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Is there anything better than WHMCS?
thecreator_
Member
in General
WHMCS is very expensive now, but I think it's still the best. Other alternative automations lack too many modules and I have concerns about reliability.
As far as I can see, hostbill is the only and biggest competitor of WHMCS, but hostbill is also expensive and support is paid.
Is there an automation you can recommend and experience?
(I never prefer to use warez software. Also, I never buy anything from companies that use warez software.)
Comments
You could try a reseller account that gives you a free whmcs included in the package, try the provider section here on lowendtalk enjoy
Hostbill is the best software even better than WHMCS
However the price is high for some.. (you have to spend money to get better things)
Anyway, what kind of business you have?
For other services Blesta also good if you have low budget..
Thanks, I will consider offers.
My budget is enough to start with whmcs but the real question is is it really worth it? I did some research and found out that lesser known automations like blesta lack modules. and lack of resources, lack of developers and insufficient features etc.
Maybe blesta would be a good place to start, but if things get bigger, I think it will be insufficient. Because it is very important not only to start the business but to develop the business and blesta does not provide everything.
WHMCS is still very reasonably priced, considering it really operates/automates your entire backend infrastructure. I can understand it might be expensive for some users in foreign economies where $1 is alot of money, especially for startups with no income yet, but in reality the cost of WHMCS is rather inexpensive for normal hosting businesses with revenue in non-developing countries.
~ SMARTHOST
Hostbill
Hostbill
You get. What you pay for, the high price is some truth reason we can trust to keep them continue support for the version and update.
Have used Blesta, WHMCS, and HostBill in live/production environments. They all sort of have their quirks and their roles.
Blesta is by far the least expensive, functions very well/stable, but the most limited in features/plugins and 'maturity' of said plugins. We very quickly ran into tons of headaches and needed manual intervention--most of which were somewhat niche case but still existed. All of the comparable plugins for different backend/management software we used either didn't exist or were comparably very immature.
WHMCS you probably are familiar with already. It works well, it has the most mature plugins and widest variety, and it isn't really that expensive for what you get (though it isn't "cheap", either). We were able to automate so much more of our backend tasks that I saved a lot of labor for myself & my team on menial tasks and made the end customer experience a lot smoother/faster. Most of the plugins/services you need start here and expand to other billing platforms after.
HostBill was excellent. It's a bigger up front one-time cost but I actually preferred that method. It ran well, it was smooth, looked good, very detailed and an interesting approach to how they do their modules or plugins. Because we are pretty dead-set on staying with VirtFusion for our virtualized stuff, HostBill was a no-go at the time and had an ETA of ~6+ months before rolling the plugin out so we had to go elsewhere. I think if HostBill also integrated our bare metal solution (or allowed us to write the plugin ourselves) we'd likely seriously consider switching back. Support was good and lenient with the tickets, and they honored everything they said they would.
There were a bunch of other solutions as well but most of them were too niche/targeted for what we wanted overall. Generally speaking, we have some excellent options in this space now.
I will say that I had originally started with Blesta because most of our business was not in VPS/small bare metal at the time (almost exclusively bigger GPU/HPC servers that were all unique builds) but we outgrew it so fast that it was likely a mistake to start there. Within a month we needed to migrate to something else and it was a huge headache and hassle and added some friction to our customer experience.
Yes you are right. For some countries and companies, WHMCS can be quite costly right now. I guess I think it's too expensive now as I compare it to its old price. A software that used to cost $50 per month for unlimited customers is now $1300 per month, I think. I'm a little angry that WHMCS was bought by a greedy company and indirectly partnered with web hosting companies.
Thank you very much for your wonderful comment. I think I'll start with WHMCS and maybe continue with hostbill in the future. And yes changing automation is a huge headache. I don't want to deal with such problems at the beginning.
I was thinking to buy hostbill thanks for the detailed review
Honestly i tried blesta but always it makes me confused
Anyone tried this for just simple host setup like offering shared hosting
https://codecanyon.net/item/hostbilling-web-hosting-billing-automation-software/30610670
Hi, this is the hostbill I'm talking about; https://hostbillapp.com/
We use clientexec for years and we are very satisfied.
did you have a look at upmind? We are looking to testdrive it.
I used it for 3 months and quit. I discovered many bugs in 3 months and it needs constant patching. They also have many shortcomings and develop very slowly. Special development is also required due to module and feature deficiencies. This takes time and is much more costly than whmcs.
It is still a new software and upmind has its shortcomings.
I like blesta. Provides source code, you can modify as you wish. There is no greater value than access to the code to improve on. My POV as a Developer and Provider.
ClientExec is another great alternative to WHMCS.
Yes, it is a good alternative, but insufficient. Have you tried clientxec before? I guess you are using WHMCS.
Check out Upmind. They have free plan also.
https://upmind.com
Hostbill and Hostbilling are different things
There is something here that many forget.
WHMCS - It's good yes, but never forget one thing. Often what is most used, is most targeted by hackers. Not because it's interesting, but because there are so many companies to use. Soon it is a target of potential hackers and cybercriminals. This happens to all systems, but the most used are the ones that usually suffer the most from it.
