Name: StePanel
Author: Cyber Duct Tape

What StePanel is

StePanel is an open-source server management panel written in Go. It installs Caddy by default, with Apache and OpenLiteSpeed available explicitly, plus PHP and your choice of MySQL, MariaDB or PostgreSQL. It is built for operators who want a small, understandable hosting control plane instead of a large, opaque platform, and for anyone who needs to get sites off cPanel without losing data on the way.

Why teams choose it

Migration-focused: inspects cPanel .tar.gz archives, rejects unsafe entries, stages uploads privately and restores websites, SQL and mailboxes as tracked jobs.
Safety-first: archive traversal checks, bcrypt credentials, signed sessions, CSRF protection, TOTP MFA and a tamper-evident audit log.
Small footprint: a single Go control plane with a limited dependency surface and durable SQLite state.
Your stack: Caddy, Apache or OpenLiteSpeed; MySQL, MariaDB or PostgreSQL at an exact version; optional phpMyAdmin or phpPgAdmin.
Operator-friendly: health and metrics endpoints, asynchronous restore jobs with retries and cancellation, systemd deployment and readable runbooks.

How it is put together

Browser / API client
        │ authenticated HTTPS
        ▼
Go control plane ── durable jobs, audit chain, desired state
        │ narrow typed helper calls
        ▼
Root-owned platform helpers ── Caddy/Apache, PHP-FPM, databases, systemd
        │ isolated site identities and cgroup profiles
        ▼
Web applications, databases, verified backups, recoverable releases

The web-facing control plane runs as a restricted service account and binds to localhost; privileged work goes through narrow, typed helpers rather than a root shell.

Try it

The quickest look is the Podman demo. For a real host, install from a tagged release (amd64 or arm64) and verify the checksum first:

release=v0.7.0
arch=amd64   # arm64 on aarch64 hosts
curl -fsSLO "https://github.com/cyberducttape/StePanel/releases/download/${release}/stepanel_${release#v}_linux_${arch}.tar.gz"
curl -fsSLO "https://github.com/cyberducttape/StePanel/releases/download/${release}/SHA256SUMS"
grep "stepanel_${release#v}_linux_${arch}.tar.gz" SHA256SUMS | sha256sum -c -

Then follow the installation guide. Production installs require an off-site backup target configured through rclone.

Honest scope

The current stable release is v0.7.0. StePanel supports single-host operation with tenant-scoped accounts; the shared-hosting features are a constrained beta with explicit operator boundaries. Docker and Kubernetes images package the control plane for evaluation only. Read the documentation before putting customers on it. See how StePanel compares with other panels.

Need the migration done for you?

If you would rather not run the move yourself, Cyber Duct Tape plans and performs cPanel and VPS migrations, including DNS cutover and mail. Start with the cPanel migration checklist or request a migration plan.

StePanel: a small, auditable cPanel alternative