Hosts: Switch to alternatives before you get screwed brutally by Oakley Capital/WebPros

vpsgeek

https://www.whmcs.com/hosted

Make the move before they tell you that they will provide it to you as SaaS only. Ditch SolusVM, Plesk, cPanel & all other sh!t owned by Oakley Capital if possible

terrorgen

Isn't Oakley the monopoly in the eyeglasses business?

notty

Nope, it's this one

You could always buy the shares instead!
(Disclaimer: not investment advice)

SpryServers_Tab

@vpsgeek said:
https://www.whmcs.com/hosted

Make the move before they tell you that they will provide it to you as SaaS only. Ditch SolusVM, Plesk, cPanel & all other sh!t owned by Oakley Capital if possible

Why would you do this if you don't have to? I mean even if they do switch to a SaaS only option, why would you switch before you have to?

Honestly, I don't see them switching to a SaaS only model.

Francisco

So wait.

The people that had hostgator managing their servers, that got social engineered and a complete full database dump taken, is now doing hosted billing panels??

I would straight up not trust any host using such a setup just because of their poor judgement.

Francisco

MikeA

I would never trust a hosted billing platform for IaaS/SaaS. Lets hope WHMCS doesn't go the opposite direction down the road with the normal self hosted stuff.

SpryServers_Tab

@MikeA said:
I would never trust a hosted billing platform for IaaS/SaaS. Lets hope WHMCS doesn't go the opposite direction down the road with the normal self hosted stuff.

Yeah that would be f-ed up. If/when that time were to come I'd just switch to another platform. If I can't host it on my own infrastructure, I don't trust it. Maybe with the exception of Service Now. I've never used them (and probably never will), but I do hear really great things about them. LOL I really don't understand why OP is suggesting people switch to hosted WHMCS.

Amitz

I just found out that the glasses I wear everyday are made by Oakley.

What if they decide to offer GaaS (Glasses as a service)? I am doomed...

vpsgeek

@SpryServers_Tab said:
LOL I really don't understand why OP is suggesting people switch to hosted WHMCS.

@SpryServers_Tab said:

Why would you do this if you don't have to? I mean even if they do switch to a SaaS only option, why would you switch before you have to?

Honestly, I don't see them switching to a SaaS only model.

I am suggesting to hosts to switch to alternatives such as Blesta, HostBill or whatever fits their needs & budget before shit hits the fan.

InceptionHosting

Honestly I have made a lot of noise about WHMCS, I have been RIGHT on the edge of moving to hostbill but you know, its just that fear of tearing off the plaster, if this is how they decide to go I will tear that bitch off and pour bleach on the wound without a second thought.

MichaelCee

I am 4 months free from whmcs! Thanks to Francisco starting the movement with free Blesta I will soon be gettin' in on it directly.

Unfortunately not cPanel free until Q2 2020 estimation at the mo'.

@AnthonySmith I have to admit I have been following your hostbill interest every time you pop a mention and would love to see it happen.

Lee

Oakley is like a flock of circling vultures, they know what their target is, the plan is in place, all that is left is to swoop. cPanel first, then WHMCS, then more price increases. I am glad to be out in honesty.

Francisco

@Lee said:
Oakley is like a flock of circling vultures, they know what their target is, the plan is in place, all that is left is to swoop. cPanel first, then WHMCS, then more price increases. I am glad to be out in honesty.

I'm still waiting to see the price changes for Solus.

OnApp just increased rates to $12/m/core wiht a 100 core minimum.

That leaves a lot of room for Solus to come in at $6 - $8/m per physical core, still be way cheaper, but still get a serious cash bump.

Still, anything more than like $3/m/core is going to kill a lot of hosts, that or just kill LEB pricing on Solus.

Francisco

MikeA

@Francisco said:
That leaves a lot of room for Solus to come in at $6 - $8/m per physical core, still be way cheaper, but still get a serious cash bump.

