Interworx plugin

wanah

Well-Known Member
#41
We have been concidering Interworx for some time now. Quite interested in their high availability cluster solution. Not having an easy way to install and update litespeed would actually be a stopper from our point of view. Not that we would actually be sure to move to interworx yet, but having litespeed would defenetly be a huge step towards us thrying out their software.
 

Michael

Well-Known Member
Staff member
#43
Hi @Kynao,

I'm sorry to report that we haven't made any progress since the last update. We've been going full steam on HTTP/2 support and our Magento caching extension. There hasn't been time to look into what the Interworx plugin is going to take. I know, though, that Interworx is still open to working together (they're a really flexible and helpful company), but I haven't been able to free up my or other people's time for this. Sorry to keep all of y'all waiting.

Cheers,

Michael
 

Licensecart

Well-Known Member
#44
Hi @Kynao,

I'm sorry to report that we haven't made any progress since the last update. We've been going full steam on HTTP/2 support and our Magento caching extension. There hasn't been time to look into what the Interworx plugin is going to take. I know, though, that Interworx is still open to working together (they're a really flexible and helpful company), but I haven't been able to free up my or other people's time for this. Sorry to keep all of y'all waiting.

Cheers,

Michael
I like the sound of HTTP/2 support Michael mate, will that be a optional feature to upgrade from http or something? Also I think we're just happy it's almost here :D haha.

Kind regards,
Mike.
 

Michael

Well-Known Member
Staff member
#48
Thanks! We think it's pretty awesome, too.

But, just because it's out doesn't mean our work on it is finished. It's probably going to be another two weeks or so before we can start to think about other things.

I have been thinking about this the past few months, though, and I have to say, it doesn't look promising. Not to disparage Interworx, but I'm still not sure it makes business sense to build a plugin for their product right now. I know they have some very loyal users, but they're still a small portion of the market. I know y'all will riot when I say this, but I feel that, if we're going to be concentrating on integration with a control panel, it might make sense for us to focus on, say, improving our Plesk integration. (My best estimates suggest that Plesk has a far, far larger market than Interworx.)

This is not a final decision. (I don't get to make these decisions myself.) Just my current thoughts...

Michael
 

Licensecart

Well-Known Member
#49
Thanks! We think it's pretty awesome, too.

But, just because it's out doesn't mean our work on it is finished. It's probably going to be another two weeks or so before we can start to think about other things.
True mate. :).

I have been thinking about this the past few months, though, and I have to say, it doesn't look promising. Not to disparage Interworx, but I'm still not sure it makes business sense to build a plugin for their product right now. I know they have some very loyal users, but they're still a small portion of the market. I know y'all will riot when I say this, but I feel that, if we're going to be concentrating on integration with a control panel, it might make sense for us to focus on, say, improving our Plesk integration. (My best estimates suggest that Plesk has a far, far larger market than Interworx.)

This is not a final decision. (I don't get to make these decisions myself.) Just my current thoughts...

Michael
Yeah I hear that a lot mate but I know BetterLinux have InterWorx on their list, they so far are the only ones who have confirmed it, LiteSpeed "may" do one which will open the market more and get more customers since that and Blesta is our main products, LiteSpeed is our third best product line. And I know a few clients got LiteSpeed for their InterWorx and I know a few are hoping to buy it after it's got a plugin.

One client did a me and thought the "InterWorx LiteSpeed plugin" was a plugin like cPanel I had to inform them again (not the first client) that it just tells InterWorx it's running LiteSpeed and not Apache. That's a InterWorx issue though I'll ask Paul soon to see if they can get it renamed.

I'm not sure about the market but Plesk is more Windows so I would assume more. But with the lack of features for InterWorx I can see why we are "a small market" but I know we are getting more attention but not much from the third party software which limits people moving...

InterWorx is also the best for security: http://files.rack911labs.com/whitepapers/RACK911_Labs_-_Year_In_Review-2013.pdf
 

Michael

Well-Known Member
Staff member
#50
Hi Michael,

Yeah. I know there are people that are looking for an Interworx-LiteSpeed plugin, but I just don't know if it's enough to push this to the top of the road map. Honestly, in this case, I sympathize with Igor. He's not the best at sugar coating what he says, but I think he may be right to a certain degree. We need a bigger Interworx user base to justify the work that it would take to make the plugin. In an ideal world, we'd have that plugin for Interworx, but, right now, we've got a lot of pressing projects. As I know Interworx does. This is why both sides just haven't been able to find time to build it.