It is necessary to be aware of this, therefore, in my opinion, I prefer any other than WHMCS, you see people selling leaks and accesses to WHMCS and there are those who know of exploits that have not even been fixed. WHMCS isn't bad, it's good. But be aware of this.
It's the same as Windows, which has more malware? Windows, Linux also have? Yes, obviously but much smaller.
I'm a bit confused, do all the software that were mentioned in this thread (WHMCS, Blesta, upmind, HostBill, clientexec...) are offering virtualization same as SolusVM, Virtualizor...?
Or are they only a billing platform automation? then, how could you do virtualization such as KVM, OpenVZ...?
How do the providers perform a virtualization on a server?
While I see and understand your logic, I also disagree with it. I'd much rather have the more established "top dog" of a product within the market than some underdog that is less likely to have the necessary support and development to justify choosing the alternative. The primary reason not to pick the top one is simply due to alternatives providing more competitive pricing.
A real life example to counter your argument would be VestaCP for web hosting. Based on your statement, you would rather avoid cPanel due to the "large target" that it carries from being the flagship software of choice within its market. However, smaller competitors such as VestaCP and others have also been seen as more easily exploitable due to the lack of funding/development to properly address any exploits that are discovered, whereas cPanel has more resources available to fix major exploits that appear as well as provide a roadmap for requested features.
The main reason not to pick the flagship product within a specific market is money. The second reason would be that a niche feature/request isn't available for that service while a smaller alternative is providing it or willing to add that feature upon request.
If anything, it would make more sense to pick the main product even for a feature request simply because there will be more developers available willing to complete the request since there is much more support for that product compared to the lesser known alternatives.
I read everything. But I stopped for a few seconds at the vestacp point. You cannot compare a free product with a paid product. I understand, whether it is possible to compare? Yes it is.
But mind you, the free panels don't have technical support or power to handle many requests, imagine what it's like 2-3 people handling 500+ tickets a day, vulnerabilities, bugs, errors, updates, fixes and so on. It wasn't going to work and this at zero cost.
When someone wants to attack a target, they like to choose a good target that has what is intended, in this case for example WHMCS, there have been people where their WHMCS system has been hacked and compromised. Sometimes with obvious reasons, sometimes with more sophisticated and uncorrected methods.
If you were to choose a billing system, would you go with WHMCS? Don't forget that when the company is bigger, they tend to neglect, because they continue to be at the top for several years, what happens is "well, we've been at the top for many years and there are no competitors that can reach our feet, let's go slow down a bit on tickets or corrections and save money".
This is enough for more support or more vulnerabilities, while Hostbill, Blesta and others work hard to get mature, consistent and better or at least close to the level of WHMCS.
And they focus on security and updates against bugs or vulnerabilities. That's where the answer is. Well, I would certainly go for Hostbill or any other depending on the cost, but if it compensates for security a few euros more why not?
----------------- cPanel -----------------
Now let's talk about cPanel, cPanel is very good yes, I confess but it is a target of hackers, hackers usually don't care about the less used systems, but the most used ones. Because that's where most companies are. Is it a good example? It depends!
I agree that any system, whether big or small or competing, has its faults and vulnerabilities, this will always happen.
But using something that hackers or people with bad intentions aren't expecting gets in the way too much. And sometimes they even give up and choose another target. That's how it works! Unless the target is really for revenge or desire.
In my case I would not use VestaCP, I would use DirectAdmin. Does it have vulnerabilities? Yes it certainly has. If there are problems? Obvious!
If you still don't have all cpanel functions? Maybe.
DirectAdmin first option or ISPManager as last option.
I wouldn't choose cpanel not only because of the price but also because of certain vulnerabilities. And you are correct anyone can have vulnerabilities. But the least used is what usually has the least. But for that it is necessary to analyze before choosing, but that is no longer my task. And yes, who uses it and chooses it.
We have very similar views but with some differences, which is normal. I liked your point of view.
Rootpanel but this is panel have bad Documentation, we have been using this panel for a very long time
Been exploring the competition a bit recently, namely, ClientExec. My biggest issue with it right now is that the newly added affiliate system cannot currently import WHMCS affiliate data - though I'm told by the developer they are moving the importer to Github and will release that functionality at that time.
I think if I were starting a business from scratch today, I'd go with ClientExec. The complexities tend to be when migrating from other billing systems.
Here are some examples:
HostBill: HostBill is a web hosting automation platform that offers a range of features, including billing, support ticketing, and domain management.
Blesta: Blesta is a web hosting automation platform that offers features such as billing, support ticketing, and domain management.
ClientExec: ClientExec is a web hosting automation platform that offers features such as billing, support ticketing, and domain management.
How could you perform virtualization at first? Do any of those software above offer any virtualization technology? Is using SolusVM, Virtualizor... are the ones used for virtualization?
Sorry to ask these newbie questions.
What do the LET providers use to virtualize their servers?
Highly recommend Blesta, been using it for years.
See this thread https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/183501/what-is-the-best-vps-control-panel
We use another software to virtualize, then integrate the software to a billing software then sell it off.