If the prices were raised like this, 100-400% increase for slave licenses, I would absolutely switch to something different.

willie

What the hell does this stuff actually do anyway? I always took it for granted that there wasn't real money in anything having to do with the low end center, but those guys seem to be raking it in. I don't see the functionality that couldn't be implemented by a few nerds in a room with a subscription to Jolt Cola deliveries, if they still make that stuff.

cybertech

Why not the providers come together and start something

Just like how this forum was born

Joint funding for a solution yet big enough to get external interest

seriesn

@cybertech said:
Why not the providers come together and start something

Just like how this forum was born

Joint funding for a solution yet big enough to get external interest

That's what happened to interworx.

MikeA

@cybertech said:
Why not the providers come together and start something

Just like how this forum was born

Joint funding for a solution yet big enough to get external interest

I don't think there's enough interest from companies that would be willing to fund something, that's developing a full panel for managing/administering virtual machines, needs to be audited and secure for business use. There are options out there already that aren't SolusVM.

Mr_Tom

@SmallWeb said:
I am 4 months free from whmcs! Thanks to Francisco starting the movement with free Blesta I will soon be gettin' in on it directly.

Unfortunately not cPanel free until Q2 2020 estimation at the mo'.

@AnthonySmith I have to admit I have been following your hostbill interest every time you pop a mention and would love to see it happen.

I currently use Blesta but my plan I am keen to try Hostbill after reading up certain bits from Ant, etc, and having used Hostbill as a customer.

SpryServers_Tab

@vpsgeek said:

@SpryServers_Tab said:
LOL I really don't understand why OP is suggesting people switch to hosted WHMCS.

@SpryServers_Tab said:

Why would you do this if you don't have to? I mean even if they do switch to a SaaS only option, why would you switch before you have to?

Honestly, I don't see them switching to a SaaS only model.

I am suggesting to hosts to switch to alternatives such as Blesta, HostBill or whatever fits their needs & budget before shit hits the fan.

Totally misunderstood sorry. :P

I've been eying oVirt lately for VPS. It looks really flexible. Though I can't seem to get their hypervisor OS iso's to work properly.

Francisco

@MikeA said:

@Francisco said:
That leaves a lot of room for Solus to come in at $6 - $8/m per physical core, still be way cheaper, but still get a serious cash bump.

If the prices were raised like this, 100-400% increase for slave licenses, I would absolutely switch to something different.

They've already said the price is going up but will be "lower than OnApp". OnApp used to be around $10/m/core but even a cost of $5/m/core would put out a lot of hosts. In your case you got some Ryzen box and suddenly you have $80/month in licensing.

With the new OnApp price being $12/m/core and it looks like it's retroactive to everyone, it leaves a lot of room for Solus to move up.

Francisco

vpsgeek

@Francisco said:

@MikeA said:

@Francisco said:
That leaves a lot of room for Solus to come in at $6 - $8/m per physical core, still be way cheaper, but still get a serious cash bump.

If the prices were raised like this, 100-400% increase for slave licenses, I would absolutely switch to something different.

They've already said the price is going up but will be "lower than OnApp". OnApp used to be around $10/m/core but even a cost of $5/m/core would put out a lot of hosts. In your case you got some Ryzen box and suddenly you have $80/month in licensing.

With the new OnApp price being $12/m/core and it looks like it's retroactive to everyone, it leaves a lot of room for Solus to move up.

Francisco

So what will the majority of those hosts who can't develop or invest into something like Stallion do: Virtualizor, VMmanager, Proxmox or something else?

Francisco

@vpsgeek said:

@Francisco said:

@MikeA said:

@Francisco said:
That leaves a lot of room for Solus to come in at $6 - $8/m per physical core, still be way cheaper, but still get a serious cash bump.

If the prices were raised like this, 100-400% increase for slave licenses, I would absolutely switch to something different.

They've already said the price is going up but will be "lower than OnApp". OnApp used to be around $10/m/core but even a cost of $5/m/core would put out a lot of hosts. In your case you got some Ryzen box and suddenly you have $80/month in licensing.

