So finally I’ve been forced to embrace HestiaCP.  For a few months  I was able to get away with using the WordPress Dashboard to update and maintain my Website.  But woe behold when after an absence of about five months I had issues with my WP site.  It started with a WP login page that was  very crude and missing CSS.  And then a post text box that was unresponsive. I thought to remedy this with a brand-new installation of WordPress.

Alas, this remedy didn’t work.  With the first new installation the CSS issue was even worse than with the old deleted installation.  I found myself battling with all kinds of challenges over and above learning the little quirks of HestiaCP workings.

Finally after about 4 attempts of loading WordPress, I get a new post text box that worked.  Initially I had thought it was a HestiaCP issue, but am now more inclined to blame this on an incompatibility with php 8.0.  WordPress is known to be not quite ready yet for php 8.0 with 7.4 recommended as more ideal.  Another possibility may have been the updated Block Editor of the new WP Version 6.0.  However, I had no problem with this with the WordPress installations on my VPS.  So php 8.0 is the only difference with my VPS.  I have php 7.3 installed on my VPS.

Back to my learning experience with HestiaCP, the first challenge was getting into HestiaCP when my user name and password didn’t want to work.  When it finally worked I found HestiaCP automatically logging me out with each new step I took which meant I was unable to create a new database.  I then submitted a ticket to KuJoe, who fixed the problem for me by editing the security settings.  So after a few hours I could finally reinstall WordPress.  Then followed all kinds of challenges until after my fourth try, finally, for the first time the installation seemed to come up with normal WordPress CSS.

So here are some of the lessons I learned with my first use of the HestiaCP User Panel.

HestiaCP has a very solid File Manager, however if one navigates in it, the UNZIP tool is not in the tool menu.  When this happened to me the first time round I used FileZilla to upload the files, but that took ages to do and was horribly time consuming.  However after some research with Google I discovered that instead of ticking the box next to the zipped folder to bring up the menu where the UNZIP tool was missing, one is supposed to rightclick over the zipped folder, which would then bring up a list of tools including the UNZIP tool.  Compared with FileZilla the unzip experience was as fast as lightning.  I see the File Manager definitely as an improvement over VestaCP.

Speed Up – Clean WP new plugin: One of the issues with creating new posts was a pop up note that a min.js file could not be found.  Resulting in an unresponsive text box as well as inability to edit posts.  I then did some research to see whether there was a plugin that could solve the problem and the WordPress.org Speed-Up-Clean-WP plugin worked like magic.  It completely solved the problem with new posts and the text box was back to its former responsive self.  The pop up message didn’t appear again. When I did research on the plugin one of the reviews said it broke her WP installation.  Hopefully that will not happen, so time will tell.  At least I now know to aim at optimizing WP plugins for solving the problem.

Classic Widgets plugin:  Two other big issues were the widgets page and the customize function were not working.  Both pages came up blank.  Apparently this had to do with the new WP 6.0 release Block Editor which took over these two functions.  Again, when I did research I discovered the wordpress.org Classic Widgets plugin. I was most relieved to get the customize function back as well as the ability to edit the widgets of my Twenty Thirteen WordPress theme.

In conclusion and so far, I think HestiaCP User Panel is a bit simpler than VestaCP.  Once I got it working and KuJoe helped with resetting some of the security settings I was able to install WordPress fairly effortlessly.  All of the frustrations were mostly due to WP’s conflicts with php 8.0 and conflicts with the Block Editor of the new WP 6.0 version.

So checking in at KuJoe’s https://discord.com/invite/x8ev3NQ Discord Channel, looks like he has been getting a handle on HestiaCP.  This hosting account is now operating successfully on a Hestia CP.  But not quite yet as I’m unable to access my HestiaCP account.  When I enter my user name the interface is unresponsive.  WordPress works though.  I’m able to access it easily and update everything.

