Any WhMCS Alternative?

I have tried some and read some threads about it too but didn't found help. Can anyone help? Like i only know few alternatives like Blesta, Clientexec & Hostbill. Clientexec - UI is really worse but support is good. Hostbill - It's looks promising but i like recurring payments. Blesta - looks old fashioned. Recently i found one more which is Upmind ,which is good but not self hosted (it's not preety good). There have any another? Thanks for your suggestion in advance.

Where did you offer it for sale?

Have you considered searching at all?

Apart from HostBill, which I haven't tried (Not falling for a one-time license as I did with the WHMCS-owned license where security and support updates were dropped), I've tried all the WHMCS alternatives at some point and couldn't switch to them for various reasons. That only then leaves us with Upmind, but that is SaaS. You could try that if they offered a self-hosted version. I wouldn't use it unless they offered a self-hosted version. So, in short, it is best to stick with the tried and tested WHMCS.

Since becoming a KH customer in the 2010s, you're still using Blesta till now. I like your Blesta theme

There is no true alternative to WHMCS. All compromises in one way or another. Stick to WHMCS. The price you pay will pay off in saving time and headaches.

Blesta, HostBill, ClientExec, and WISECP. Blesta's price stays the same, and you can get a fancy theme if you pay for it. HostBill App has many add-ons, mostly needing payment. But, you pay just once, and it's not too expensive.

I did now. Thank you for the suggestion. What I found was that eleven years ago, when I presume HostBill was new (as you said earlier), they had some wild pricing swings. I would think something over a decade old, that hasn't reoccurred, could fairly be attributed to growing pains of a new product. That would be my opinion, at least.

Same on all points. I fell for the one time with both that and Kayako. Sad when you think of it. When WHMCS had that big exploit scare in 2013, one or more of the systems mentioned saw a flurry of activity, but all fell off fairly fast. Quality and content just didn't come close enough. Hardly hear of a few of them these days, so maybe providers came to that same conclusion?

Glad ya like it, it's based on a premium theme one of the Blesta contributors but so far we've been happy with it. Sure it takes a bit more elbow grease sometimes but it's been a very solid platform for us. Bonus points it's all source visible so we can modify it as-needed and then send the blesta folks a patch to incorporate.

Aside from the headaches they cause.

IF you are keen on clientexec or blesta, there are resellers where you can pick it up cheap, ie, Clientexec for $250, blesta ~$175. There are possible disadvantages for buying through a reseller, and "better" support if you buy direct. Blesta had a 44% coupon that expired 1st jan, and often has 10%-40% off during the year. I have noticed a few hosts offering blesta "free" with a few hosting plans, so sometimes you might want to host your billing software in one place, this way at least if there is a disaster, your clients can still contact you. I was about to buy wisecp. But before the trial license expired, the prices have doubled. <<snipped>>

It wasn't just wild price swings, it was a load of things that had me feeling he was a bit out of his depth as a business. He more recently had things like core product at one price with paid addons to do things like Cpanel (if I'm remembering right). Everything was a'la carte and per year only. Those incidents combined put him on my "no fly" list. It may have changed, or I'm remembering all that wrong, but it's the way I remember it and it was so offputting I have avoided it since then. It would take a lot for me to reconsider, if I would even try.

@ HostXNow did you try wisecp? It looks with a lot of options. I sent some questions to support a few minutes ago.

In my opinion, you can work with WHMCS with the confidence that it will work. We used other solution 6 years ago and we had to migrate all data to WHMCS again because the other software (I don't remember the name) had many bugs.

There are tons of themes for Blesta, if that's your only complaint that's pretty easy to solve.

Have you taken a look at Upmind yet?

This is what folks should consider when choosing a billing system. It's not just money; it's time and a lot of hassle, too.

We do not vouch for any of these solutions, and do not guarantee their safety on production systems. Paymenter - FREE Webex If you research for Billing Areas, you can find quite a lot. (a lot of open source free ones, paymenter is one of them)

I dont trust other software yet. Hostbill is definitely the closest option for us to WHMCS compared to Blesta and Clientexec. However the themes/templates of Hostbill just aren't there yet.

