Free forever for personal sites — Pro from £4.99/mo

Self-hosted hosting,
in one command.

cPanel-style power, modern UX. Sites, databases, mail, DNS, backups, WAF — everything a reseller needs, in a single binary that installs in ten minutes. Free for solo developers, seriously.

root@vps

$ curl -fsSL https://license.novapanel.dev/install.sh | sudo bash

Run on a fresh Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04 / 26.04 or Debian 12 / 13 VPS — installer takes ~10 minutes.

See pricing Read the docs

Actively developed · Latest v1.6.7 — shipped today · 35 releases in the last 90 days

NovaPanel admin panel dashboard — server health score, system resources, and running services

Admin panel at :2087 — manage users, packages, system services, license, mail, DNS.

Free

Community tier — forever

~10 min

Install on a fresh VPS

Sites in Community (free)

1 binary

Zero runtime deps

Who's it for?

Most hosting panels assume you're a reseller. NovaPanel works just as well for the solo developer running a blog — and the Community tier means you never pay anything to find out.

Community

Solo developer

Free forever, genuinely.

Hosting your blog, portfolio, or 2-3 side projects on a small VPS? Community tier covers everything you need — auto-TLS, file manager, cron, local backups, full DNS — and never expires. No upgrade pressure, no crippleware.

✓ 5 sites + 5 databases (more than enough for personal use)
✓ Caddy, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, FTP, file manager
✓ Auto-TLS for every domain you add
✓ Runs comfortably on a €4-5/mo VPS

Install free

Pro

Small reseller

£4.99/mo replaces a $20-50/mo cPanel bill.

Selling hosting to 10-50 customers? Pro unlocks unlimited sites/databases plus the features your clients ask about: WAF, virus scanning, S3 backups, real email accounts, white-labelling.

✓ Unlimited sites, databases, customer accounts
✓ Per-customer disk quotas + per-package limits
✓ WAF + ClamAV scheduled scans
✓ S3 / Backblaze remote backups
✓ Branded login + dashboard (white-label)

See Pro features

Developer

Agency / multi-server

Built for teams running real fleets.

Multiple servers, multiple staff, multiple clients. Developer tier is the full Pro feature set — including unlimited sites, databases, and admin accounts — plus priority email support and custom integrations for teams who need a direct line to us. Subscription billing on the same monthly or yearly cycle as Pro.

✓ Everything in Pro (unlimited sites, databases & admins)
✓ Priority email support
✓ Custom integrations
✓ Best for agencies running 3+ panels

Compare tiers

Everything you'd expect

Don't pay for cPanel licenses. Don't fight Plesk. NovaPanel ships every feature a hosting reseller actually needs — and the ones cPanel charges extra for.

Sites & Domains

Caddy reverse proxy, automatic Let's Encrypt, custom error pages, per-site PHP config.

One-click Apps

~30 apps — WordPress, Ghost, Laravel, Nextcloud, Magento, n8n, Moodle — installed onto any site.

WordPress Manager

Update core, plugins & themes in a click, or auto-update every site nightly. Free on every tier.

Databases

PostgreSQL 16 + MariaDB. Per-customer isolation, phpMyAdmin built in, one-click backups.

Mail Server

Postfix + Dovecot + OpenDKIM. SPF/DKIM/DMARC out of the box. Roundcube webmail.

DNS

PowerDNS with optional DNSSEC. Per-domain records, slave/master modes, API-driven.

File Manager

Browser-based editor, multi-file upload, chmod, compress/extract, batch delete.

Tunable WAF

Coraza + OWASP CRS with Off/Detection/Blocking modes and per-category rule toggles (Pro).

Backups

Local + S3/Backblaze/Wasabi/SFTP remote. Per-site, per-database, scheduled or on-demand.

…plus FTP, in-browser terminal & logs, cron jobs, process manager, git deploy, virus scanner, white-label branding, outbound webhooks, server health score. Full list →

NovaPanel customer panel dashboard — sites, resource usage bars, quick actions, and server info

Customer panel at :2083 — what your end-users see. Sites, files, databases, email, FTP, DNS, all white-labelled.

How it fits together

One binary on your VPS does everything. Our license server only sees the heartbeat — your customer data never leaves your machine.

Cloudflare R2

Binary CDN

Signed URLs, license-gated

License server

JWT issuance

Heartbeat every ~24h

Your VPS

NovaPanel binary

Admin SPA (port 2087)
Customer SPA (port 2083)
PostgreSQL + MariaDB
Caddy + Postfix + DNS

Customer sites your panel hosts

blog.example.comshop.acme.ioportfolio.devsaas.appapi.startup.codocs.tool.iomail.org

vs. the alternatives

Honest comparison. NovaPanel isn't strictly better at everything — but if you want a free tier that's actually useful, a modern UI, and one of the lowest paid prices on the market, it's hard to beat.

