Difference Between cPanel and Plesk
cPanel is a web-based hosting control panel and Linux based that provides GUI and tools for automation to help users manage their websites and hosting accounts. With the help of cPanel, users can easily manage their hosting accounts and websites; otherwise, they need a lot of technical knowledge to maintain it. Plesk is a web-based hosting control panel for windows-based hosting and servers. The easy configuration of Plesk allows users to manage thousands of virtual hosts on a single server. Plesk is best suited for windows operating the system with better performance than cPanel.
cPanel
cPanel has a tired level structure with different access levels, like end-users and administrators, which can control different aspects through the browser’s graphical user interface. cPanel best suited for Linux operating system users. cPanel offers plans at the cost of $425 per year and $45 per month. It has different upgrade plans and add-ons functionality to existing plans. It has a simpler layout with more options available for the user as they can restart major services through GUI without remembering difficult commands. In it, only scripts on the server can access the database, and we need to provide IP addresses through which we want to access the database; and it is a time-consuming process as it requires maintenance, regular updates, etc.
Plesk
Plesk offers plans at the cost of $35 per month, which is best suitable for short-term users and a little expensive for the annual plan. It has different add-ons functionality to the existing plan and upgrades plans based on user needs. It has a simpler layout and navigation best suitable for beginners and categorized based on functions that will be available for developers. In Plesk, a database can be accessed by scripts residing in the server, and security is time-consuming as it requires maintenance, regular updates, etc.
Both cPanel vs Plesk is useful for managing websites and hosting purposes as they fulfill the various needs of users, and users need to decide which one to use based on their needs like operating system and budget. We will see the key difference between cPanel and Plesk as below.
Head to Head Comparison between cPanel and Plesk (Infographics)
Below is the top 5 difference between cPanel vs Plesk :
Key Differences between cPanel and Plesk
Both cPanel vs Plesk are popular choices in the market; let us discuss some of the significant Difference:
- Operating system: cPanel by default supports Linux control panel of different flavors such as CentOS, Red Hat, Cloud Linux etc. It doesn’t support the Windows platform by default; we need to do some workaround in order to support whereas Plesk supports both Linux and Windows operating systems such as windows server 2008, 2012, server r2 and Linux distributions up to 14 such as CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu etc.
- WordPress: cPanel needs to provide a lot of updates to WordPress Manager as it is not providing automatic updates like Plesk, whereas Plesk, by default, equipped with a WordPress community and provides automatic updates to it.
- Architecture: cPanel has three-tier architecture; it will act as a private server or dedicated server. Its architecture provides separate access to administrators, end-users and resellers and server administration through a web browser, whereas Plesk has very simple and useful architecture as it works on extensions and delivers new features without having to replace the core through extensions such as new advisor, WordPress toolkit, REST API, Docker, GIT etc.
- User Web interface: cPanel GUI allows users to access and manage several tasks such as FTP accounts, mailing lists and more. It offers a command line, an API by which administration tasks can automate, whereas Plesk GUI was designed using UX/UI with JavaScript technology. It provides an interface through which we can code in most of the languages. It provides access based on role across all devices.
- Security: cPanel provides security through the installation of SSL certificates, IP address denials, password protected directories etc. It takes a lot of time to provide security fixes, whereas Plesk provides so many security features such as email anti-spamming inbound and outbound, active directory integration, and provides fixes for security issues fast.
- Migration: cPanel provides tools and technical help to migrate websites from third-party control panels to cPanel. But there are some issues in metadata migration, whereas Plesk provides its own migration system to migrate from one server to another server. It’s very easy to move Plesk from the old server to the new server.
- Database access: cPanel provides access to PhpMyAdmin for managing and accessing databases, whereas Plesk provides database access through the web browser. It provides access to MySQL, MSSQL Server etc.
- Marketing support: cPanel provides access to its partner’s directory as it provides access to 14k potential customers, whereas Plesk provides partner support to the market consultancy with the help of content creation and marketing.
cPanel vs Plesk Comparison Table
Let’s look at the top Comparison between cPanel vs Plesk –
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| The basis of Comparison |
cPanel |
Plesk |
| Loading | cPanel is the fastest loading among Plesk and cPanel as it achieves by reducing the number of RAM needs. | Plesk will take more time to load comparatively with cPanel. |
| Security | cPanel provides security fixes very slowly, which results in performance. | Plesk provides security fixes very fast, which has better performance. |
| Reliability | cPanel provides good reliability while creating account creation and management of websites. | Plesk will take more time during account creation and management of websites. |
| Setup time | cPanel requires more time to set up, i.e. nearly 20 minutes, as it provides different logins for end-users and administrators. | Plesk requires less time to set up, i.e. nearly 7 minutes, as it uses the same login for both end-users and administrators. |
| VPS performance | VPS hosting, along with cPanel and WHM, provides better performance than Plesk. | VPS hosting, along with Plesk, has good performance but not better than cPanel. |
Conclusion
Finally, it’s an overview of the differences between web-based website management hosting tools cPanel vs Plesk in terms of performance also. I hope you will have a better understanding after reading this cPanel vs Plesk article. As I said, both cPanel vs Plesk are good and have their own advantages and disadvantages, which are good website management tools and simplify workloads according to user needs. Both fit various requirements of end-users and provide customization and easy management with the interface. Users need to choose between these based on the operating system requirement and budget constraint, compatibility, and knowledge of the control panel tools.
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