If you’re involved in managing servers for web hosting then you’ll appreciate the importance of having a simple, yet highly effective method of monitoring and looking after your hosting infrastructure. The most effective way of managing all the processes related to routine tasks of hosting infrastructure is to use a web hosting control panel.
When it comes to web hosting control panels, Plesk vs cPanel comparison is something you may think about. Apart of DirectAdmin, ISPConfig and Webmin, both cPanel and Plesk has long history on the market of server management tools.
Plesk has helped system administrators for over 10 years. Because of its user-friendly interface and wide set of features, admins can manage their servers more efficiently. The latest Plesk is available in Windows and Linux and is designed to work unobtrusively, manage performance and gatekeep in the shadows.
cPanel first appeared in 1996. As its a pioneer in this market, cPanel still has a dedicated fanbase for its obsolete products. Even though its current offering is called cPanel 68. Newer iterations of this popular solution are a kind of welding together of cPanel. This facilitates customer account management and Web Host Manager (WHM) which tackles server administration.
CLI (command line interface) is an option for each of these interfaces. But most users will no doubt want to unlock their goodies via the GUI (graphical user interface).
Most users favour Plesk over cPanel for its tidier GUI, which makes it simpler to understand and more intuitive to use. Its approach is to group tools on the left of the screen – as that’s the side people start reading from. And you can find more options buried under each tool.
cPanel’s approach comes from the ‘garden shed’ approach to GUI design. Because the designers seem to have just thrown everything in there and shut the door. The redeeming feature that helps it claw back some points in the Plesk vs cPanel contest is that you can modify the interface to suit your own preferences.
Both solutions boast a variety of features designed to make servers bulletproof. Or at least, safe from incursions by nefarious bots and their human handlers.
But Plesk offers features such as fail2ban – which prevents intrusions, active directory integration, and spam defence for email. Meanwhile, cPanel offers automatic installation of SSL certificates, directories with password protection and IP address denials.
So, Plesk or cPanel in terms of variety of features? Plesk and cPanel give clients identical features to manage accounts and servers. Users can configure DNS settings ( read about name servers setup ), manage email accounts and databases. And they also get FTP (File Transfer Protocol) facilities. The cPanel experience can be bolstered with extra apps. But Plesk hits the ground running with straight-out-of-the-box access to more helpful apps and extensions.
Plesk, as cPanel alternative, supports Docker for Linux, putting the 200,000 image Docker catalogue at their users’ fingertips through the web hosting control panel. And Gitman extension makes Git use a feature too. In contrast, cPanel users can only enjoy the same experience via complicated workarounds. Which may not really be ideal.
As we said before, Plesk runs on both Linux and Windows Server, while cPanel is a Linux-only deal. True, you can achieve Windows-server-compatibility, but only via certain tweaking and fiddling.
CentOS, CloudLinux and RedHat Enterprise Linux are the only OS incarnations supported by cPanel. In contrast, Plesk works with 14 Linux distros that include Debian, CentOS, and Ubuntu. This in addition to being compatible with Windows servers.
| Solutions | Plesk Onyx | cPanel/WHM |
|---|---|---|
| OS compatibility | Both Linux and Windows operating systems are supported.
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cPanel is Linux control panel. Supported distributives: CentOS, Cloud Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. |
| Web servers | Apache, NGINX with caching | Apache with Nginx caching |
| Administration | Unified authorization procedure for users and administrators. | cPanel basically consists of cPanel and WHM – WHM is accessible only for server-related administrational tasks. cPanel access gives control only over website. |
| Interface | Modern UX/UI based on React.Js. Built-in ready to code environment with support of Javascript, PHP, Perl, Ruby On Rails, Python, Java and .NET. | User-friendly interface with full control over majority of cPanel/WHM features. Availability of command line and API-based access as the way to automate administrational tasks. |
| Security | A lot of security features are provided from the box e.g. Plesk Firewall, Revisium Antivirus, Fail2ban | AutoSSL, cPHulk, built-in support of CSF/LFD and some other useful features |
| WordPress support | WordPress Toolkit provides full list of automation & management features vital for the scalable WordPress infrastructure support. | cPanel’s WordPress Manager is far away from perfection. |
| Extensions/Add-ons | Plesk comes with ecosystem of various extensions, covering all possible needs of any server administrator. Among these extensions are Security Advisor, WordPress Toolkit, Joomla! Toolkit, Let’s Encrypt SSL support, SEO Toolkit etc. | Extra apps are available via auto-installers. |
| DBMS | MySQL / MariaDB / MSSQL Server databases can be managed via web browser. | MySQL/MariaDB databases management via web interface |
| SSL | Let’s Encrypt + Symantec | AutoSSL with Let’s Encrypt |
| Mobile accessibility |  |
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| Backups | Ready to use solutions based on Dropbox, Acronis, Google Drive | Compatibility issues can be spotted between various cPanel backup versions. |
| Technologies | Support of Docker, Git, Node.js, WordPress Toolkit | Docker, Node.Js & Git can be still supported by cPanel, however workaround here is sophisticated |
After reading this far, it’s obvious that your ideal web hosting control panel will be largely dictated by your server’s OS. But as a human who has to use an interface every day, you want to choose the one that makes your life easier. With 100+ extensions and a more intuitive interface, Plesk seems like the current winner. Though both solutions are feature-rich, the Plesk vs cPanel face-off must be won by the new kid on the block.