You're right about the issue for small software vendors — it's hard to get people to switch when you don't have a lot of features and it's hard to get other developers to build features for you when you don't have a lot of users. That is the way it is, unfortunately.

I'm glad that we have a good relationship with Interworx and I'd like to make sure that keeps up. If they do show signs of growth or there is a good business reason for us to build the plugin, we'd be interested. But right now, when you compare it to getting better integration with Plesk or cPanel or building more caching plugins or improving our billing options, etc., the market just doesn't seem to be with Interworx (or BetterLinux).

Michael
 

Licensecart

Well-Known Member
#51
Fair enough I'll stick to what I do now. I was told when we was introduced by Brett that you guys was working on building a closer relationship... That hasn't happened for 2 years....
 

Michael

Well-Known Member
Staff member
#52
I'm sorry if I've disappointed you.

Both Brett and I wanted to make LSWS and Interworx work more smoothly together, but we both only had limited development teams. In the end, neither of us could make it make business sense. We do certainly have a better relationship than 2 years ago — I've met face to face with Brett a number of times and now once with his replacement, Chris, I've met their developers as well, we've all talked about where things stand, we also keep each other informed of what we're working on and what's on the road map, we even tried to introduce each other to the other's user base, and, hell, I love my Interworx t-shirt. But, you're right: we've never found a way to make an Interworx plugin make sense for either side. I'm sorry if I raised your hopes too much about this.

Sincerely,

Michael
 

Michael

Well-Known Member
Staff member
#54
No worries but when InterWorx 5.1 comes out you will probably loose all this market because they will go to the Nginx Proxy with Apache which is free.
That's certainly possible. They've been warning us about this for a while. The thing about NGINX as a frontend proxy, though, is that it doesn't necessarily speed much up. If you've got a lot of static content, it will help, but the extra layer actually slows down PHP. Still, we shall see definitely. It will be interesting. Plesk has NGINX as a frontend proxy available right now, but there have been complaints about its functionality. If Interworx does it better, I wonder if it will open up a whole new market for them.

(I, actually, really want them to grow so we can justify building a plugin. I do like those guys.)

Michael
 

Licensecart

Well-Known Member
#55
That's certainly possible. They've been warning us about this for a while. The thing about NGINX as a frontend proxy, though, is that it doesn't necessarily speed much up. If you've got a lot of static content, it will help, but the extra layer actually slows down PHP. Still, we shall see definitely. It will be interesting. Plesk has NGINX as a frontend proxy available right now, but there have been complaints about its functionality. If Interworx does it better, I wonder if it will open up a whole new market for them.

(I, actually, really want them to grow so we can justify building a plugin. I do like those guys.)

Michael
I want to help both :) and I was looking forward (I bet with other customers I spoke to) to move to LiteSpeed when we get bigger because nothing can beat LiteSpeed and the best control panel for hosting :) (from security and my view) and I know if you guys did a plugin I could help grow both together. But it's hard to grow both when one works for every control panel minus my favourite out of the box.
 
#57
That's certainly possible. They've been warning us about this for a while. The thing about NGINX as a frontend proxy, though, is that it doesn't necessarily speed much up. If you've got a lot of static content, it will help, but the extra layer actually slows down PHP. Still, we shall see definitely. It will be interesting. Plesk has NGINX as a frontend proxy available right now, but there have been complaints about its functionality. If Interworx does it better, I wonder if it will open up a whole new market for them.

(I, actually, really want them to grow so we can justify building a plugin. I do like those guys.)

Michael
+1 here as well for an Interworx control panel plugin for LiteSpeed.

Just saying this in advance; no need to apologize for what I'm about to say because apologizing won't solve the problem in this scenario...but I'm super saddened/frustrated that after the initial requests in this thread that no one has made a LiteSpeed plugin for Interworx yet. I also hope my post doesn't come off as rude because that's not my intentions and I mean no disrespect.

I 110% agree with Licensecart that this doesn't make sense that Interworx wouldn't fund or invest time in getting a LiteSpeed plugin working, and more importantly that LiteSpeed wouldn't create a plugin either. This could be a cash cow to BOTH LiteSpeed and Interworx by having a plugin developed. More happy customers, and more licenses purchased.

LiteSpeed is obviously the way to go for a super-fast web server and I have no complaint about the product itself and I highly recommend it, I love it and many of my colleagues rely on it successfully every day...but as a lot of people move away from cPanel due to high costs and an inability to even purchase a cPanel owned license these days, people tend to find (like I myself did), that Interworx is an amazing control panel to move over to. LifeSpeed AND Interworx? (mind blown).

