http://www.hostingadvice.com/blog/cpanel-vs-plesk-vs-webpanel/
Many folks who need web hosting these days want the simplest method of managing their servers. To many, it is expected that graphical-user-interfaces (GUIs) are provided along with hosting. Much like those in OSX or Windows.
Hosting control panels are web-based interfaces allowing administrators and/or users to manage various server services from the comfort of a web browser.
Below we take a quick look at some of the most popular options that are available and actively maintained. Ten of these projects are open source and five are proprietary software.
Common Control Panel Features
In general, most control panels implement a common set of features. While most will implement some subset of these, there are a few that include them all.
Web hosting control panel software may provide access to:
- Domain name system management (web domains, mail domains, etc.)
- Email system management (email addresses, email quotas, spam prevention, etc.)
- FTP management (user accounts, password management, file system quotas)
- Web-based file system access
- SSH user/key management
- Database management (MySQL, PostgreQSL and sometimes other database systems)
- Backup management
- Logfile access and reporting
- A plugin system for configuring additional services and installing applications (i.e., a blogging application like WordPress)
Enterprise Control Panel Features
Some projects also have enterprise features like:
- Manage multiple servers from one control panel interface
- For hosting providers: allow multiple customers to run the control panel software in parallel on a server
- Service monitoring and alerting
- A ticketing system for customers
- IPv6 support
Control Panel Features Matrix
We all know it is easier to see things visually, so we put together a nice table for you to see all of the control panels and their features quickly.
Below the table, we provide some commentary on each piece of software and have some links to their sites if you would like to investigate more.
Control Panel Reviews
cPanel
Cpanel is the web control panel that is used the most. Cpanel is the web control panel tool for website owners, and Web Host Manager (WHM) is the server administrative tool for hosting providers.
Cpanel and WHM can be considered the most full-featured systems of all. Cpanel is only supported on Linux, but Windows support can be achieved using its Enkompass product or a virtualization setup. The user interface, although easy to use, is definitely not the best among web control panels.


Plesk
Plesk is the most popular web control panel after Cpanel. Besides Linux support, it also has very good Windows support. Plesk comes in several different editions, each tailored for specific hosting use cases. The user interface is regarded as a bit cleaner than Cpanel. In terms of features, Plesk and Cpanel don’t differ much. Both are in use by big hosting companies (often in a branded form) and other many customers.

DirectAdmin
DirectAdmin is a relatively lightweight control panel that supports Linux. It has all of the basic features of a control panel, including support for multi-customer setups. All of the sold licenses are “unlimited domain” licenses.

Core-Admin
Core-Admin was designed as a centralized and highly connected solution that provides support for managing multi-servers using a single web administration console. This includes an advanced permission system and monitoring system. There is a “Free Web Edition” that is limited to handle 10 domains.

InterWorx
InterWorx comes in two package versions: NodeWorx (to manage a server) and SiteWorx (to manage a site). Interworx has a nice plugin system, which allows for quick installs of applications like the Softaculous web package manager. InterWorx also has a command line interface.

i-MSCP
i-MSCP is open source and aims to be a good multi-server control panel for both personal and professional (i.e., hosting providers) usage. There is not something particularly outstanding in this web panel, but there is an active community around it.

Froxlor
Froxlor is an open source web control panel with a very clean interface. There is IPv6 support, a ticketing system and an integrated reseller-customer messaging system. It is ideal for ISPs and similar organizations.

Vesta
Vesta is open source and aims to be a simple and lightweight web control panel. It does not support the more enterprise-like features (like multi-server setups), but it does try to place an emphasis on performance by using Nginx for the web panel frontend and Apache for the application backend.

ZPanel
Zpanel (hasn’t been updated since March 3, 2014 and may no longer be maintained) is open source and aims to be an “enterprise class web hosting control panel with support for unlimited resellers.” The interface is compact and highly functional. Zpanel has support for many operating systems, including Linux, Windows, MacOS and FreeBSD.

Sentora
Sentora is a fork of ZPanel. This fork happened after Zpanel’s sale to a United States-based company. Sentora brands itself as the “community version” of ZPanel. The team behind Sentora also offers subscription-based, premium support.

Webmin
Webmin an open source web control panel for system administration on Linux/Unix. It has dozens of modules for configuring server services. Their Cloudmin tool is a Webmin-based interface for managing virtual systems, including Xen, KVM and OpenVZ.

ISPConfig
ISPConfig is a popular open source web control panel system with good enterprise support. The project claims to have more than 40,000 downloads per month. There is good multi-server, IPv6 and virtualization (OpenVZ) support, which is ideal for ISPs or other corporate environments.

Ajenti
Ajenti is a Python-based web control panel system, which makes it stand out from all PHP-based ones. The website claims there are more than 55,000 active users of Ajenti. The interface is very well-designed. Ajento runs on various Linux distributions and FreeBSD.

BlueOnyx
BlueOnyx is an open source web control panel that only runs on the CentOS and Scientific Linux distributions. Its interface may show its age a bit, but there is good support for multi-user setups among many other features.

CentOS Web Panel
CentOS Web Panel is an open source web panel for the CentOS Linux distribution. It has a solid feature set that can match most of the other web panel projects except for multi-server support.

Final note
Hopefully this quick overview of these 15 actively-maintained web panels should give you a good start for selecting a web panel that suites your server management needs.