Enkompass Goes Free Now!
Enkompass goes free! It's obviously the most hot topic on many web forums recently. It really shocked me when I firstly heard of the news. If you're cpanel product fans and currently running windows web hosting service, it's quite worthy of trying out enkompass since you don't need to pay a penny in order to get it running!
How cpanel inc offers enkompass free of charge?
cPanel has decided to offer Enkompass free of charge beginning October 12, 2011. Why their people decide to offer it free? “All options for moving this product mainstream were considered, but ultimately the decision was made to move Enkompass to a no-cost control panel,” cPanel Vice President of Product Development Ben Thomas said. Thomas also explained the reason directly because sales and distribution have not met expectations!
Why enkompass failed to gain business in web hosting control panel solutions? To answer this question, we should refer to this enkompass hosting article about the enkompass features. As we know this control panel only works with Active directory which requires high degrees of system management skills plus a powerful server system. That means if you're traditional hosting provider, you have to convert everything manually to enkompass system because there's no easier solution provided by cpanel Inc.
Also, for such complex hosting structure, hosting companies can only offer services from shared hosting plan with pretty expensive license fee. For small hosting companies, enkompass is almost non-profitable control panel solution.
Enkompass vs Websitepanel, which would be better choice?
Beside enkompass, websitepanel would be the most popular windows hosting control panel software which has been open source. More and more skilled developers have joined the software development. Since enkompass is announced to be free now, how will people choose from? Let's firstly compare what's being offered from the two softwares
- Mysql and user management
- Sql server and user management
- Smartermail and Mailenable integration
- FTP and domain management
- Reseller account management
Above features are main and most common features of the two softwares. So there's no much difference from product functions. Their main difference is about setup. You only need to download a small installer for websitepanel and it will be configured quickly from your windows server, however, for enkompass you have to get the Active directory configured properly first then install enkompass online. Unless you're running a hosting company or practise on localhost, it's really hard to try out enkompass. For webmasters who would like to manage a vps/dedicated server, websitepanel is easier solution.
What's the future of enkompass?
In 2011, enkompass will release it's final version(free) plus two final commercially-supported releases. For existing clients. they will still get support for a period of 12-18 months, or until their licenses expire. Although the software goes free, the enkompass team will still fix bugs and hot patches since it's not yet open sourced. This software has been developed for years but finally announced to be free. What should I say? Feel free to share your thoughts.
