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What do you guys think about VirtKick?
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What do you guys think about VirtKick?

BlazingServersBlazingServers Member, Host Rep
edited March 2016 in General

Virtkick was a panel that was promised to be free but it started charging a 15% charge for payments. Above that, they have monthly plans starting from $19/mo.

What do you think about this?

[Edit: The $19 plans are not mentioned on their website. But when you go to install that, it will ask for money. I will be posting a screenshot soon.]

[Edit 2: Sorry...it is $19/mo.]

Here is the screenshot:

BAD PRICING

«13

Comments

  • MadMad Member

    They claimed that it would have remained an open source panel.
    Though now they " charge you for 15% of the revenue you make through Virtkick. "

    In addition the source is no more available and they removed it everywhere.

    Well, I much better prefer SolusVM or Virtualizor at this point.

  • BlazingServersBlazingServers Member, Host Rep
    edited March 2016

    @andreamada said:
    They claimed that it would have remained an open source panel.
    Though now they " charge you for 15% of the revenue you make through Virtkick. "

    In addition the source is no more available and they removed it everywhere.

    Well, I much better prefer SolusVM or Virtualizor at this point.

    Even above 15% charge, they want you to subscribe to a plan. (Min $19)

  • MadMad Member
    edited March 2016

    I never asked for the access so I was not aware of it, neither it's mentioned in their site though.

    It was a nice project when it used to be open source as claimed :)

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    @andreamada said:
    They claimed that it would have remained an open source panel.
    Though now they " charge you for 15% of the revenue you make through Virtkick. "

    In addition the source is no more available and they removed it everywhere.

    Well, I much better prefer SolusVM or Virtualizor at this point.

    To be fair it isn't like they took everyones money and then said HAHA SUCKERS and then closed the project up. They did a kickstarter and requested $20k - $25k total to build the with OpenVZ, etc, supported, yet they only ended up getting a few thousand even though it was in many of the brnds out there best interest that they got it.

    In the end they got some VC funding and the funders wanted to know how they would make it profitable, and selling 'support licenses' wasn't going to cut it.

    You can blame the community for expecting someone to develop a whole control panel for $7.

    Francisco

  • MadMad Member
    edited March 2016

    @Francisco said:
    Francisco

    I'm not accusing nor criticizing them and it's surely much better than closing the project up.
    Though this is what they said:
    "Virtkick started open source and the core will stay that way - you’ll be able to spin up VMs on demand and self-host your own private cloud"

    Actually that's not true, the source code (even the first version) has been removed everywhere and that's a just pity :)

  • RIYADRIYAD Member, Patron Provider

    its a good panel , I am happy to pay $49/m or more . But 15%/m ?? Just No NO

  • I received an email from them inviting me to early access, gave it a shot. It's pretty and it works but that's about all it does. Nothing new and certainly nothing special.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @andreamada said:
    the source code

    Is this not it? https://github.com/virtkick

  • @jarland said:
    Is this not it? https://github.com/virtkick

    Yes. I also may have a local copy somewhere.

  • @jarland said:
    Is this not it? https://github.com/virtkick

    While there are several forks and repositories of libraries they might have used, the actual sourcecode for Virtkick is missing.

    In my opinion it is way too expensive - either request monthly subscriptions or a revenue based percentage, not both. Also 15% are quite a lot imho, especially for LET providers.

  • MadMad Member
    edited March 2016

    @jarland said:
    Is this not it? https://github.com/virtkick

    Unfortunately it's not.
    It's a repository of some modules or libraries, not even referring to VirtKick in some cases as well.

  • @andreamada said:

    Wait, as far as I remember they had source there. Or is it another panel that I'm confused with o.O

    Thanked by 1gruB
  • NeoXiDNeoXiD Member
    edited March 2016

    @sdglhm said:

    Wait, as far as I remember they had source there. Or is it another panel that I'm confused with o.O

    Such actions are a good reason to dislike the company. While I can understand companies which are putting the opensource version on ice and continue working in a closed-source branch (e.g. Observium), withdrawing all code like they did is a no-go for me.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    Their product implies that you are letting them manage your entire customer base. Yeah, good luck with that.

    Thanked by 2NeoXiD bersy
  • MadMad Member
    edited March 2016

    @sdglhm said:

    Wait, as far as I remember they had source there. Or is it another panel that I'm confused with o.O

    They used to but apparently they removed it ( a while ago ).

    Same as well for SpacePanel, acquired by VirtKick.