Capability	NovaPanel	cPanel	Plesk	HestiaCP	CyberPanel
Free tier with real features	✓	—	—	✓	✓
One-line install on fresh VPS	✓	—	—	✓	partial
Modern UI (React, dark mode)	✓	—	partial	—	partial
PostgreSQL + MariaDB built-in	✓	MySQL only	MySQL only	MySQL only	MySQL only
Mail (Postfix/Dovecot/DKIM)	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
WAF + virus scanner	✓	✓	✓	—	partial
S3/Backblaze remote backups	✓	addon	addon	—	—
License cost (1 server)	Free / £4.99/mo	$23-50/mo	$15-50/mo	Free	Free / $9/mo
Single binary, no PHP at runtime	✓	—	—	—	—
Auto-update via heartbeat	✓	✓	✓	manual	manual

Comparison reflects each product's most-recent commercial release as of 2026. Pricing may vary by license type and region.

Detailed head-to-head: vs cPanel · vs Plesk

Three tiers, one binary

Start free. Upgrade when you need WAF, virus scanning, S3 backups, or white-labelling.

Free forever

Community

Free

forever, per server

✓ 5 sites, 5 DBs, 5 customers
✓ All core hosting features
✓ Auto-TLS for every domain
✓ Local backups + cron
✓ Auto-issued at install
✓ License never expires

Pro

£4.99/mo

or £49/yr (2 months free)

✓ Unlimited sites & databases
✓ Unlimited customer & admin accounts
✓ Tunable WAF + ClamAV virus scanner
✓ S3 / Backblaze remote backups
✓ Email accounts + relay
✓ Git deploy + webhooks
✓ White-label branding

Developer

£9.99/mo

or £99/yr (2 months free)

✓ Everything in Pro
✓ Priority email support
✓ Custom integrations
✓ Direct line to the developers

Compare full feature matrix →

Closed source — and built so you're never locked in

NovaPanel ships as a signed binary, not open source. That's the trade — and here's why it can't be used to hold your server hostage.

Auditable before you run it

The installer is public on GitHub — read exactly what gets installed before you curl | sudo bash. The panel binary itself is signed and SHA-verified at install time.

Runs even if we disappear

License tokens are short-lived JWTs verified offline against a public key embedded in your binary. If our license server goes down — or vanishes for good — your panel keeps serving. Nothing phones home to stay alive.

Community never expires

The free tier is auto-issued at first boot, bound to your machine, and perpetual — no account, no subscription, no kill switch. A paid tier lapsing drops you back to Community, not to nothing.

Your data stays on your server

Everything lives on the box you control — the panel database, sites, mail, DNS. There's no NovaPanel cloud in the serving path and nothing to export if you leave: it was already all yours.

Questions you might have

Is the Community tier really free? What's the catch?

No catch. The Community tier auto-issues a license at install, never expires, and includes every core hosting feature: 5 sites, 5 databases, 5 customer accounts, Caddy with auto-TLS, MariaDB/PostgreSQL, full file manager, FTP, DNS, local backups, terminal, cron, the works. Pro features (WAF, virus scanner, S3 backups, mail accounts, white-labelling) are locked behind paid tiers because they cost real money to support — but everything you'd expect on a personal site or small project is unlocked. We don't sell crippleware.

What's it built on?

Single Go binary that embeds both web UIs (admin + customer) and runs all the orchestration. PostgreSQL for the panel database, Caddy as the reverse proxy with automatic Let's Encrypt, and the usual hosting stack underneath (PHP-FPM, Postfix, MariaDB, PowerDNS, ClamAV, vsftpd).

Which Linux distros are supported?

Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04 / 26.04 LTS and Debian 12 / 13. The installer detects the distro (and apt-based derivatives like Mint/Pop!_OS) and picks the right package repos automatically.

What does the install actually do?

Installs PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Caddy, PHP-FPM, Postfix, Dovecot, PowerDNS, ClamAV, and vsftpd. Configures systemd units for the panel, fetches your Community license, downloads the panel binary from our CDN, applies the database migrations, and sets up Let's Encrypt for the panel hostname. The whole thing is idempotent — re-running is safe.

How is licensing handled?

Every install gets a free Community license auto-issued at boot, bound to the machine's fingerprint. Pro and Developer licenses are entered manually in the admin panel. License tokens are short-lived JWTs verified offline against an embedded public key — your panel keeps working even if our license server is briefly down.

Can I migrate from cPanel / Plesk?

Not yet — migration tooling is on the roadmap. For now it's manual: dump databases, copy site files, recreate users.

Source code?

Closed source. The installer is public on GitHub so you can audit exactly what gets installed before you run curl | bash. The panel binary itself is distributed via our license-gated CDN, signed and SHA-verified at install time.

Stop paying cPanel licenses.

One command, ten minutes, fully self-hosted. Try the Community tier — free, no signup.