We’ve firmly established the VPS control panel (Virtual Private Server) as an important component in the web hosting landscape. For web hosting admins and end-users, it’s been a blessing to centrally manage every website on their server. This simplified account management helps avoid the tedium of performing the same essential tasks on different systems every day.
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But as with any good idea, everyone wants in on the action. Same happened here. Competition has given rise to a rapid increase in the number of control panels on the market. With some even beginning to specialize in particular hosting environments.
To help you find the solution that’s right for you, let’s take a look at HSPcomplete, Plesk, and cPanel. These are the 3 control panels users most often go for in Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting.
Award-winning Plesk garnered its accomplishments from exemplary abilities in VPS and shared hosting environments. Plesk’s superior VPS control panel can install and handle all the systems and applications you might need to host on a single VPS server. With its great versatility and scalability, Plesk users can even expand and manage anything up to thousands of virtual hosts on one server. It’s customizable to meet customer requirements and truly offers users an impressive VPS control panel.
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HSPcomplete is a lightweight piece of software that provides a single UI to help users manage their VPS hosting account. Its main selling point is that it’s simple to use. But it does also offer a comprehensive array of useful features. Overall, HSPcomplete is a competent VPS control panel offering great reliability. The let down is having less functionality than you need to successfully manage reseller accounts.
cPanel has also received award recognition for its performance as a leading VPS control panel. It trails Plesk in second place, although quite a lot of web hosts and users have adopted it due to its clean interface and rich variety of features. The UI is simple to use, allowing even beginners to get up and running relatively quickly. However, there’s a disadvantage to its icon-based approach compared to the templates used in the control panels above. Because it tends to be resource-hungry and place greater demands on disk space.
It can be challenging to find a clear winner when auditioning for the ideal VPS panel solution, so let’s try and make it simpler.
The cPanel/WHM (Web Host Manager) will always be a good choice thanks to its simplicity, but its weighty footprint and icon-heavy interface design slow it down compared to the other VPS control panels. cPanel is certainly adequate on a VPS front, but it might not offer the same high level of performance that a VPS control panel like Plesk Onyx can give.
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In the end, the right control panel is the one that best suits the individual, and individual choice is of course very subjective. The best way to manage your virtualized environment or typical hosting arrangement is to try out the solutions and see which one you like most. You should be to able to find live demos of all these packages to give them a test drive.
All web hosting companies need to do server migrations – an essential and routine task in our line of work. When it comes to migrating servers and accounts, you need to do so with proper planning and perfect execution. Otherwise, it can cause website downtime and complications. Hence, we created this cPanel to Plesk migration guide to smoothen the process.
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You may need a server migration for a variety of reasons, but in most cases, it’s either because of security improvements or business growth and expansion. Millions of hosting servers use Plesk and cPanel as their control panels. And that’s why a cPanel to Plesk migration is one of the most common tasks tech support employees do.
Failing your cPanel to Plesk migration can lose you a lot of time. So ensure your Plesk migration process is seamless with these necessary preparation steps. And make sure you prepare both servers for the process. These are the essential steps that you need to follow to prepare the migration in a proper way.
Plesk and cPanel store virtual hosts in different paths. If you’re transferring to a new server, change its virtual host location to ‘/home’ for a smooth transfer.
Migrations need different time frames, depending on the size of the data and your network speed. But do schedule the execution for quiet hours so that the transfer can go faster. Configure your “Transfer and Migration Manager” with Plesk’s interface. Then change the source server details including password, IP address, upload path, data that needs to be transferred, and add some custom rules just in case some conflicts occur while the migration takes place.
One of the important things you need to do is IP address mapping. So remember to map all the dedicated and shared IPs within the source server to all of the corresponding IPs which are in the destination server. When the process is finished, make sure to look at the report to ensure that everything was transferred correctly.
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Although you can use the migration agent for a more automatized migration, you may run into some bumps.
1. Your FTP account passwords don’t get migrated and you generate new ones. Your solution is to track the passwords and update your users.
2. You will not manage to migrate DNS zones. So you have to edit your domain DNS records post-migration to configure them properly.
3. You won’t transfer data such as SSL certificates, PHP extensions, Apache modules, Domain keys and IP blacklists. So you’ll have to configure them manually in your destination server.
4. Often, the migration agent splits user accounts with multiple databases that are under one domain into several user accounts. So, you need to find the database dump within the source server. Then copy all of it to the destination server manually.
