v0.2.5 preview · PHP 8.1–8.3 · MySQL / MariaDB

Billing for web hosts.
Your server, your code.

HostBMS (Host Billing & Management Suite) runs the business side of your hosting company — clients, orders, invoices, payments, provisioning and support — on your own server. A WHMCS alternative you can actually read.

✓ Free to use · Source included · No ionCube, no licence server Security scanned with Semgrep 0 open findings

🔁 Coming from WHMCS? Same PHP/MySQL/Smarty stack, WHMCS-style modules and API, and a built-in migrator. See how it compares →

🏛️ KarnakPanel server module included — accounts are created, suspended, unsuspended and deleted on your panel automatically. How it works →

⬇ Download HostBMS v0.2.5 Browse all features → 📄 Brochure (PDF)

📧 info@hostbms.com 🏛️ From the makers of KarnakPanel

Upload → installed

1Download the zip and create a site with HTTPS plus an empty database in your hosting panel.
2Upload the contents of the hostbms/ folder to the web root, including .htaccess.
3Open /install/ and follow the wizard — checks, database, company, first admin, optional WHMCS import.

✓UK-ready defaults — GBP, Europe/London, VAT-style tax rules. Change them in one place.
✓One-click updates — signed releases from Setup › Updates, with automatic rollback if anything fails.
✓One cron line every 5 minutes runs invoicing, dunning, renewals and the job queue.
✓Made for shared hosting or a VPS — Apache, LiteSpeed or Nginx + PHP-FPM.

⬇ Download (19 MB) Full instructions ↓

Product tour

The layout you know.
A calmer look.

Menus follow the WHMCS order your staff already know — Clients, Orders, Billing, Support, Utilities, Setup — in a dark, glassy blue admin theme. Simplified illustration of the admin dashboard.

Income this month£4,218.40 · 61% of target

Dashboard

Clients 312

Orders 4 pending

Billing

Support 7 open

Reports

Utilities

Setup

Good morning FULL ADMIN

Cron ran 3 minutes ago · queue empty · all health checks passing

£312.90income today

4pending orders

9overdue invoices

7tickets awaiting reply

Smart dunning today's run

#1042Card retry — Visa ending 4242£14.40Recovered

#1039Reminder email queued (day 3)£96.00Unpaid

#1031Soft decline — retry scheduled day 5£8.40Retrying

#1027Hard decline — retries stopped, client emailed£29.99Action

Illustration only — figures are made up. Screenshots of the real panel will replace this once the public demo is live.

Why HostBMS

Everything to bill a host.
Nothing hidden.

Most hosting billing software is closed, encoded and licensed by the month. HostBMS is the billing system we wanted next to our own panel: familiar to anyone who has used WHMCS, and readable enough to fix at 3am.

📖 Code you can read

No ionCube, no licence server phoning home. Plain PHP 8 with Smarty templates — audit it, patch it, extend it.

🔁 Easy way out of WHMCS

Built-in migrator for clients, products, services, domains, invoices and tickets, keeping the same IDs. WHMCS-style modules, hooks and API calls keep working.

💷 Smart dunning

Reminder, card retry, late fee, suspend and terminate steps on your schedule. Stops retrying on hard declines; catches up after downtime without spamming.

🧩 Visual order forms

Drag-and-drop product order, featured plans, upsells — and A/B test two layouts with per-day views and orders.

🛡️ Secure by default

Staff 2FA, role permissions, login lockouts, an audit log of every change, and encrypted secrets. Card numbers never touch your server.

⚙️ Background job queue

Emails, provisioning and gateway calls run in a retrying queue, so a slow API never blocks a checkout.

💬 Live chat, self-hosted

A chat widget that asks "Would you like help?" only while your staff are online. Departments, typing indicators, saved replies, alerts and optional file sharing — with no outside chat service and built-in spam checks for guests.

🔄 One-click updates

New releases are signed and checked before they install. Your files and database are backed up first, and a failed update rolls itself back.