So I have to ask you this....PLEASE MAKE A LITESPEED/INTERWORX PLUGIN! I BEG OF THEE!! :)

After that I also have to say the following...Upon buying a LiteSpeed owned license today along with the LSCache and Magento Cache (where you mentioned you spent your time developing the caching products which were a higher priority than making an Interworx plugin and I guess I can agree with that part)...and after I setup LiteSpeed with Interworx...the setup wasn't the worst thing in the world but I also won't do it on the rest of my servers. I own 5 Interworx licenses and will be getting more of those as I grow...but I refuse to buy anymore LiteSpeed licenses until a plugin is created for Interworx. I have officially left cPanel and I need LiteSpeed to support a control panel that's just as good as cPanel, and that would be Interworx for me.

As we all know...many people "Google" their questions and thoughts.so they will wind up finding this thread here just like I did. If someone finds this thread and sees that LiteSpeed doesn't seem to care too much about making an Interworx plugin yet...many people may just move on to a different product combination like varnish and nginx or whatever, or even choose a different control panel (cPanel) due to no plugin for Interworx, and those same people likely will not bother creating a forum account just to post here to +1 and beg when the request still isn't getting any traction by your development.

So when someone searches for "does Interworx support LiteSpeed" and they find this link to Interworx's site:http://www.interworx.com/community/litespeed-on-interworx/ stating that 'Interworx supports LiteSpeed out of the box' and Interworx gives LiteSpeed props...I find that to be a bit of a contradiction because there is no true LiteSpeed plugin made; obviously one can interpret it both ways...I get that "Supporting LiteSpeed doesn't mean there is a plug-in for LiteSpeed"... but again I reiterate that it's sad Interworx is putting in a good word for LiteSpeed on their website (which is why I bought my owned LiteSpeed license in the first place, knowing it would play well with Interworx) but upon further research I find this thread and am disappointed that it still doesn't seem like a profitable venture for you to create such a plugin.

I mean...as long as businesses and developers keep thinking and acting that cPanel is the only player in town...cPanel will continue to grow into a more and more expensive monster than it already is with no competition to keep the playing field even-keeled. In my mind cPanel is the same as Apple when it comes to licensing and forcing change on the market. If LiteSpeed truly had a real plugin for Interworx...it would help Interworx move full steam ahead and gain more users and popularity, and it would also benefit LiteSpeed because people like me who are already invested in Interworx would be happy to add LiteSpeed to their normal production servers.

Also to what Licensecart mentioned; Interworx is coming out with nginx support soon enough! You can sit there and remind everyone how nginx isn't as fast at LiteSpeed (which I agree with)...but when it boils down to what most people are going to do when they see LiteSpeed's stance on this situation...I personally feel that many will need to justify spending a large sum of money to use LiteSpeed while also having to put extra leg-work in to install it onto their Interworx server versus just using nginx integration with LiteSpeed, or paying for both cPanel and LiteSpeed for simplicity...I feel that many would weigh in with nginx because not only is it free, but it might be "fast enough" for them and far easier to run on Interworx if nginx is truly fully integrated.

Now I've read many of your posts on other LiteSpeed topics in other forums, Michael, so I know that you truly care and you have awesome customer service skills and I've seen you say to others that 'I'm entitled to my opinion' or 'it just doesn't make business sense at this time' along with the reasoning...but it still doesn't change the fact that you could very well lose some business over a lack of this plugin and I'm surprised that you wouldn't at least put a definite timeline/roadmap down to develop this plugin even if it's into the future.

Anyways, I'm sorry to ramble and complain about this...because I'll say again that I love LiteSpeed and it's worth every penny, with or without a plugin for Interworx.So if you're a regular user coming by and reading this, please do NOT let my comments keep you from buying LiteSpeed! I don't regret my purchase and I'll have LiteSpeed with caching running on one of my busiest servers and I'm confident it's going to work great with my Interworx after setting it all up. So far so good!

To wrap this up though; I'm really, really hoping you'll see some incentive in building this Interworx plugin for LiteSpeed. I feel that it will help your company as well as Interworx possibly more than any plain business metrics could show you.
 
#59
This would be really helpful. Configuring things manually and getting it to work anyway is doable ; but it would certainly be easier and less time-consuming with such a plugin.
 
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