Discover OpenPanel, a Real Alternative to cPanel

Since WebPros acquired cPanel, licence prices have been going up year after year. At Astral Internet, this has been a concern for a long time… and it pushed us to search for complete, reliable, and—most importantly—affordable solutions so we could finally offer a real alternative.

And here’s what we found — drum roll, please… OpenPanel!

You can now choose a virtual server (managed or unmanaged) equipped with this brand-new control panel. But before we get into licensing and pricing, let’s take a moment to explore where this project comes from and what it can really do.

Where Does OpenPanel Come From?

OpenPanel is still very young: its first version was released in 2023.

The story behind it is actually pretty charming. Four employees at a Serbian hosting company, tired of watching control panels like cPanel increase prices non-stop, decided to build their own solution.

When creating OpenPanel, they also took the opportunity to fix several long-standing issues found in traditional control panels—especially around security and flexibility (here is the link in English for comparing the options with cPanel).

OpenPanel Features

OpenPanel includes all the basic features you’d expect from a modern control panel to manage a website and email accounts:

• Domain management (aliases, subdomains, addon domains)
• File manager
• WordPress manager
• Python or NodeJS app creation (depending on the licence)
• SSL management including Let’s Encrypt
• DNS zone editor
• File editor
• FTP/SFTP access
• And much more
• But that’s not what truly sets it apart.

It is built almost entirely on a Docker-based architecture.

And that changes everything.

A Docker-Based Architecture: One Service = One Container

OpenPanel uses a strict “one service = one container” approach. Every website, database, and component runs independently in its own Docker container.

This allows for:

• Enhanced security
• Exceptional flexibility
• The ability to offer technologies that were previously impossible (or too risky) in a cPanel environment

This is what unlocks tools like Redis, Memcached, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, and more.

Security: OpenPanel’s Strongest Advantage

Because each site runs inside its own container, a malicious process can’t escape its “box” to infect another account.

In other words: if a site gets compromised, the infection stays contained.

In the cPanel world, achieving comparable isolation requires CloudLinux’s CageFS, which means an extra licence.

With OpenPanel, this security layer is built-in.

And since everything is containerized, we can finally offer tools that were traditionally considered too risky in shared hosting, such as:

• Redis or Memcached as object caching systems (a must for WordPress)
• Elasticsearch / OpenSearch for advanced indexing
• Multiple PHP versions or specialized modules

Flexibility: Where OpenPanel Truly Shines

This is probably the most impressive part.

On a cPanel server, everyone shares:

• The same Apache
• The same MySQL/MariaDB
• The same PHP versions
• The same modules and extensions

You can tweak a few things, but it’s still limited.

With OpenPanel, it’s the complete opposite: every account can have its own fully independent environment.

Some concrete examples:

Web servers: Apache, Nginx, OpenLiteSpeed, OpenResty, Varnish
PHP: from 5.6 to 8.5
Databases: MySQL, MariaDB, Percona, PostgreSQL
Caching: Redis, Memcached, Varnish
Indexing: Elasticsearch, OpenSearch
Other: Docker support, NodeJS, Python, and more

On the same server, you could easily run:

• A “classic” site with Apache, MySQL, and PHP 8.4
• Right next to it, a WordPress using Nginx + Varnish + MariaDB + Redis + PHP 8.3

This would have been nearly impossible on a traditional cPanel setup.

This All Sounds Great… but How Much Does It Cost?

OpenPanel is offered in two editions, you can view the full comparison directly on their website.

Community Edition: Free

Installable at no additional cost on our managed and unmanaged VPS plans.

Limits:

• Maximum 50 websites
• Maximum 3 user accounts
• No email management
• No NodeJS or Python
• Limited web server choices (no LiteSpeed or Varnish)
• Database limited to MySQL

For individuals or small businesses, this is often enough. But if you want to go further, the Enterprise version becomes the obvious choice.

Enterprise Edition: No Limitations

The full version unlocks:

• Unlimited sites and accounts
• All web servers
• All databases
• NodeJS, Python, Redis, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, etc.
• Advanced isolation
• More Docker options

Astral Internet Pricing

Managed VPS: $20/month

Unmanaged VPS: $30/month

For comparison: a single-account cPanel licence currently costs $37.89/month.

OpenPanel is therefore a genuinely affordable alternative.

Conclusion

We’re very proud to add OpenPanel to our service offering.

At Astral Internet, we continue moving forward with the same mission: to provide fast, stable, ultra-secure web hosting with a 5-star-hotel level of service—attentive, human, and always there when you need us. Whether you choose cPanel or OpenPanel, our team is only an email or a phone call away.

Thank you for your trust, and we look forward to supporting you in the next step of your web-hosting journey!