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ISPmanager: the Russian hosting control panel and how it differs
ISPmanager is a control panel made by the Russian company ISPsystem, and it has become the standard for hosts in Russia and neighboring countries. This selection includes around 660 plans from nearly 140 hosts, and almost half of them run on servers in Russia (around 310). The Netherlands and Germany come next; these are mostly the same Russian-speaking hosts with data centers in Europe. Prices start at about $0.50, and the median is around $5.60 a month, noticeably lower than for cPanel plans.
Lite and Host: two editions
The panel comes in several editions, and as a shared hosting customer it's worth understanding the difference:
- ISPmanager Lite is designed for a single server owner. It's installed on a VPS or dedicated server when the owner or a small agency hosts their own sites.
- ISPmanager Host (called Business in earlier versions) is built for hosting companies: it includes plans, limits, resellers and customer management.
When you buy shared hosting, you get a user account inside the host's edition. The interface is the same, but the host decides which sections are available: some let you change PHP settings and crontab, others only let you upload files and create databases.
What the panel can do
- Sites and domains: adding sites and aliases, nginx with Apache or nginx with PHP-FPM, redirects, password-protected directories.
- PHP: choosing the version and handler mode for each site, editing php.ini through the interface.
- SSL: free Let’s Encrypt certificates with auto-renewal, plus uploading purchased ones.
- Email: mailboxes on your own domain, forwarders, webmail and spam filtering.
- Databases: MySQL or MariaDB, sometimes PostgreSQL, with access via phpMyAdmin.
- Backups: built-in scheduled backups, if the host has enabled them, and restoring individual sites.
- File manager, FTP and task scheduler: the standard toolkit for CMS-based sites.
The main draw for Russian-speaking users is a native interface and documentation in Russian. Hosts' support teams are also used to this panel and can usually point you to the right setting quickly.
ISPmanager, cPanel and FASTPANEL
Some hosts in this selection let you choose a panel: around 260 plans are also available with cPanel and around 100 with FASTPANEL. How they differ:
- cPanel has more features and is familiar to developers outside Russia, but its license costs more, so the plan does too. More in the cPanel hosting selection.
- ISPmanager is simpler and cheaper to license, and it works well for sites on WordPress and 1C-Bitrix. Some hosts build specialized Bitrix plans on top of it.
- FASTPANEL is a free panel that's more common on VPSs. It has a modern interface but fewer features for mass hosting, so it's still rare on shared hosting.
Moving to ISPmanager hosting
There's no ready-made "single archive" format like there is between two cPanel hosts, so migration is usually done manually or by support:
- Create an archive of your site files and a database dump on the old host.
- In ISPmanager, create a site with the same domain, a database and a database user.
- Upload the files, import the dump via phpMyAdmin and update the database credentials in your CMS configuration.
- Test the site through your hosts file, issue an SSL certificate, and only then switch DNS.
- Create mailboxes in advance and move your messages over with IMAP sync.
Many Russian hosts migrate sites for free if you ask when ordering. If your old host also runs ISPmanager, the move is easier: the directory structure and section names match, and the new host's support often pulls the site over themselves using your old panel credentials.
Restrictions set by the host
Since the Host edition is configured by the host, the same panel looks different from one company to another. Before paying, ask support or check on a trial account: whether SSH is available, whether you can change the PHP version and handler yourself, whether there's a task scheduler, how often backups are made and whether you can restore them without a ticket. On cheap plans some sections may be hidden, and then even a simple setting turns into an exchange with support.
What to consider when choosing
The median disk in this selection is 10 GB, half that of cPanel plans outside Russia, but it's enough for a typical site. Unmetered traffic is listed for about 55% of plans and NVMe for about a third. Around 65 plans don't limit the number of sites at all. If your audience is in Russia, choose a server there too; the hosting in Russia selection will help narrow the list. These plans can usually be paid for with a Russian bank card; for more, see the page on hosting paid with a Mir card (Mir is Russia's national card system).