I wish there were a life without headaches.

I checked but upmind is SAAS.

The biggest problem with Hostbill is the inability for 3rd party to sell modules. What made WHMCS great was the wide variety of developers being able to produce 3rd party modules.

WiseCP looks ok and has some features that WHMCS doesn't have, but it seems like WiseCP would benefit web hosts with over 500 active clients. For smaller web hosts with <500 clients, I think one might as well use WHMCS for not much extra. I think the next web hosting billing & support platform to offer self-hosted but supports multi-brand will do well. Blesta currently offers a multi-brand option, but many prefer WHMCS over Blesta. HostBill offers multi-brand but claims you only need to pay a one-time fee, and many won't go that route after what WHMCS did with Owned Licenses (they dropped security and support updates, making the WHMCS license useless). Also, HostBill doesn't include many support tickets with the license, which looks very odd! Upmind offers multi-brand but only SaaS, with no self-hosted option and no easy way to convert back from Upmind to WHMCS should one not want to stick to Upmind for any reason. I requested that WHMCS offer a multi-brand option many times, but nothing has been done. This feature request made by a different WHMCS customer was made over 11 years ago https://requests.whmcs.com/idea/mult...support?page=1 There is a module for it https://marketplace.whmcs.com/produc...rand-for-whmcs but many don't like using 3rd party and prefer it be officially supported by WHMCS itself. The number of times I've used 3rd party software and the developer dropped the product or increased the price or other shady things put me off using 3rd party as much as possible. ModulesGarden looks to be trustworthy and has been around for a long time. Still, many won't risk it. WHMCS is missing out because many would like to target different industries, provide other services, and offer different web hosting control panels to be more competitive. Still, web hosts won't want to manage different WHMCS installations as maintenance and management would be too much work. So, it would make sense if WHMCS included a multi-brand option, especially now that WHMCS charges more depending on the number of Active clients. So, sure, the parent web host would only have one Active WHMCS license, but because the web host could easily have different brands, it would increase the number of Active clients, which means more revenue for WHMCS. So keep a lookout for the next WHMCS with self-hosted and multi-brand option. I think that would do very well.

I wouldn't really consider WHMCS to be any better though. The checkout process in WHMCS and seriously needs updating and navigating the client area is confusing for a lot of clients that are not familiar with WHMCS.

I wish Blesta got it's act together.... They have had years, but I personally haven't seen any hard investment or mass migration to it. So many companies write for WHMCS / cPanel. I personally tried a migration to blesta several yeas ago and support was very lacking and disappeared on me. I bought Blesta/clientexec and HostBill licenses and I am still using WHMCS because it does what we need and I am use to it. If I want Blesta to do what our WHMCS I would need to spend £1000's which wouldn't be economical. Hostbill Is a second best to WHMCS, but the admin interface is a learning curve and there doesn't seem to be much choice in themes?

If you're starting fresh, is HostBill a better choice than WHMCS? Is there anything better than WHMCS, when starting fresh?

what made it great is also a weakness. About to enter into a trial phase with a 3rd party who has a whmcs module ... do I ... dont I ...

I installed wisecp to test it and found that they don't have a simple sales report with the customer data, I need it for accounting. I don't need any multi-thing as a one man business. My main problem is the absurd accounting rules we have in Spain.

I wish I had the time and money (and coding knowledge) to create new software. The industry badly needs a new and complete alternative solution.

Still it's looks old fashioned. I already checked...

I would probably still go with WHMCS due to the fact that there is a sheer amount of documentation available online, and it has many users, which in turn implies its code is battle-hardened. It also has a sheer number of plugins. If you need anything, chances are WHMCS already has it in most cases.

Not really, an option to do XYZ is not a weakness. It just gives you an additional option. You don't have to take it, but it's an option. Not being able to IS a weakness though.

