GIVEAWAY by AdminBolt & RackNerd! 100x FREE VPS FOR A YEAR + 20x LIFETIME LICENSES. LET'S TALK!

XQPUUU · October 12

fandy · October 12

dustinc · October 12

@b6DsUrNto3wE said:

@dustinc said:
Let's keep the conversation going! What was the very first web hosting control panel you ever worked with?

For me, it was cPanel/WHM -- back when it looked something like this. Anyone else old enough to remember the cPanel x3 theme? 😂

Photo credit: Adam Owen's blog

Good times! It's wild how much hosting has changed since then, and seeing panels like AdminBolt bring fresh ideas to a space many of us have worked in for years makes me excited for what's still ahead

What did you start with, and what do you remember most about it?

The x3 icon grid is genuinely burned into my retinas 😂

I came at it from the budget-VPS side though: my first panel was Kloxo on a $10/year OpenVZ box, because "free" was the entire budget at the time. Two memories stand out: feeling like an absolute god the first time Apache + MySQL actually started, and later learning about Kloxo's... colorful security history. Eventually touched cPanel shared hosting and finally understood what "it just works" meant.

These days I'm mostly Docker + SSH, but I do enjoy watching new panels like AdminBolt rethink the space. What's the angle you're most excited about — reseller hosting, or more the self-hoster crowd?

Kloxo! Hahaha, thanks for that blast from the past 😂 Speaking of which, remember HyperVM which was founded by the same guy? I actually contributed an article to LEB about that whole era: https://lowendbox.com/blog/nostalgia-the-evolution-of-vps-control-panels-from-hypervm-to-solusvm-and-beyond/

For AdminBolt, the shared/reseller hosting side is what excites me most personally. Flat per-server licensing gives providers room to offer more generous account limits again, and a modern foundation gives the team room to keep building, with tools such as MCP, allowing hosting providers to remain relevant in today's agentic AI era. Definitely interested in seeing how self-hosters put it to use too

dustinc · October 12

@bula said:

@dustinc said:
Let's keep the conversation going! What was the very first web hosting control panel you ever worked with?

For me, it was cPanel/WHM -- back when it looked something like this. Anyone else old enough to remember the cPanel x3 theme? 😂

Photo credit: Adam Owen's blog

Good times! It's wild how much hosting has changed since then, and seeing panels like AdminBolt bring fresh ideas to a space many of us have worked in for years makes me excited for what's still ahead

What did you start with, and what do you remember most about it?

@dustinc , I go way beyond cPanel. Before cPanel become popular there was another Control Panel that was a default for Linux based hosting called "Alabanza". cPanel with the support of VDI.net and Burst.net became very popular due to low price at that time @$10/server (Unlimited) bundled with most dedicated servers. Later the costs were increased to $20/server.

@bula -- Burst.net and VDI.net, now we're really going back! Hahaha, I remember those names well

Speaking of Burst.net, anyone else remember vePortal?

doseeher · October 12

@dustinc said:
RackNerd & AdminBolt Giveaway!
The next 10 eligible comments (must follow below instructions) shall receive a FREE 4 GB RAM VPS in Los Angeles for 1 year. No obligation to renew, no gimmicks, no catch. Simply FREE Winners will be contacted via DM.

Winners will be eligible to receive 1 YEAR FREE AdminBolt licensing per the guidelines mentioned in the original post.

For your entry to count, see below image (instructions are in the image shown below):

If you've already won a prior giveaway within this thread, you're welcome to join in again on this round for the vibes, though your entry won't count toward another win. We want to spread the love and get these 100 VPS into the hands of 100 different community members!

Note: Winners will be DM’d within 24 hours.

@dustinc @doseeher

sanchuan · October 12

@dustinc @sanchuan

dustinc · October 12

@Andru said:
The best theme that cPanel had...

Hi @Andru -- It definitely has a special place in the memory bank! You always knew where everything was -- I could probably still find my way around it without thinking 😂

doseeher · October 12

@dustinc @doseeher

dustinc · October 12

@uuc90 said:

@dustinc said:
Let's keep the conversation going! What was the very first web hosting control panel you ever worked with?

For me, it was cPanel/WHM -- back when it looked something like this. Anyone else old enough to remember the cPanel x3 theme? 😂

Photo credit: Adam Owen's blog

Good times! It's wild how much hosting has changed since then, and seeing panels like AdminBolt bring fresh ideas to a space many of us have worked in for years makes me excited for what's still ahead

What did you start with, and what do you remember most about it?

