cPanel charges per account — success literally raises your bill. Other free panels each make you give something up: speed, mail, DNS, or money for add-ons. KarnakPanel exists so a $5 VPS can be a real hosting business with $0 in software costs.
| KarnakPanel | cPanel Solo/Admin | |
|---|---|---|
| Software cost | Free forever | $20–$80/mo, per-account metering |
| Web server | OpenLiteSpeed + LSCache | Apache / paid LiteSpeed |
| Accounts / domains | Unlimited | Metered / tiered |
| Survives vendor shutdown? | Yes — self-hosted, no license server | No — license checks out |
No per-account fees means client #5 and client #500 cost you the same in software: nothing. Price your plans against your VPS bill, not a license escalator.
OpenLiteSpeed + LSCache with isolated per-domain PHP pools. Elsewhere this stack means CyberPanel quirks or a LiteSpeed Enterprise license — here it's the default.
Deliverability scoring, DKIM wizard, SPF hard-fail, autoresponders, sieve, lists, queue surgery tools. Compare that with "mail is included" and a prayer.
Authoritative BIND9 with one-click DNSSEC, secondaries, and CAA/SRV/SSHFP — the kind of DNS record support paid tiers gate behind add-ons.
Signed updates, enforced staff 2FA, breached-password rejection, bot shields, integrity + egress watches, and customer PHP in a systemd sandbox. Full story →
Start with packages and manual billing; grow into WHMCS provisioning, server transfers, and multi-account reselling — or use HostBMS with its built-in KarnakPanel module — without migrating panels.
Correct at time of writing (v1.5.45). Competitors are good products — this is where each one differs in practice. cPanel is included as the paid reference; the other three are the free alternatives people actually weigh.
| Feature | KarnakPanel | cPanel | HestiaCP | CyberPanel | aaPanel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free forever, no paywall, no license server | $20–$80/mo, per-account | Free & open source | Free core (OLS); paid tiers + add-ons | Free core; many plugins paid |
| Web server | OpenLiteSpeed + LSCache | Apache / paid LSWS | Nginx + Apache / Nginx-only | OpenLiteSpeed (Ent. paid) | Nginx / Apache / OLS |
| PHP versions per domain | 8.3 / 8.4 / 8.5 pools | Multi-PHP | Multi-PHP | Multi-PHP | Multi-PHP |
| Mail stack | Exim + Dovecot + SA + ClamAV, lists, sieve, scoring | Exim + Dovecot + SpamAssassin | Exim + Dovecot + SA + ClamAV | Postfix + Dovecot + Rspamd | Postfix + Dovecot (variant) |
| Deliverability scoring + DKIM wizard | Yes | Partial (deliverability UI) | No | No | No |
| DNS + DNSSEC | One-click DNSSEC + DS output, validation | PowerDNS + DNSSEC | BIND, manual DNSSEC | PowerDNS, manual DNSSEC | BIND/PowerDNS, manual DNSSEC |
| Backups | Incremental + encrypted + offsite mirror + cPanel importer | Full + incremental + S3 | Full + incremental | Incremental (v2) | Scheduled, S3 (some paid) |
| 1-click apps | WordPress (+ staging clones), Joomla 6, Drupal 11, PrestaShop, phpBB, Flarum, Vvveb | WordPress toolkit + Softaculous (paid) | WordPress + app installer | WordPress + staging | WordPress + many (some paid) |
| Website builder | Karnak Builder built in — drag & drop, 75 templates in 10 categories, blog, publish to any domain | Not included | No | No | Plugin ecosystem (varies) |
| Signed updates + staff 2FA enforcement | Yes | 2FA, unsigned-ish updates | No / No | No / No | No / No |
| Bot shield + upload AV + egress watch | Yes | ModSecurity / Imunify (paid) | No | No | No |
| Dead-man cron + preview URLs | Yes | Cron, no preview URLs | No / No | No / staging instead | No / No |
| Reseller model | Packages, limits, usage views | WHM resellers | Basic | Basic | No |
| Billing integration | HostBMS with built-in KarnakPanel module · WHMCS hooks | Built-in + extensions | No | No | Partial / paid |
| Best for | Single-VPS hosts wanting OLS + mail + DNS free | Established hosts needing ecosystem | General shared hosting | OLS speed + WP staging | Beginners wanting GUI plugins |
We're in beta and we say so upfront. Join the tester list, break things on a throwaway VPS, and judge the panel by what it does — not what this page claims.