The one thing you might want to think first is which of the popular web hosting control panels will be best for you if you’re just about to pick a web host for your next project. This is where the cPanel vs Plesk theme comes into play.

The two are the most popular Web server control panels and also the best solutions the market has to offer.

What Is a Web Hosting Control Panel Anyway?

In short, a control panel on the web hosting provides you with a web-based gui to handle your hosting setup. The GUI is a graphical one, which means it’s easy to grasp and you don’t have to understand the job under the hood to use it effectively.

The common things you can do via a hosting control panel are:

• manage domain names
• manage files on the server
• manage email accounts
• manage databases
• see server stats
• take care of server security
• install server software

The principal benefit of control panels such as cPanel and Plesk is not only that they allow you to take care of everything above, but that they also do this in a way that is readily understandable.

cPanel vs Plesk – Side-By-Side Comparison

This two hosting panels are their most popular type and that is why we have made them the subject of this comparison.

The older of two–cPanel–was released in 1996 and soon became the standard for all business servers needing a controller to be passed to casual users.

In 2001 Plesk came into being in response to the cPanel of Linux only, and became the primary control panel used on Windows servers (although it also has Linux versions).

User Interfaces and Ease of Use

Both cPanel and Plesk are quite similar from the user’s perspective. The variations are how you can navigate and how easy it is to enter those apps.

The dashboard of cPanel is a little easier to use when it communicates with the control panel for the first time. Each section of the panel is very clearly labelled and easy to get to, although a lot of sections are inaccessible.

In other words, if you use cPanel, you’ll find what you need among the many colourful icons in each section.

The Plesk dashboard follows a slightly different model and organizes its functionality on the basis of the individual sites you host on your network. It then shows only the settings and configurations for each site that relate to it.

For example, if you want to add a new email account to a domain name:

• in cPanel, you first go to Email and then select the domain that you want to assign the new email account to,
• in Plesk, you first select the domain and then get to decide what you want to do with it – in this case, assign a new email.

In other words, cPanel focuses primarily on functionality, while Plesk focuses first on domains / hosted pages. At the same time, however, Plesk often displays the most top-level settings within a side panel, making them more available than in cPanel.

Noteworthy Features in cPanel vs Plesk

When it comes to the must-have features, both cPanel and Plesk don’t disappoint. They offer you:

• Domain management – add new domain names, configure and manage them.
• File management – upload new files to the server, manage them, do backups and restores.
• Email management – set up new email accounts, manage them, access webmail, configure spam filters, mailing lists, forwarders.
• Database management – set up databases and manage them.
• Stats – see the volume of traffic the server is getting.
• Security – SSL certificates, SSH access, IP blockers, etc.
• Software installers – easy installations of popular web scripts such as WordPress, Joomla, and others.

Apart from that, there are also some unique characteristics of each platform that set it apart:

cPanel:

• It’s a platform that’s more common among hosting providers and is usually cheaper for the end-user.
• It allows you to set up free SSL certificates via Let’s Encrypt (AutoSSL), but you can also switch to Comodo or other certificates.
• Although cPanel runs on a fewer number of operating systems overall, it supports Amazon Linux, which Plesk does not.
• Great automatic backups and restorations. You can take advantage of a couple of built-in back-ups and restore mechanisms.

Plesk:

• You can run Plesk on Windows and more than a dozen Linux distributions including versions of Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CloudLinux, and Virtuozzo Linux.
• Built-in support for Docker, Git, Node.js, and WordPress Toolkit (great if you want to implement some WordPress automation and get additional management features).
• Easy SSL integration with a single click. Plesk will take care of obtaining an SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt and integrating it into your sites.
• WordPress users can take advantage of automatic updates, bug fixes, and patches. In other words, Plesk takes care of most of your WordPress security needs.

Security

Both cPanel and Plesk stand strong on the security front. We already listed some security features above in the other sections of this comparison, but just to reiterate:

cPanel:

• AutoSSL – automatically installs and renews Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates.
• cPHulk brute force protection.
• Support for CSF (ConfigServer Security & Firewall).
• Email spam filters.
• Each user also gets to use: SSH access, IP blocker, hotlink protection, leech protection, ModSecurity, two-factor authentication.

Plesk:

• Plesk Firewall – Plesk’s custom firewall that you can configure.
• AutoSSL – automatically installs and renews Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates.
• ImunifyAV – intelligent antivirus and monitoring tool; one-click malware cleanup, domain reputation monitoring, blacklist status checking.
• Fail2ban – a tool to scan log files and ban IP addresses that appear to be doing malicious things.
• Email spam filters.

Cost Comparison

The topic of the costs involved in working with cPanel vs Plesk is two-fold in nature:

• you can buy either cPanel or Plesk individually and install them on your own web server – a physical machine that you have access to,
• you can sign up with a web hosting company that uses cPanel or Plesk as their hosting control panel.

Overall, the cost riddle comes down to what you need either cPanel or Plesk. If cost is of the essence, our recommendation is this:

• if you’re going to be hosting your sites with an external web hosting company, cPanel is generally cheaper
• if you’re going to be hosting your sites on your own web server machine, Plesk is generally cheaper

Conclusion

We’re afraid it’s not as easy as it’s great. Both of these control panels for web hosting are fantastic, so it all comes down to which features are important in your case and what you want the control panel to use for.

Basically, all control panels make it possible and easy to grasp to take full advantage of your web server and its capabilities. Both also have group engagement and user bases built around them. What this means is that whatever your mission may be, you will be able to find some helping hands when you need them.