Yes, that's another thing. WHMCS does have better reporting for VAT i.e. VAT MOSS Settlement Data and it's easier to export things for accounting purposes.

Sticking with WHMCS for now, aside for the occasional headache. I just don't currently see a viable alternative.

If someone starting fresh decided against WHMCS (for whatever reasons), would you say that HostBill is the second best (for someone starting fresh), compared to the other alternatives? If not, who would you say is second best?

You can try Fleio, it's a billing platform that works with Cpanel but it's mostly used if you want to offer OpenStack clouds.

I tested: Wisecp, FOSSbilling, Upmind, ClientExec, Blesta, Hostfac, Paymeter, AWS. Any of them are ready for EU VAT rules

^^ this. Same here.

Hostbill without a doubt.

I was talking about 3rd party modules specifically otherwise yes, I agree with you ;-)

Though it would increase revenue for that one license, the selling of more than one license will generate more overall, so the odds of that ever being implemented are really low, I'd say. 250 clients, $24.95. 1K clients, $39.95. One company with a multi option that has 499 clients pays $24.95 (though likely there would be an increase for multi) vs that same multi company with 2 licenses (or more) would pay twice that instead of $15 more. Just like with the dropping of support/security for owned, they're thinking ahead on how to max revenue and not be tied to something that could be less profitable. Keeping single licensing allows them to isolate each license in a flexible pricing model (upward, always upward).

Look at AWBS, too. I had bought it long time ago. Its domain management was more advanced than WHMCS. Also their interface was better. But the template system worse and customizing harder.

How does HostBill compare to ClientExec and Blesta?

If someone were to eliminate consideration of WHMCS, how would HostBill, Blesta and ClientExec compare one to the other as a WHMCS alternative?

True. So, there is definitely an opportunity for WHMCS's competitors to offer what WHMCS does not at a more affordable price. The closets would be Upmind, a shame they don't offer a self-hosted version. If they did, and they also offered a way for the admin to easily migrate from WHMCS to Upmind and back again (so one doesn't feel locked into the Upmind platform after migration) Upmind may do very well there. Upmind also offers a version for upto 50 clients for free but it is not possible to test the multi-brand that they offer in the free tier. If they could allow the multi-brand to be tested/used in the free tier they may also gain more sales that way.

Hostbill is pretty good in my experience with it has been excellent. I also had some experience with Blesta I do not recommend it is very cumbersome.

Are you using Upmind? Any feedback? It looks promising.

Are you in the market for a billing management system for your hosting company?

Until Upmind offers a self-hosted version, I don't see why there is any reason it could be considered as a WHMCS alternative. It takes a lot of faith to put your 100% of your whole company's finance into a SAAS provider.

I could never get past the craziness of the owner when it first was gaining popularity. I was literally an hour from ordering when the price shifted over and over from inexpensive to holy crud and back. Can't help but think that something strange will happen again at some point. Just can't shake that feeling.

It doesn’t, it’s miles ahead of both unfortunately. I say unfortunately as there is a barrier to converse with them, either presales or discussion around pricing / modules etc. I think once you become a customer and are paying for tickets that barrier drops. Everything is also encoded so if you want anything tweaked or developed you are bound to them. Blesta are a good group of people, however it isn’t near whmcs. There is functionality missing, some that you might have expected to be there. Lack of modules and no clear roadmap if they are being worked on and status (that I can easily see). Clientexec ui is not my cup of tea. It has more modules but a severe lack of detail around them (although basics are there). It still feels like software that was developed 10 plus years ago (and it was). Upmind is very modern, very different and I love where it’s going. However there is a lot missing, including an invoice feature that I still cannot beleive they haven’t released as a priority. Modules are developed open source, but not clear how you go about doing it, or getting it through their uat. Their whmcs import is amazing, really detailed and well thought out. Free for 50 clients and invoices. Lack of an actual roadmap, lack of announcing what has been released. Support is great and the remote access tool is just brilliant.

I'm playing around with various tools to see what might be feasible down the line, as necessary, if I enter the market.

