What Do You Think About LEMP Servers (SlickStack, Etc)?

#1

I think most of y’all are using web control panels here it seems like DirectAdmin and Webmin. I’m wondering what cloud networks (hosts) you are using to run these servers and why?

Does anyone here manage high-traffic LEMP servers? Have you guys used any of the free LEMP scripts for WordPress like below, and why or why not:

  • SlickStack
  • EasyEngine
  • Centmin Mod
  • Webinoly
  • WordOps
  • Trellis
  • VPSSIM
  • etc

The advantage is that with one site per VM (VPS) you can easily move a site to another cloud network anytime you want for performance or political reasons, etc. Especially if you are backing up your websites on a third party service like S3 buckets or CodeGuard (rsync) of your database.

I’m wondering if cPanel’s new Nginx support will take off very well, or if native LEMP stacks without any control panel bloat will forever remain a different crowd from the shared hosting tribes…

It just seems like many devs are not aware (or willing) to study some of these free scripts despite the major performance and security improvements, focusing more on “easy management” which I know is important but will there be two different “sides” in our community forever?

Ps. I’m glad that cloud servers are finally more mainstream but honestly surprised that the industry is still so obsessed with reselling shared servers running control panels, email inboxes, etc… sometimes it seems like email inboxes are more important that the actual website performance, even with all the free email services these days like Zoho Mail, or premium ones like G Suite, ProtonMail, etc. I realize that a UI makes it easier to rapidly setup new accounts, but all the deploy tools these days are not difficult to learn. And using an email API like SendGrid or Mailgun is much safer for your site and email delivery is more stable also. Does anyone really need control panels besides to make account setup easier?

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#2

I’ve been testing WordOps. It’s quite slick and fancy, nice CLI.
(Also adds netdata etc.)
But I still think I will revert to just a few scripts of my own, as it still installs and does more than I want, and since I don’t know where all is stored/the hierarchy, I either have to dig through it all to know/remember it when issues/situations arise, or I can just set up everything in my own way/the Debian way.

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#3

I think WordOps tries to be all-in-one with a control panel and everything. Personally it seems this approach will alienate developers who want to keep things super lightweight and secure etc. But it seems their base is growing so maybe they have found a niche that works for them.

But yah if Ubuntu/Debian are managing all the packages for you why mess with it?

SlickStack only installs packages that are supported in the Ubuntu LTS (long-term releases). And you can run the default commands apt get update && apt get upgrade with no conflicts.

Webinoly is also rather lightweight it seems.

I think keeping things lightweight (avoiding control panels, email software etc) allows developers to add the packages they want while not forcing more bloat into the stack. That is kinda what I’m talking about because it seems like most agencies just default to control panels and Apache because its what they know and they haven’t even really tried to learn a few basic Bash commands or whatever…

#4

WordOps do utilize apt for most stuff, I believe, but not all. And the config locations are a bit obfuscated/has it’s own structure/hierarchy.

Maybe I should check out SlickStack or Webinoly … Then again, It’s prefer Lighty and a slightly different stack, I guess. :slight_smile:

#5

Fixed that for ya.

#6

:laughing: Right … While I do have some concerns over the one daemon to rule them all paradigm, I’m not so sure … Devuan stick with sysvinit?
I kinda like the illumOS/newer Solaris init… SMF or something, or just simpler BSD style … That said I don’t think systemd is all bad/I can tolerate it :slight_smile:

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#7

I use MX on one of my laptops. It gives you a choice if you want to use systemd or not. systemd-shim. I personally have been delving alot more into BSD systems myself lately as well. OpenBSD, OPNsense, NomadBSD, NetBSD. I have a few SBC’s and other hardware I have ideas (dreams) for. Still as always a learning process for this simpleton here.

#8

Only one on my “check this out” list now: Void (@WSS mentioned it somewhere.) :slight_smile:

I do like both OpenBSD and Alpine, but have mostly plain Debian and some CentOS/derivatives in production.

#9

Yeah I don’t have much in “production” but I did use Scientific for a long while for a really stable VPN server. Other things I fart around with are yeah mainly Debian, mostly because documentation for installing and setting up stuff is not hard to be found.

I remember I stayed at a remote ass guest house on Sumatra near Banda Aceh. They had one old ass dusty shared computer in the common area. I fired it up and it was OpenSUSE, fully updated. I felt like a proud parent even though I didn’t know these people.

Now I always have a USB stick with Tails or Nomad on it. But I rarely ever use public computers unless absolutely last resort.

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#10

Anyway back to the topic, yes Debian/Ubuntu is easily most user-friendly and organized when you are talking about lightweight website servers like WordPress. CentOS is probably next, but it allegedly uses more resources than Debian (for example if you want a super cheap cloud VPS server).

Centmin Mod uses CentOS but is rather complex and full of tons of options.

I’m scared to play with too many bleeding edge type of software on production websites unless it is just for fun like testing PHP 7.3 vs PHP 7.2 or something.