    It was open source and this is the result now:
    https://github.com/SpacePanel/space-personal

  • Most probably the company funded them didn't want to open source it.

    I wonder who funded them.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @Nyr said:
    Their product implies that you are letting them manage your entire customer base. Yeah, good luck with that.

    Sit back and enjoy the profits!! I think it has serious summer host appeal.

    Thanked by 1switsys
  • iKeyZiKeyZ Veteran

    As said above, they used to have a lot more on Github

  • Nyr said: Their product implies that you are letting them manage your entire customer base. Yeah, good luck with that.

    While it is a quite poor attitude from virtkick creators (the whole dissapearing of the open source code and changing dramatically the scopes of the project), it is also a sign of a hosting provider that users should nevel deal with, when they decide to let a third party person handle for them all their customer database... Not even one serious vps provider would give access to his client base to some random guy that produce just one of the elements a hoster needs to operate...

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    image

    1. Rent a server
    2. Sign up with Virtkick to get your CP and billing
    3. Post on LET
    4. Profit!

    I suspect every VirtKick host is going to be the same.

  • JacobJacob Member

    Expensive.
    Nothing special.

    Although, perfect alternative to SolusVM.

  • Sounds like a glorified affiliate program now to me...

  • BeardyUnixGuyBeardyUnixGuy Member
    edited March 2016

    I was a bit disappointed back when I first realised that VirtKick weren't going to be open sourcing all their code as originally anticipated. However, I can understand that they needed to change their initial plans considering that the crowd funding campaign didn't work out like expected.

    "Pivot" as the hipsters would call it ;-)

    More competition for SolusVM and Virtualizer can never be a bad thing. Plus, who knows, maybe at a later stage VirtKick will make enough profit to consider open sourcing later revisions of their panel and associated components.

    Often, we forget that the choice to open source a code base is a decision that can only be made by the project team. We, as users/community, often cannot force or expect it from them. They, the project members, are the ones putting their hard work and effort into a project that may (or may not) be seen as worthwhile (to them, the project team).

    As far as costs go, I'm not a provider but I think that they're pretty expensive especially considering that there's a monthly fee in addition to the 15% revenue share. Then again, maybe there's a number of providers that will see value in not having to manage a few aspects of the business (billing, provisioning, etc). I can easily imagine VirtKick (as a tool) being capable of enabling one-man providers/companies to be way more efficient.

    All in all, good luck to them and I wish them all the best!

    Thanked by 1Admiral_Awesome
  • LicensecartLicensecart Member
    edited March 2016

    It's the same old story really.

    AreYouAHuman great alternative to Recaptcha, it was free and they made money from advertising captcha games. They got all the attention and popularity and then they go and close PlayThru. They now charge for their new product.

    VirtKick, a great idea for a control panel to compete with DigitalOcean, was going to be open-sourced a lot of people get behind it, they then go to charge 15% of YOUR revenue to pay for it. Now they aren't happy with that they now want a monthly fee and 15% of YOUR revenue. You'd think if you was to pay a monthly price the higher you pay the lower the revenue percentage they would get. But hey they've now just tarnished their brand.

    SpacePanel sounded like a great control panel for gaming businesses, they sold up to the above and screwed the future of that control panel now.


    All is not over though! Time for a CloudLinux product which allows you to market like DigitalOcean, with no percentage of your revenue :D KuberDock! http://kuberdock.com

  • MadMad Member
    edited March 2016

    @Licensecart said:
    All is not over though! Time for a CloudLinux product which allows you to market like DigitalOcean, with no percentage of your revenue :D KuberDock! http://kuberdock.com

    This is interesting and I didn't know it though it's not free.

    "No obligation or credit card required, Prices start at only $8 per month"

  • AlexBarakovAlexBarakov Patron Provider, Veteran

    I am sure that virtkick was and is based on an opensource panel. I am just too lazy to find it at the moment. I wonder why noone mentioned it as of yet. It was widely discussed back then, when they were planning to keep it open source.

  • MadMad Member

    @AlexBarakov said:
    I am sure that virtkick was and is based on an opensource panel. I am just too lazy to find it at the moment. I wonder why noone mentioned it as of yet. It was widely discussed back then, when they were planning to keep it open source.

    As previously said it's not anymore and the source code is not available anywhere:

    http://i.imgur.com/0TKitye.png (Official reply on a person's observation)

  • AlexBarakovAlexBarakov Patron Provider, Veteran

    You did not understand me. The thing which was under 'virtkick' was an opensource panel as well. I think it was russian (by memory).

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