So again thank you to KuJoe’s for looking after the free hosting after all of this time from 2016 to date.  I’m almost sure if he had created his own fork of VestaCP it would have been an improvement over HestiaCP, but I guess looking after those pesky updates must be very time consuming.  So yes, if he can make HestiaCP work, then it is power to all of us.

I’m still a fan of Dpeca’s VestaCP fork for Debian however.  Just for the simple fact that Dpeca is currently administrating several servers with VestaCP for Debian.  So has a vested and professional interest for the script to work safely, securely and effortlessly.  I still have more trust in it than in HestiaCP, however, possibly should check HestiaCP out once again to see whether it is working better than it did a couple of years ago when I first tried it out.

So I can heartily recommend the Debian Fork of MyVestaCP.

For those folks who have gone off VestaCP, they had good reason.  The owner of VestaCP was not updating the script at all.  And it became a bad security threat during 2019.  Currently there aren’t that many serious hosts using this script, particularly if one judges by the attendance of staff (none available any longer) at the VestaCP Discussion Forum.

Since it was such a good panel script – excellent in fact – there were staff and members who went out to develop working forks for VestaCP.  One was a Belgian Fork, which would have been ideal for me since it was using CentOS, however, too much JavaScript was involved, and I wasn’t comfortable with the security angle of JavaScript.  A large number of the original VestaCP staff opted for creating a new script altogether called Hestia CP.  It may well be OK now, but last I used it it was not that user friendly.  The reception of the new CP that was discussed at post4vps.com was also negative.

So eventually I gravitated to the second VestaCP fork, which was a fork that works with Debian only.  This meant that I had to change my preferred distribution from CentOS to Debian, which in the end was one of the best things that could have happened to me.  I found Debian just so much more logical and stream lined to work with, CentOS appearing almost chaotic and bulky in comparison.  So my recommendation for VestaCP fans, like I still am after all of these years, is the VestaCP Fork with MyVestaCP.

The owner of MyVestaCP is a former staff member of VestaCP with the user name dpeca.  According to dpeca in his last posts at VestaCP he said he was responsible for the administration of a large number of servers, all of which were using VestaCP.  So it was in his interest to have an up to date and secure panel.  Since it’s much too much work to update the script for all of the Linux distributions, he decided to focus on Debian only.  That impressed me a lot.  So in the end I’m benefiting from his dedication to Debian as a distribution and his keeping the VestaCP script up to date through his fork at MyVestaCP.

Indeed my greatest appreciation to dpeca and MyVestaCP!  Also to the owner of afreecloud.com.  I’ve been hosted by KuJoe with VestaCP user hosting at afreecloud.com since 2016 and haven’t experienced any down time during all of that period.  I notice the free hosting is no longer offered “for now” as KuJoe is trying to update the VestaCP script.

So noticed I haven’t posted in a while.  Mostly because my learning curve for VestaCP has plato-ed a bit.

Learning curve wise.  Although Softaculous was a great experience with VestaCP, problem is that I’ve been using VestaCP exclusively for VPS.  And the life of a VPS compared with a server is much less stable.  For example, the VPS may melt down, or the VPS business may fold, etc etc which means VestaCP will be deleted and all of the content of the VPS moved elsewhere.  Softaculous is not very portable.  Websites created with Softaculous may have serious issues if you want to move them to the next VPS where a fresh installation of VestaCP will have to be loaded.

So I let go of my Softaculous licenses, and am installing my WordPress sites from the command line only.  No more Softaculous.

Issue wise for cPanel.  If one checks the Forum, which in essence is where all inquiries are dealt with for free and one can find a VestaCP solution very easy, it’s VERY quiet.  If one checks through discussions it would seem the bulk of the staff that supported the Panel Script have moved on to HestiaCP.  And last I heard there are now bugs in the panel.  So there’s that.  There are also a couple or more members in the Forum who have created forks of VestaCP, some that are apparently very good.  I’m still sticking with the VestaCP that is provided from the download page including creating a bash script as it is working.  Also the owner gave the assurance VestaCP is well supported.  So not sure whether I completely believe it, but for now I’m good with this.