With the new OnApp price being $12/m/core and it looks like it's retroactive to everyone, it leaves a lot of room for Solus to move up.

Francisco

So what will the majority of those hosts who can't develop or invest into something like Stallion do: Virtualizor, VMmanager, Proxmox or something else?

I don't know.

When Solus goes this way I see Virtualizor following to some degree. I see no reason for them to piss away possible revenue by sticking to a low per node cost like they are now.

Proxmox is OK but from what I've heard it needs a lot of work to be usable and or a lot of hacking about.

Francisco

WSS

@Francisco said:
Proxmox is OK but from what I've heard it needs a lot of work to be usable and or a lot of hacking about.

Proxmox is much more taylored to a "Personal box with VMs" than it is anything towards actual production. Solus still beats it hands down. Virtualizor, in my experience has off bugs where they will fix, but then you are running some non-fork and don't always know when it's safe to update because it might come back if the fix isn't in the mainstream build.

Solus is shit, but it's reliably shit provided you're still running on CentOS 6 and don't do anything crazy beyond bonding a couple ports on the bridge layer.

Francisco

@WSS said:

@Francisco said:
Proxmox is OK but from what I've heard it needs a lot of work to be usable and or a lot of hacking about.

Proxmox is much more taylored to a "Personal box with VMs" than it is anything towards actual production. Solus still beats it hands down. Virtualizor, in my experience has off bugs where they will fix, but then you are running some non-fork and don't always know when it's safe to update because it might come back if the fix isn't in the mainstream build.

Solus is shit, but it's reliably shit provided you're still running on CentOS 6 and don't do anything crazy beyond bonding a couple ports on the bridge layer.

That's probably about right.

Proxmox doesn't have an OpenVZ migration path that is safe. It does convert to LXC's but at least up until recently it was giving users full privileged containers. It's possible it's an easy adjustment in the configuration but even still it doesn't do anything to limit container space usage.

I've heard there's some providers working to try to patch the older Proxmox 3.x builds (or shoehorn the new builds) to support OpenVZ 7. I know one provider that was using Proxmox for his VPS but ultimately moved to Virtualizor a while later.

There's no decent road. Thing is, there's been a few attempts at community driven panels before and they always go south, or the providers that put the most effort in keep it to themselves. When the SolusVM exploits happened there was a literal dozen panels announced in one form or another and the only one that's actually in production use is KuJoe's and he keeps it to himself.

As I mentioned on LET, KnownHost went to the webproz conference that happened a few months ago and had a chat with the SolusVM guys since they were boasting a demo of v2. The take away points were:

• SolusVM v1 pricing will probably stay as it is.
• SolusVM v2 (Solus.io) is most likely, if not certainly, going to be per physical core pricing.
• Solus.io will be lacking OpenVZ support from the get go.
• The initial product is aimed at helping customers spin up Vultr/DO like products.
• Once Solus.io is feature parity to SolusVM v1 (basically add OpenVZ support) they'll sunset SVM v1 and require users to upgrade to V2.

Hosts should be spending time testing other platforms and figuring out a game plan. The hike will happen, it's just a question of "how much" and "when". My bets on $4 - $5/m per physical core. Anyone want skin on this bet?

Francisco

MichaelCee

Francisco said: My bets on $4 - $5/m per physical core. Anyone want skin on this bet?

I'll bet $10 on $7+ for the lols

seriesn

@Francisco said:

@vpsgeek said:

@Francisco said:

@MikeA said:

@Francisco said:
That leaves a lot of room for Solus to come in at $6 - $8/m per physical core, still be way cheaper, but still get a serious cash bump.

If the prices were raised like this, 100-400% increase for slave licenses, I would absolutely switch to something different.

They've already said the price is going up but will be "lower than OnApp". OnApp used to be around $10/m/core but even a cost of $5/m/core would put out a lot of hosts. In your case you got some Ryzen box and suddenly you have $80/month in licensing.

With the new OnApp price being $12/m/core and it looks like it's retroactive to everyone, it leaves a lot of room for Solus to move up.

