dotnetpanel

[icerat]

With the continuing uncertainty and lack of support and big fixes since Parallels (aka SWSOFT) bought Helm, I'm wondering if -

(a) is anyone here is using dotnetpanel? What's your opinion?

(b) if SB has considered a dotnetpanel licencing agreement similar to that which exists with Helm?

[DXD]

With the continuing uncertainty and lack of support and big fixes since Parallels (aka SWSOFT) bought Helm, I'm wondering if -

(a) is anyone here is using dotnetpanel? What's your opinion?

(b) if SB has considered a dotnetpanel licencing agreement similar to that which exists with Helm?

You can find me on the WHA forums as well but here is are my thoughts on the whole circus they have created.

1. My original thoughts of when SWSoft (now Parallels) bought WHA I felt it was a move to squash the competition. I still feel it is and I think HELM will go away eventually just don't know when.

2. It's been 4 Months since the purchase and they have made 0 announcments about anything and no bug fixes and we all know there is hundreds of bugs in HELM 4

3. Has deep deep pockets just this past month in the Web Hosting Magazine I saw atleast 6 full page adds for their products.

4. If you call Parallels main number and ask about HELM they will tell you they don't know what your talking about.

5. At any moment they could turn off the license server and every HELM control panel 3 and 4 would be come disabled.

DNP was basically a copy of HELM with a different gui (so has been said) I've looked at DNP and am not 100% sure I want to put my trust in another control panel company yet. What do you do if Parralles decides to buy them?

HELM has been the best windows control panel and it's ashame it's all going in the toliet.

My personal goal is to write my own control panel for ME for what I need and for what product I use. I will continue to use HELM 4 as long as I can.

There are alot of benifits in writing your own and that's what I'm weighing right now. Hopefully I'll make that decision and start soon.

[icerat]

Failing to find any CP that did what we needed we had our own CP and billing system for years. It ended up taking so many resources to keep it up to date and operational that I decided we needed to find a 3rd party solution. I spent 2-3 years testing and trying out all the options, and Helm seemed the best bet, but with the imminent launch of Helm 4 (2 years ago I was told "should be launching next week) I held off. More than a year later Helm 4 was released and I decided to take the leap. I soon found the billing was unusable, but tested WHMCS and found it did a great job there, and would talk to Helm4.

So I was more than happy to go with a WHMCS/Helm4 combo. Unfortunately some relatively important bugs (like the file editor destroying files!) and the apparent complete lack of interest in fixing them ... well, my confidence isn't the highest.

So I'd still like a 3rd party solution, and I'm very happy with WHMCS as a billing solution. Plesk I've never liked but am reconsidering. Any other suggestions would be welcomed.

[DXD]

If I had to choose right this minute (meaning helm was gone) I would choose Dot Net Panel

Other then that I would start writing my own a I have tried all the others and don't like any of them, and based on how Parrallels has handled all of this I would not buy any of their products.

[icerat]

BTW - been chatting with the dotnetpanel guys and they do a pretty good deal on licencing for operations like SB, so guys, it's worth considering as another option.

[icerat]

coincidentally enough, one of the key new developers posted on the WHA forums yesterday and dropped some hints about Helm 4.1.

They drag me out just a little bit longer ....... :crazy:

[DXD]

coincidentally enough, one of the key new developers posted on the WHA forums yesterday and dropped some hints about Helm 4.1.

They drag me out just a little bit longer ....... :crazy:

Also note though that key developer's title is "Legacy Application ...." meaning to me HELM 4 is now a legacy app and on it's final countdown.

[Dare]

It doesn't look like Parallels is supporting Helm at all. I would stay away from Parallels. I had some real issues with SWSoft's Plesk and Virtuozzo which caused me to lose some money. I'd rather not go down that road again. Helm is working ok right now, but I expect to be doing something different on a Windows 2008 Server. Anyone know if 2008's control panel is consumer friendly? How's the built in virtualization?

DotNetPanel seems to be "website" based. The problem with that is I have a lot of clients who don't have websites. They may just have email, or want other services set-up. Helm has a similar problem in that each account must go under a domain, which clients sometimes don't have.

[icerat]

Hmmm .... and now some real horror stories.

A Helm client reported to Parallels he had a problem with the MSSQL icon disappearing after installing some recent bugfixes.

Parallel's stuff logged onto his control panel and removed and reinstalled the SQL support for the site - deleting the live database for the site!
:rtfm:

Separately they "reprovisioned" DNS, which has a known bug if you have static IPs - and promptly screwed up his DNS and access to the site. :oops:

Not long ago another Helm client, who uses a Helm supplied domain registrar account, suddenly found his customers could no longer register Domains - the Parallels/Helm account at the registrar was out of money!

On top of this, this morning one of my Helm licences through ServerBeach has suddenly started reporting as an invalid licence and stopped working. Fortunately the only live sites on it so far are for internal use.

Dotnetpanel is beginning to look more and more attractive ..... :(

[Dare]

I've seen the invalid license message on my Helm before. Never got an answer why this happens. I would never use Helm for customers to use. I use it for my own IT staff to smooth and standardize the set-up process.