isn't the HSphere s/ware running from Vortech's servers? Are we then reliant on HSphere keeping their servers in order - if they go down does everyone in the world using HSphere go down as well?

[jmbeach]

No, this is Vortech's server. It's a separate server all it's own (cp.hsphere.cc), and is part of the cluster of Vortech servers - but it's still worked very hard, considering they have over 800 resellers, plus all their end users, plus all of our end users. There must be thousands - even if a few hunderd of us were on at once, some of these functions are pretty complicated which must really tax the resources.

[antic]

It's taxing me as well. I don't mean to bitch but it is often taking half a minute to get a page up on the screen! Why isn't this application load-balanced like I assume our own hosting accounts are? The server diagram on Vortech's site is very pretty.. lots of coloured lines and pictures of servers.. and yet the main app we use takes half a minute to display a page?!

As a reseller, don't your clients also complain about their control panel slowness?

[antic]

WebShell is running great, but it's on another server - nt25. Surely they'll have to look at splitting up cp's load sometime... it's tragic!

[jmbeach]

Originally posted by antic
It's taxing me as well. I don't mean to bitch but it is often taking half a minute to get a page up on the screen! Why isn't this application load-balanced like I assume our own hosting accounts are? The server diagram on Vortech's site is very pretty.. lots of coloured lines and pictures of servers.. and yet the main app we use takes half a minute to display a page?!

As a reseller, don't your clients also complain about their control panel slowness?

Sadly, I think many of us have grown to accept that the CP can be slow much of the time. Some functions are fast, others not so fast.

I don't know if it's possible to split the CP over several servers, but you may check out http://www.psoft.net (the makers of HSphere) to see what they say. If it's possible, maybe this will have to happen soon.

[Brangwyn]

Normally it's pretty fast for me actually, rarely now a days do I see 30 seconds load times, yes it does happen but at least 95% of the time it's pretty responsive, just been using it this morning and no issues.

[jmbeach]

Mostly I see lags (and yes up to and over 30 seconds) with adding/removing domains, doing traffic reports, etc. - usually small stuff like adding email addresses, subdomains, general reports are fast.