Static cPanel & WHM

[cPanelDustin]

For those that don't know, we currently deploy a static version of WHM (and soon cPanel) to allow an easy way to let people see what the tool suite and interface looks like, without having to go to the effort of creating a demo account. We are trying to gauge interest in the usefulness for people outside of cPanel to be able to generate their own instances of this.

Would your company benefit from the ability to generate a static preview of cPanel & WHM, similar to trycpanel.net? Especially if it could be generated in the supported locale of your choosing and utilize your own customizations and plugins?

If not, is there another way we could help improve your ability to market cPanel & WHM to your customers?

 

[DennisMidjord]

That would be a great feature.

 

[cPanelDustin]

That would be a great feature.

Could you see deploying it if a feature like that existed? Would you utilize a language other than English or customizations?

 

[DennisMidjord]

Sorry for only getting back to this now.
Yes, we could definitely see ourselves deploy this to showcase the control panel to potential new clients - depending on how well it's executed, of course.

Would the static version just be a "vanilla" version of the control panel, or would it be possible to customize it to look like our own WHM/cPanel installations? We're using JetBackup, Imunify360 and CloudLinux with Python and Node.js selector and it would be great to be able to showcase that for the customer.
Close to 99% of our client base are based in Denmark, so being able to translate the static version - or even making customizations to the strings and order of what's showcased when clicking "next" - would be a fantastic. I do understand that's going to be a more difficult task to implement, however.

Our main reason for wanting something like this is that the term "cPanel" is sometimes interpreted by clients as "Control Panel" - not necessarily cPanel. Sometimes, new clients cancel their hosting account within a few hours because they find cPanel to be too different from what they're used to. Being able to showcase cPanel before a purchase would save us some time (and a small expense on credit card refunds).

Another nice thing would be if cPanel had a guided tour that explained the basics for new accounts.

 

[cPanelDustin]

Sorry for only getting back to this now.
Yes, we could definitely see ourselves deploy this to showcase the control panel to potential new clients - depending on how well it's executed, of course.

Would the static version just be a "vanilla" version of the control panel, or would it be possible to customize it to look like our own WHM/cPanel installations? We're using JetBackup, Imunify360 and CloudLinux with Python and Node.js selector and it would be great to be able to showcase that for the customer.
Close to 99% of our client base are based in Denmark, so being able to translate the static version - or even making customizations to the strings and order of what's showcased when clicking "next" - would be a fantastic. I do understand that's going to be a more difficult task to implement, however.

Our main reason for wanting something like this is that the term "cPanel" is sometimes interpreted by clients as "Control Panel" - not necessarily cPanel. Sometimes, new clients cancel their hosting account within a few hours because they find cPanel to be too different from what they're used to. Being able to showcase cPanel before a purchase would save us some time (and a small expense on credit card refunds).

Another nice thing would be if cPanel had a guided tour that explained the basics for new accounts.

You hit it right on the nose. If we went forwards in building this out, we'd want it to be customized based on the instance of cPanel & WHM it's generated from, this includes localization, plugins, etc. It has its limitations, because it doesn't have any back end functionality. But it lets you open and view most of the tools right up until the point where you'd need to interact with backend functionality.

 

[monarobase]

This would be great to have. I really like the idea of it being based on a real cPanel server install including plugins and localisation.
Our customers are French and it would be useless if it was not un French