Fastpanel server control panel - my two year review

I have previously written here about the free web hosting panel Fastpanel (https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/183986/whats-not-to-like-about-fastpanel) and have used it continuously for nearly three years, and this is my more detailed review of the panel.

Why Fastpanel?
Actually, for WordPress hosting, Fastpanel is great, but it is not my preferred choice. I have tried many panels, and the GT Metrix results I get with Enhance+LiteSpeed Enterprise exceed those of OLS and NGINX Fast-CGI, but this is based on my personal experience. Enhance has its limitations, however - multisite being one of them.
Fastpanel is a free web hosting panel that runs several different configurations. At present, Apache, NGINX, PHP-FPM, and NGINX Fast-CGI. It can also host PHP sites, static sites, reverse proxies, and, as I will discuss later, Docker. Docker is not currently built into the panel, but I believe it may be soon. It is, however, easy to install on top of and compatible with Fastpanel. The other feature on the roadmap is the inclusion of OpenLiteSpeed (but my personal preference is LiteSpeed Enterprise/NGINX Fast-CGI/OpenLiteSpeed).

Use case
I use Fastpanel mainly to host PHP scripts (i.e. from Codecanyon) as well as self-hosting a range of apps using Docker. I cannot recall any technical issues. They have a 'not-overwhelming' documentation section on their website (https://kb.fastpanel.direct/) that actually will probably answer most questions you are likely to have. If the answer isn't in the docs, then Fastpanel also have an active Discord community, and the moderators and Admin will be able to answer your question there or invite you to open a ticket.

Support
I have needed to contact their support on a couple of occasions. Once, it was to get Jitsi, which I was self-hosting on Docker, working. Now, Docker is not even officially supported, but Fastpanel support did indeed get my Jitsi Meet server running. On another occasion, they helped me troubleshoot mail delivery from my Hetzner server, which was probably above and beyond.

You can actually pay for server-related support that will give you a set number of tickets each month. I have not required this service as yet, but even standard support was fast.

PHP/extensions
I run some WordPress sites (especially the multisites) on Fastpanel. Sadly, like their closest competition, Cloudpanel, they only allow subdirectory installations for WordPress, not for WordPress subdomains.
In terms of performance, I used Hummingbird Pro from WPMU Dev as my caching plugin with Fastpanel and am pleased to say it plays very nicely with some tweaking of the NGINX Config. I have GTMetrix ratings of A for a number of my Fastpanel WordPress sites.

As I mentioned, I mainly used Fastpanel for hosting PHP scripts, and it supports a range of PHP versions up to 8.4; most are not installed, but can be with one click in the panel.

When it comes to the panel, it is very intuitive, though I confess that I have got lost even within its simplicity. Many practical applications, such as Redis, Shellinabox, Spam Assassin and WP CLI, can be installed as one-click applications.

Mail Server
Enhance comes with a built-in mail server with support for SPF and DKIM. You can install a DNS server, but it also integrates via API with DNS providers like Cloudflare and DigitalOcean.

You can back up your sites to S3-compatible provider, FTP servers or use their paid Fastbackup service. My server is with Hetzner, where I back up to a storage box.

Docker
It was easy to install Docker using online instructions (https://docs.vultr.com/how-to-install-docker-on-ubuntu-24-04). I installed Portainer to allow me to use Docker Compose files to install apps onto Fastpanel easily—the simple-to-use reverse-proxy functionality in Fastpanel enable me to generate SSL certificates for my Docker apps.

I have previously hosted Jitsi Meet, Nextcloud AIO, Supabase, a dozen PHP scripts, and a couple of WordPress sites with ample additional capacity on a 32GB GreenCloud server, experiencing no performance issues with any of the apps.

It's pretty remarkable that this free panel offers the same level of functionality as cPanel (perhaps not all the bells and whistles). If you pay for Pro licences, this gives you the ability to rebrand the panel, which is perfect for web hosts, as the panel also offers tiered user management, so you can let your clients use your branded panel with limited privileges. You also get one server support ticket each month and Prometheus support for server monitoring.

The future with Fastpanel
Though it won't necessarily affect me much, OpenLiteSpeed will no doubt be popular in general. The upcoming Docker functionality is a bit more niche. I am learning Mogwai, which is their command-line tool, and an API is on the way! I hope they integrate with billing panels (e.g., WHMCS, Hostbill), as there is currently no integration available. I note that several major providers, including DigitalOcean, offer Fastpanel on their marketplace. I'm reassured that updates come quite regularly and are published on their blog.

I'm really pleased with my experience of Fastpanel and would recommend this free panel for web hosts or anyone interested in self-hosting their own apps.

Disclaimer:
I am not affiliated with Fastpanel.
AI played no part in the writing of this review.