Plesk
It was probably Plesk. That said, it was quite resource-intensive, and hardware specs back then were pretty weak.

Hi @uuc90 -- Plesk was a good one too I remember it from the Parallels days.

krisNeo · October 12

@dustinc @krisNeo

XQPUUU · October 12

@dustinc @XQPUUU

fandy · October 12

@dustinc @fandy

Dulliri · October 12

@dustinc said:

@dustinc said:
RackNerd & AdminBolt Giveaway!
The next 10 eligible comments (must follow below instructions) shall receive a FREE 4 GB RAM VPS in Los Angeles for 1 year. No obligation to renew, no gimmicks, no catch. Simply FREE Winners will be contacted via DM.

Winners will be eligible to receive 1 YEAR FREE AdminBolt licensing per the guidelines mentioned in the original post.

For your entry to count, see below image (instructions are in the image shown below):

Latest giveaway winners have been DM'd

@dustinc @Dulliri

jaques · October 12

@dustinc @jaques

XQPUUU · October 12

@dustinc said:

@XQPUUU said:
cPanel/WHM for me too — and yeah, that x3 theme is a proper time capsule. I still remember opening WHM for the first time and just staring at that wall of icons, too scared to click anything in case I took down a live site. 😅

The weird part is how much of the fundamentals I picked up without realising it — DNS zones, mail routing, cron, all of it. I had no idea what half of it was doing back then, and only understood it years later when I finally started doing the same things by hand.

So it's fun watching the panel space get interesting again. The job hasn't changed, but the way we do it has — and honestly, I don't miss juggling a stack of add-ons just to get a site online.

Anyone here start on something older than cPanel? Would love to hear the war stories. 👀

Hi @XQPUUU -- Hahaha, amazing how those screens became second nature over time. Then you start doing things through the CLI and finally connect the dots on what the panel was handling for you.

Agreed, it's fun seeing fresh ideas in this space again

@dustinc — ha, exactly. The panel taught me the vocabulary, the CLI is what made me actually understand it; took a few years and a lot of man pages before the two clicked.

Which is a nice segue to my flawless record in this thread. I've lost every round so far, each time in a more creative way. One round I replied 19 seconds before the first winner and still didn't count — wrong format, obviously. Last round I somehow tagged @dustinx instead of @dustinc and didn't notice for ten minutes. 😅 At this point my server list is just a bookmark to this thread.

So, totally fine if the answer is no: but if one of the winners ever doesn't claim, or you've got a box sitting idle, I'd gladly give it a home [for a small monitoring/side project of mine]. And honestly, a 30-second heads-up before the next round would be worth more to me than the VPS. Either way I'll be camped on that refresh button. 🙂

farsighter · October 12

Anything soon?

ashmanmalhotra · October 12

ADMINBOLT - THE MODERN WEB HOSTING CONTROL PANEL!

gipaqytifo · October 12

vePortal! That's a name I haven't heard in ages. I remember it being so lightweight and easy to use back then.

gipaqytifo · October 12

Those were the days! The old cPanel icons just made sense, I still miss that layout 😄

gipaqytifo · October 12

Plesk was my first panel too! Parallels days were something else 😄

PuDLeZ · October 12

@dustinc said:

@PuDLeZ said:

@PuDLeZ said:
@dustinc @PuDLeZ

Editing to void (in case we can win multiple times). It's weird using a tablet+keyboard, I do think it's possible but I might be sticking to a more taditional computer if I'm actually looking for a win or the speedy checkout for a flash sale

Here's what I'm using just for fun

Sadly, the linux container in android is currently not working (ticket wtih samsung is currently under review with their dev team) otherwise I'll probably feel better about using it compared to a regular laptop. At least trying the linux container on my phone, I do feel that once it's working on this tablet, I can replace my laptop for most things.

Hahaha, nice set up! At least you know it is still possible to achieve on mobile/tablet. Good workout/practice for the upcoming holidays for sure

Yep! I figured I might as well give it a try!

I actually upgraded to the latest model (like only out for 5 days) because of the nice premium keyboard accessory and that it should support the linux container. Between android and the linux container, I can see myself not needing an standard laptop for the typical day-to-day usage, at least that's how I felt playing around with my phone and a bluetooth keyboard. With just android, I could probably manage if it was my only device but it would be forced which I don't find fun. Maybe I'm just too old

Though the biggest thing I've found using this setup so far is that I keep reaching for the GHB area of the keyboard for the trackpoint/nub and similar for the buttons that should be under the spacebar. I've used Thinkpads for way too long that anything like a laptop has my brain moving to those areas for mouse control.