Blesta, the self-hosted billing and automation platform used by hosting providers, shipped version 6.0 on August 4, and the company calls it the biggest release in its history: an admin interface rebuilt from the ground up, an optional AI layer that can answer support tickets on its own, a native revenue analytics dashboard, and upgrades that are now cryptographically signed. It is available for download and upgrade immediately, after four rounds of beta.
Tickets on Autopilot, With a Threshold You Set
The headline feature is Blesta AI in the Support Manager. It reads tickets shortly after they arrive and, based on a confidence threshold the administrator controls, either drafts a reply for staff to review or sends it automatically. It can adjust priority, assign staff, and close a ticket once the client confirms the issue is resolved, with rules written in plain English. The pitch to a small host is unambiguous: common questions answered around the clock without adding headcount.
The same layer generates package descriptions and HTML email templates, and an admin chatbot in the icon bar has dedicated modes for writing SQL for custom reports, producing ready-to-use API calls in curl or PHP, and scaffolding modules for developers. Two design choices stand out for anyone wary of handing a billing system to a language model: the whole layer is optional, gated per staff group, and switching it on requires an explicit disclaimer and confirmation. It is sold separately as a subscription, with plans the company says start at a few dollars a month.
MRR and Churn Move Into the Panel
The quietest addition may age the best. A new revenue analytics dashboard under Billing > Reports computes MRR, ARR, ARPU, lifetime value and churn from nightly snapshots, with an MRR movements waterfall splitting new, expansion, contraction and churned revenue, a cohort retention grid, and renewal revenue projected twelve months ahead. It is multi-currency aware with one-click consolidation. For a market where many small hosts track these numbers in spreadsheets, if at all, putting subscription metrics natively into the billing panel is a substantial upgrade disguised as a reporting feature.
Paradigm, and What Breaks
The rebuilt admin, called Paradigm, moves navigation to the left, makes settings searchable in real time, adds a drag-and-drop icon bar and dark mode designed in from the start rather than retrofitted, and jumps to any client with Ctrl+K. Under the hood, releases are now signed and verified with public and private keys during upgrade, a one-click CLI upgrade runs from the settings screen, and a new utility verifies the integrity of the installation. For a product that sits at the center of a host’s money flow, release signing is the kind of supply-chain hardening the industry has been learning to demand.
A major rewrite has costs, and Blesta is direct about them:
- the admin front end moved to Bootstrap 5, and every official extension has been converted; third-party and custom extensions need updating for Paradigm
- jQuery is gone from the admin JavaScript; extensions that depend on it must be updated, or the compatibility setting turned back on
- the default database collation changes to utf8mb4, converted during upgrade
- the release announcement leads with a warning to back up files and database before upgrading, and Blesta offers to perform the upgrade for $45
License pricing is $17.95 a month branded, $20.95 unbranded, both with unlimited clients and staff, and the 30-day trial requires no card. For hosts running stock Blesta, 6.0 is a straightforward upgrade with an unusually large payoff. For anyone with custom extensions, it is a migration project, and the sensible order of operations is the one the vendor implies: back up, test the extensions, then enjoy the new panel.