Francisco

So what will the majority of those hosts who can't develop or invest into something like Stallion do: Virtualizor, VMmanager, Proxmox or something else?

I don't know.

When Solus goes this way I see Virtualizor following to some degree. I see no reason for them to piss away possible revenue by sticking to a low per node cost like they are now.

Proxmox is OK but from what I've heard it needs a lot of work to be usable and or a lot of hacking about.

Francisco

One can hope that they would pull a DA. Lower price, more volume, gain traction. Maybe slight price increases for new users while keeping Legacy as it is.

I mean most of their product is dirt cheap and despite their messy error handling and kinda funky coding, they maintain a decent product and been very steady with their pricing. Plus, not having to pay european/american wage helps with keeping the cost down.

You definitely went the right direction with your solusFork/Stallion.

Then again, I have been proven wrong before. Wouldn't be surprised if proven wrong again.

But here is the core problem, till everyone develops their own panel, there will always be chaos and fear factor with 3rd party softwares and a lot of the hosts/providers can't or won't spend the money on a quality dev team to create and maintain a panel that is steady, has all the features etc. Etc. Etc.

Francisco

@seriesn said:
But here is the core problem, till everyone develops their own panel, there will always be chaos and fear factor with 3rd party softwares and a lot of the hosts/providers can't or won't spend the money on a quality dev team to create and maintain a panel that is steady, has all the features etc. Etc. Etc.

It's just crazy expensive to hire a decent team.

You can get teams out of the middle east but more often than not it's a shitshow code base and you don't even want to use it. It's probably a stereotype but I saw it first hand when I did development back in the day as well as helped some people I did management for.

There's still the rumors swirling that Softaculous has been bought, not sure if they've shot that down yet.

It'd make sense to pick them up.

Francisco

MichaelCee

@Francisco said:
There's still the rumors swirling that Softaculous has been bought, not sure if they've shot that down yet.

It'd make sense to pick them up.

Francisco

Their business name changed, right? Softaculous Ltd > Electron Technologies FZC

Spooky!

seriesn

@Francisco said:

@seriesn said:
But here is the core problem, till everyone develops their own panel, there will always be chaos and fear factor with 3rd party softwares and a lot of the hosts/providers can't or won't spend the money on a quality dev team to create and maintain a panel that is steady, has all the features etc. Etc. Etc.

It's just crazy expensive to hire a decent team.

You can get teams out of the middle east but more often than not it's a shitshow code base and you don't even want to use it. It's probably a stereotype but I saw it first hand when I did development back in the day as well as helped some people I did management for.

There's still the rumors swirling that Softaculous has been bought, not sure if they've shot that down yet.

It'd make sense to pick them up.

Francisco

Hey as they say, you pay peanuts, you get something something.

Good team of dev's, working on a fulltime project, will cost more than what a lot of ours annual profit combined.

You and Joe are blessed with coding skill that some of us don't process. I for one, can hack out something half decent but would never promote or put my code up for production usage.

But it is a free market, driven by consumers, push comes to shove, if price increase happens, someone will find alternatives that fits the budget. ProxCP looks promising, MG got a decent proxmox module for whmcs, despite their bloated coding, it works.

We will keep on jumping from one semi sinking ship to another with smaller hole and the cycle continues. But unlike Cpanel, consumers are not tied to Solus/Virtualizor/Proxmox. Best case scenario, 0 frill migration. Worst case scenario, new node, create backup, restore backup with whatever new panel comes up, switch IP over and move on with life.

I did notice that they are now based out of the middle east vs india. Customer service did improve a lot over last couple of months. Still powered by the same team. So who knows.

In business, we always say this, everything can be purchased and sold. One just have to make the right offer.

mikho

@SmallWeb said:

@Francisco said:
There's still the rumors swirling that Softaculous has been bought, not sure if they've shot that down yet.

It'd make sense to pick them up.

Francisco

Their business name changed, right? Softaculous Ltd > Electron Technologies FZC

Spooky!

This and they changed their payment methods at that time.