Just for grins I went to Upmind's website and punched in my requirements to their pricing tool. $5000/mo. That's just crazy talk.

Clientexec works great for us since it is stable but I agree that UI needs improvement. Hoping for that 7.0 we've been waiting for ages...

The problem with Upmind is that it is not or can't be hosted on your server. For security reasons, I would rather host it on our server.

Has anyone migrated from whmcs to Hostbill? Can you tell us about the process? can the migration be done without problems?

Do you mean none of them are ready or they are ready?

Many people are trying to find WHMCS alternative but there is no alternative for WHMCS. Yes, there are many billing system available but each one has their own headaches

I've been using hostbill for my business since i started a year ago and i haven't considered switching to other hosting control panels. While I can't comment on other platforms, my experience with hb has generally been positive. If pricing is a crucial factor, hb is definitely worth considering. In my year of use i've encountered some issues but none were critical. I requested a simple custom module a few months ago and i never got a response. I ended up developing it myself based on public modules. Their support typically responds in a short time and i've never exceeded the ticket limit since they provide refunds for valid issues.

Someone posted that already but they provide support so I am sure they can help you with any issues.

Any of them are ready for EU rules.

looks good,but there don't have much modules but i will definitely give a try on it.

You are of the opinion that HostBill is the best product in its category, with the obvious exception of WHMCS?

I am currently testing it out, so I can't say much - but I do like it so far. I'm at least glad the default UI looks modern. Although, I am fairly new to this business and still have under 100 clients, so someone with a larger company might feel very differently about it. But paying for WHMCS plus a dozen modules and then modules FOR the modules is ridiculous after a certain point... Upmind has a lot of popular integrations right off the bat, too, which was appealing to me.

Clientexec, Blesta and FOSSBilling all are alternatives. Clientexec & Blesta has great support compared to WHMCS. FOSSBilling is fully open source, and just has support via their forums. But so does Clientexec & Blesta. FOSSBilling looks like maybe down the road will to good, but since it's open source, I'm not sure if it will suffer the same fate as it's predecessor, BoxBilling. WHMCS keeps raising their price and support is horrible now, since it's under the webpro's umbrella now. Client exec is good, but everything is inhouse, and very few 3rd party modules. And for pricing, you have to keep paying every month like WHMCS. Now, Blesta. Support is great, and they also have forums, and a feature request. Is Open Source, except for the licensing part. You can either pay monthly or buy an owned license. HostBill, don't know about their support. But you have to buy outright, which is a good chunk of change. Then there is WiseCP. Support is good, but is limited in areas.

Give Matt a nudge. Perhaps he needs a reminder?

I gave it a look and it's also missing many important integrations, not to mention it doesn't have any at all for VPS

We bought hostbill and some extensions with them. However we decided not to use it. There is unfortunately nothing like WHMCS. The themes and UX is unmatched. Sure some people use Blesta, ClientExec and Hostbill but honestly we tested it ourselves and there is always something missing. For example we heavily use Modulesgarden modules and just works for us. The themes on Hostbill look outdated even their latest one. Its nice to some extent but there is again just something "missing". Your focus should be on getting new clients or having existing customer base pay for your whmcs licence, cpanel costs, etc. Work it out and add a markup for that. Then you wont look at the costs that much.

In my experience, Blesta support seemed more concerned with making it clear to me that whmcs is poorly programmed than with giving me a solution to my import problem. Clientexec looks great but they don't take into account how it is billed in Europe. I hope they do in the near future.

An article with some good explanations and arguments about why FOSS is the only way to go: Avoid WHMCS, Blesta, HostBill, ClientExec... TL/DR - this picture sums it up . Relja

And that. I just wish Clientexec would release 7.0 soon, improve their support, and take those requests seriously from their clients. Oh well...

WHMCS is a mammoth (like it or not) with a lot of features that others cannot match, dozen of resellers, payment gateways, theme developers, that build up a big ecosystem around WHMCS. Currently there is no real competitor to match up.. Have tested ourselves some alternatives but non of them came closer as features and customization.

