A cPanel alternative for sites that do not need a control panel

People look for a cPanel alternative for two different reasons. One is the price: cPanel moved from a per-server license to per-account pricing in June 2019 (Wikipedia, last edited 11 October 2026). The other is a server that only has to run a few WordPress sites, and does not need a panel at all. This page is for the second reason. If you need mailboxes, DNS, FTP or reseller accounts, Nextweb is not your alternative; the panels at the end are.

What cPanel is

The same Wikipedia article describes cPanel as "web hosting control panel software developed by cPanel, L.L.C., a company based in the United States, and owned by WebPros": tools for file management, email and domain administration, databases, FTP accounts and mailing lists, with WebHost Manager alongside it for server administration, "root access for server administrators and reseller-level access for managing hosting accounts". Plesk, the other name in these searches, calls itself a hosting control panel and sells a WordPress Toolkit, "the most complete, secure and versatile toolkit for WordPress" (plesk.com, read 17 October 2026).

A panel is a layer over a server that many people share. That is what you pay for, and what you do not need when the server is yours and the sites are WordPress.

What Nextweb is instead

Nextweb is one program. You download it into a folder, it installs WordPress by name with the PHP and MariaDB WordPress needs, and four commands turn that into a site:

nextweb:/> deploy company-site to www.example.com using wordpress
nextweb:/> commit "Deploy company website"
nextweb:/> apply -y
nextweb:/> verify company-site

Applying configuration...

Applying site configuration...
Service mariadb: running (manage with "service mariadb status" / "service mariadb restart")

Site: company-site (www.example.com)
  Allocated site listen port 4001 for company-site
  Provisioning database for site company-site...
...
  Database wp_company_site and user wp_companysite ready
  Starting PHP runtime for site...
  php-cgi listening on 19100 (2 processes, opcache off)
...
Visit: http://127.0.1.10:4001/
...
Site apply complete.

Each site gets its own copy of WordPress, its own database and database user, its own two PHP processes and its own port. The sites in a folder share one MariaDB and nothing else. Everything lives under the folder you started in:

nextweb-tour/
  nextweb                          the program
  nextweb_server/
    config/nextweb-services.json   the saved configuration
    runtime/                       PHP and MariaDB, installed once
    sites/company-site/
      wordpress/                   the site's own copy of WordPress
      .nextweb/state.json          what Nextweb knows about the site

There is no web form to fill in. The shell is the control panel: deploy, set, apply, verify, service list, show log, undeploy. How a deploy works explains each of them with the output it prints, and the first lesson goes from the download to a site in the browser in about fifteen minutes.

What a panel has that this does not

• Mail. Nextweb runs no mail server and makes no mailboxes.
• DNS. No zones, no records.
• FTP and a file manager. You reach the files the way you reach any folder on the machine.
• Accounts for other people. One Nextweb folder belongs to one operator; there are no reseller or customer accounts.
• Automatic HTTPS. A site answers on an address on the machine itself, and you put a proxy such as nginx in front of it to take it public; certificates are on the roadmap under Not yet.
• Applications other than WordPress and your own Node.js application. deploy knows those two kinds of site today.
• A backup or migration tool. A site is a folder under sites/ and a database in MariaDB, and WordPress's own export and import still work.
• Site counts come from the license: the free license covers one machine and three sites, a Developer license five machines and ten sites, and Enterprise has no site limit (pricing).

Who should keep a panel

Anyone hosting other people, anyone who needs mail or DNS on the same machine, and anyone whose applications are PHP but not WordPress. For them a panel is the right tool, and the question is which one.

The panels people switch to

Each description is the project's own, from its home page as read on 17 October 2026, in alphabetical order and with no ranking.

• CloudPanel: "a free software to configure and manage a server with an obsessive focus on simplicity", built on NGINX and PHP-FPM.
• CyberPanel: "free and open source" with OpenLiteSpeed, with a WordPress manager.
• DirectAdmin: "powerful and the easy to use web hosting control panel", sold as personal, lite and standard licenses.
• Hestia Control Panel: "open-source web server control panel", released under the GPLv3.
• Plesk: a hosting control panel with a WordPress Toolkit.
• Virtualmin: "open source web hosting control panel", built on Webmin, in a GPL edition and a Pro edition.

Next step

If your server is yours and the sites are WordPress, download Nextweb and deploy the first one. The WordPress page shows the whole session.

Questions

Is Nextweb a control panel?

No. It is one program that installs WordPress, PHP and MariaDB by name and deploys sites from its shell. There is no web form, no mail, no DNS, no FTP and no accounts for other people.

Can it run several WordPress sites on one server?

Yes. Each site gets its own copy of WordPress, its own database and user, its own PHP processes and its own port; they share one MariaDB. The free license covers three sites and a Developer license covers ten.

Does it handle email or DNS?

No. Nextweb runs no mail server and manages no DNS. Those stay with your mail provider and your DNS host, or with a panel.

Can I move a site over from cPanel?

There is no import tool yet. Deploy a fresh WordPress site and bring your content over with WordPress's own export and import, then point the domain at the server once nginx is in front of the site.