Is Enhance truly for me? - Questions/Experiences wanted - Enhance Control Panel

Is Enhance truly for me? - Questions/Experiences wanted

Nemean

Hi everyone,
I’m trying to determine whether Enhance is the right fit for my hosting setup, and I’d really appreciate some guidance.

For background:
I have experience with Plex, DirectAdmin, cPanel, shared hosting, Docker, and dedicated servers. Right now I’m running about 8 VPS servers on Hetzner, managed with RunCloud and secured with BitNinja. These servers mostly run WordPress sites.

However, BitNinja has been causing major issues lately. Even after heavy optimization and disabling various modules, it still hoggs CPU (4 cores) and RAM (8GB) on certain servers. The websites themselves aren’t heavy (one server contains a WooCommerce site, and another server has 4 basic sites) yet BitNinja is triggering performance problems. On Cloudways I used a 2-core / 4GB VPS that could run more sites without issues.

I also recently received an email from BitNinja about a price increase, which made me question whether my current stack is the best long-term solution.

To clarify further:

Email hosting is through Microsoft 365, with a separate backup tool (so I wouldn't use Enhance email features).
Website backups go to Backblaze B2 (S3); Hetzner does weekly snapshots; RunCloud backs up to a Hetzner Storage Box; and my Synology NAS pulls from S3.
Customers do not need access to phpMyAdmin or the Enhance panel, it would be for me only, and I can limit the admin IP.
I build and maintain all WordPress sites myself.
Most customers never log in; they rely on me for maintenance.

I tried Enhance before on the $5 plan but had to cancel due to lack of time. Now I’m reconsidering, but I want to make sure it’s the right fit.

Security & Performance question
Does anyone else use Bitninja in combination with Enhance and what is your experience?

WordPress Performance question
I know RunCloud has quite an optimized OLS configuration that works really well outside the box. I have no experience configuring it myself. Does Enhance deliver a similar configuration for OLS?
Does Redis require a manual configuration or does Enhance take a role into this?

Workflow & Site Management
Can websites be deployed with presets (PHP version, required modules, Redis, cron jobs, etc.)?
Is staging built-in, or do I need plugins?

I want to simplify my stack, reduce CPU/RAM overhead caused by BitNinja, and avoid additional price increases while keeping WordPress performance high and backups flexible. Enhance looks promising, but I want to understand whether it fully fits my workflow and server environment before I commit. I will continue testing to see how it goes as well.

Thank you!

shahed

Nemean Can websites be deployed with presets (PHP version, required modules, Redis, cron jobs, etc.)?
Is staging built-in, or do I need plugins?

Yes, you can configure php etc using Packages. Create different packages with different configuration sets, and assign website to specific package. It is also possible to override these settings on a per site basis.

Staging is built in, no plugins required.

JohnB

Nemean Customers do not need access to phpMyAdmin or the Enhance panel, it would be for me only, and I can limit the admin IP.
I build and maintain all WordPress sites myself.
Most customers never log in; they rely on me for maintenance.

This is my business model exactly and Enhance has saved me a lot of time. I've tried Direct Admin, my own LXD and then docker solution (I don't really need a panel since customers dont use it),

Configuration will be all on you. Nothing is optimized out of the box but it shouldn't be too hard to beat RunCloud (in realworld speed) on modern server with good CPU. I use Hetzner happily.

Staging is built in but give it a try and decide if it will work for you.

I want to simplify my stack, reduce CPU/RAM overhead caused by BitNinja

Yup I got tired of maintaining my stack too and its nice to have a panel where you can easily upload files and view logs etc. cPFence is a competitor to Bitninja and active member here.

I use backblaze backups and they work but I've found Enhance won't reliably (or at all) remove old backups. Might just be me, I haven't bothered to look into it too much. Enhance backups are objectively better as they are incremental. You can always backup the backup server to backblaze or NAS for disaster recovery of backup server.

Just keep in mind how fast the backup server can actually serve the backup files in a disaster recovery scenario. If realistically only 10 sites (1 VPS) would need to be restored thats a lot different than needing to restore 500 sites after a dedi failure. One would work on a storage VPS and the other needs a 10gbs dedicated backup server.

I'd recommend it for your (our) usecase but not for mass hosting as the panel has weird bugs like file manager not saving a file sometimes for no reason and then it works the second time you try. Nothing security or site breaking but to an average ~~idiot~~ valued user they would get frustrated and create tickets saying "it no work. fix now or I take my $5/mo elsewhere!!!"