Blesta & WiseCP are both more geared towards Europe it looks. Didn't have either bash WHMCS.

To sum it up, destroy all competitors then give Leap for free? Will it stay forever free? What happens if no one is funding it anymore? Oh right, have someone take it over and charge $3/m to make the project stay alive, and so so so... I've seen that movie before

We were waiting for that before switching. It's been so long now we've lost confidence in them.

I do not know what you are such fan of these webrpos products... Hostbill is a product that is not for average summer host that is why is not so popular... there is a learning curve and one summer wont be enough Way technically superior and you cannot use the argument of most used - that is why is industry standard... because there are industry standards as ISO 27001 and ISO 20000-1 I have a frenemy (he was a friend but want to buy me and was pushy in his attempts that is why I call him frenemy now days) which has become big at least 7 figures (couple of years ago before coof) now is bigger and still growing ... his company if we count the software part of it has maybe 40+ people works in the office (I was there in April) ... his company is ISO 27001 and ISO 20000-1 certified and some others and he is the person I asked about Hostbill because he upgrade to it way before 2019-2020 fiasco... his words was exactly - he upgraded because he cannot pass ISO certifications with WHMCS - it is not designed for that (obviously his company passed with Hosbill as billing / management system) Any way frenemy or friend I'm happy for him after his iso certifications he managed to get some of that sweet sweet 5 figures a month hosting / cloud / server customers that require such certifications and pay big to companies having it...

So what did you mean by that if you say all of them support EU rules properly? I know a lot of them support EU rules. I do think WHMCS is better at reporting many different types of reports compared to the others. I must say I've not tested the WHMCS alternatives for over a year or so.

According to Marx, capital has the tendency for concentration and centralization in the hands of the richest capitalists. It always ends in the ruin of many small capitalists, whose capitals partly pass into the hands of their conquerors, partly vanish.

What features were you hoping for in version 7.0? And why are you waiting specifically for ClientExec to get their act together, rather than Upmind, HostBill, Blesta, etc., more broadly?

I guess it depends on the use case. When I had a day job, we developed everything in-house. If I were to start a business like that, I would do it in-house, neither WHMCS nor HostBill. For a small/medium hosting provider, WHMCS is better as it is easy to use (there is almost zero learning curve) yet has everything they need. Depending on what they are doing (like your friend), HostBill might be better for someone who offers servers. But the learning curve is steep. I have to admit that my very brief communication with them was pleasant, and they were helpful. But I decided not to move in the end. Choose your poison

Clientexec, allows a client to change their data and this data is modified in invoices already issued. This it is not allowed in Spain. Blesta, it generates invoices for transactions that doesn't exist when importing from WHMCS, which they say is due to how poorly whmcs is programmed. Also, not allowed in Spain. Wisecp can't generate sales report with the customer taxes data, or quarterly reports. I'm asking support today about this. For me, there isn't any alternative to WHMCS today. I hope this change sometime.

He's updated since I last read that, but he's right on most points there. Current thread about how WHMCS marks someone active and WHMCS bills the company for them. Flawed logic in the system has most WHMCS business owners overpaying, some by a lot. Head of support cleansed the thread at one point, making it all the user's fault, and how it was "by design". After the editing, the thread went very quiet, so assuming it also included warnings to those that spoke up. Very on brand for them. Accurate, I'd say. It will either go paid if completed or wither from devs moving on, as a guess. Possibly it will get forked, packaged, encoded and sold as someone else's product. Not uncommon.

Upmind is SAAS, Hostbill owner did some insane things at the start, and Blesta a solid no for me (No, I won't say why).

Where I'm form there we also have that say: dress for where you want to be not for where you are Learning curve for just simple shared hosting provisioning hosting is not that steep I can even say if you just about the start and never used billing system as admin Hostbill will be on par with WHMCS as you do not have created a routine to what you are used too...