🧾 Invoices that look like you

Branded PDF invoices and quotes in a dark or printer-friendly style, attached to invoice and quote emails automatically.

Payments & modules

Bring your gateways.
Keep your modules.

Modules follow the WHMCS convention (module_Function($params), hooks, localAPI), so existing gateway, server, registrar and addon modules are a small port, not a rewrite.

💳

StripeHosted Checkout, saved cards, automatic renewals, refunds

🇪🇺

MollieCards, PayPal, iDEAL, Klarna and more · recurring mandates

🅿️

PayPalPayPal Checkout for invoices · refunds back through PayPal

🏦

Bank transferOffline payments with your own instructions

🖥️

Server modules · KarnakPanel includedCreate, suspend, unsuspend, terminate · optional client self-service for domains, SSL, DNS, email, databases and backups

🌐

Registrar modulesRegister, transfer, renew, nameservers, lock, EPP, daily sync

🔌

REST APIWHMCS action names and responses at /includes/api.php

Download & install

From zip to first invoice.

Everything needed to run HostBMS is in one zip: the app, its libraries, the web installer and a server install script. No Composer, no build step. Full steps are in INSTALL.txt inside the zip.

⬇ HostBMS v0.2.5 preview

Early development — test it on a spare site first.

File	`hostbms-0.2.5.zip`
Size	19 MB
Licence	HostBMS Licence — free to use, not for resale
SHA-256	`4f80e53eb66c74d183062ee1a9f42640e8d459940f44ffd19aaae4d187e60c52`

⬇ Download HostBMS Checksum file 📄 Brochure (PDF)

🧭 Install steps

1Create a site and a database. HTTPS on, e.g. billing.yourdomain.com, plus an empty MySQL/MariaDB database and user.
2Upload the contents of hostbms/ to the site's web root, including the hidden .htaccess.
3Private folders must be blocked — the installer checks this and stops if code or uploads can be downloaded. On OpenLiteSpeed or KarnakPanel, load the .htaccess rules into the site's rewrite rules; on Nginx, add deny rules (see INSTALL.txt).
4Run the installer at /install/ — it checks requirements, creates the tables and your admin, then locks itself.
5Add the cron job: */5 * * * * php /path/to/crons/cron.php, then turn on 2FA and set up mail.

Get started

One site. One database. One cron line.

If your hosting runs PHP and MySQL, it runs HostBMS.

📋 Requirements

	Minimum	Recommended
PHP	8.1	8.2 or 8.3
Database	MySQL 5.7 / MariaDB 10.4	MySQL 8 / MariaDB 10.11
Web server	Apache, LiteSpeed or Nginx + PHP-FPM	with HTTPS
PHP extensions	curl, gd, json, mbstring, openssl, pdo_mysql, xml, zip, intl, bcmath, fileinfo
Cron	`/5 * * * php /path/to/crons/cron.php`

🛣️ Roadmap

Built · v0.1

The full core

Clients, products, orders, invoicing, smart dunning, client area, support desk, module layer, automation, email, reports, quotes, REST API, Stripe + Mollie, installers and the WHMCS migrator.

Built · v0.2

Polish & protection

Built-in spam protection for signups and guest tickets, branded HTML emails, a UK postcode address finder and clearer product pricing.

Built · v0.2.3

Chat, PayPal & updates

Self-hosted live chat, PayPal Checkout, "ways to pay" logos, branded PDF invoices attached to emails, free-username checks for KarnakPanel and a signed one-click updater with automatic rollback.

Public demo & testers

A live demo install, real-world WHMCS migrations with testers, and the first production server and registrar modules.

Later

Depth

Client 2FA, product upgrades, more gateways and deeper WHMCS feature coverage.

Honest limits (v0.2.5): early development, not production ready · the WHMCS migrator has only been tested on sample data · Stripe and PayPal have not yet taken a live payment (Mollie has) · live chat is new, so try it on a test site first · server modules: KarnakPanel plus a demo module (cPanel, Plesk and registrar modules come next) · English only. Expect glitches and tell us about them.

The layout you know.A calmer look.