Confirmed by wisecp: Is it possible > to generate custom reports or do it using any plugin/module? As we have already mentioned, there is no feature/function as you mentioned. So it is not possible. If you wish, you can also create a feature request request for it. You can visit the link below to make a feature request.

I have seen this repository but nothing has been done to it in 3 years. Does anyone know if it will even get started?

Matt mentioned that after 6.7, they will 100% focus on 7.0. I guess they are on it now but for how long, I do not know

I want to be on Mars

So to confirm, the transactions are within the tblaccounts table but the invoice number given there does not match to an invoice in whmcs (the tblinvoices table)? Are the invoices line items blank, "Invoice Payment" or otherwise generic? That sorta of sounds like invoices were deleted in WHMCS and the transactions were left behind. There is enough info in tblaccounts to tie a transaction to a user without the invoice, however, it would not have the line items unless the tblinvoiceitems also was not cleaned when the invoice was deleted. Reviewing tblinvoiceitems, tblaccounts, and tblinvoices's data for relationship connections would confirm this. The orphaning of data is always an issue with database relationships.

If there's nothing in "years" (I see the last update was at least 2 years ago), I doubt it.

It does , including some panels and linode

Glad you are liking it. I have been testing out Upmind for a few months now too and I am finding it to be an impressive product. There are a few items that I have encountered that could use some improvement such as inability to delete support tickets, clients, and limited configurability in when the cron jobs take place but they seem to be receptive to my feedback. We will see if they end up addressing those issues. As a current WHMCS user, their support is refreshingly responsive and knowledgeable, especially considering I am a free trial client right now.

I haven't reviewed what you say in depth, to be honest. I just want an alternative system to WHMCS, simple, easy and cheap, that doesn't change the conditions.

That's what I'm thinking too. Was just curious if anyone knew anything different.

what do you think about buying a license in advance just in case it becomes something you want to use? I swear that at the start of the year, client exec lifetime with updates, was $449, its now $499. (its still accessible on their site, just not from their main page). After watching whmcs, cpanel, wisecp hiking their prices, im wondering if when CEv7 hits, if its going to be introduced at a new price point. In the very least, Its unrealistic to assume the current pricing will stay the same forever.

+1 for Hostbill

Yes 100% old story... either it just vanishes or prices go up.

we tried to move from WHMCS to blesta, and had the same experience as other person in this thread. the support after they received close to $1.500 usd at least from us, they ghosted us, and just ignored all issues migrating from whmcs to blesta. To be fair, they didn't scam or took our money, we just invested and believed we could make a business so bought many Blesta licenses, that are now garbage sitting here. At the end we managed to migrate from WHMCS to Hostbill, already saved a few thousands $ because of this. Only thing that didn't work at all on the migration, was the affiliate records and assigned refferals. we managed that manually after migration. just my own experience

I'll burn cross that bridge when I come to it. I though the same about B, but later decided fully against. Smaller up front cost at the time, but money wasted all the same.

Haven't seen it mentioned here, but I've dabbled with Paymenter. It's free and open source, pretty easy to get up and running, and has decent-ish support for 3rd party modules. I ended up ditching it due to the lack of advanced features you would get with a Blesta or a WHMCS. But definitely keeping my eye on it as it matures.

Yes 100% old story... either it just vanishes or prices go up.

Have you tried selling your licenses? I sold mine 5 or 6 years ago within a week or so.

What were those insane stuff?

I did a migration from WHCMS to Blesta as I want to avoid cpanel-partners and after only 1 day, I return back to WHMCS. I found that things doesn't work as Blesta documentation says. They have outdated docs. Migration didn't copy customer notes and other little things like affiliates, so a lot of information it is lost in you move it. - ClientExec can't be used for spanish accountability. - Hostbill, I don't want to pay for tickets. So, I'm still looking for alternatives.

From my 11 years of experience in Hosting sector, I must say, there is no alternative of WHMCS. This is one and only one solution. But recently I am using Hostshop and feeling good. If anyone interested, can try it.