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Date: November 23, 2009

Parallel Plesk 9.01 vs cPanel 11.24 – WHM 11.24

So you’re looking into selecting a web hosting control panel well then you are most likely faced with many solutions available in the market. Parallels Plesk Planel and cPanel – WebHost Manger (WHM) are two excellent options I will cover both in some detail and hopefully assist you in your decision making process. Abilities and dislikes can skew from user to user, so just to give you a little background of myself I consider myself to be a strong website developer and I enjoy navigating and learning features in control panels with the ability to do some tinkering in shell access. If you are a guru on a Linux box then you should be able to really dive into either of these platforms and get settings drilled in to your exact preference of course willing that the control panel will allow your adjustments. In each of the sections below I’ll dive into some key features available on both control panels and compare them. Keep in mind that this comparison has been written more in mind of a system manager that is on a vps or dedicated box rather than a client that may do basic adjustments such as add an email address.

1. Hosting Solution

This brings me to the question “should I purchase a web hosting solution or run a site from my own server.” Well the answer to this question really comes down to your personal business direction, but for most situations I will have to throw this vote in favor of purchasing a hosting solution. Yes you have to spend a little extra month to month cash, but with that expense you get a web control panel installed and most likely a decent array of free support. Honestly think about it say one day something bad happens to your server at 11am you know “the crap really hits the fan” and you have an important sales meeting at noon why on earth would you want to be sitting in a sales meeting worrying about a server when you can call or email a group of people dedicated to fixing your issue. Plus there isn’t a monopoly going on in the world when it comes to web hosting there are many great options out there to fit your needs just do a little research here before diving in. Just my .02 cents that I wanted to throw out there.     

2. Graphical Interface

Any time you use a new program you are faced with a learning curve to educate yourself on where and how to adjust settings. I consider this comparison to be zeroed out over time, but upon first glance I have to give the upper hand to Parallels Plesk Panel. Features in Parallels Plesk Planel are packed away nicely and most of the key areas such as resellers, clients, domains, services management, and server settings are visible from the home page. Parallel did an excellent job of creating a clean “non-bloated” home page that is welcoming for any user level. On the other side we have cPanel, which in not a bad layout it’s just that there is some clutter going on in the left hand navigational bar. As a web developer I’m accustom to looking for my navigational options and right away cPanel-WHM scared me with its infinite scrollbar to a billion options. This takes away from the “where do I start” aspect that Parallel has nailed down with simplicity. Some may like cPanel-WHM more because of the options being readily available on the left bar to where in Parallel’s Plesk you do sometimes have to search and recover an option. On “first glance” Plesk is more pleasing to the eye.

3. Domain Licenses

This has got to be one of the key separators between the two hosting control panels depending on your plans with your new server.  Hosting packages that include Parallels Plesk typically include a license with a limit on the number of domains allowed. For instance most Parallel Plesk packages include a 10 – 30 domain license with the option to purchase an unlimited domain license. Typically cPanel packages especially on a vps or dedicated box include an unlimited domain license. Of course you are still ultimately under the constraints of your server’s abilities such as memory and cpu, but it’s nice to know the sky is the limit. There are scenarios where the domain license doesn’t really matter for instance if you plan to build a very large demanding site like an ecommerce, which can be a resource hog and requires its own box.

4. Domain Management

This could be a timing issue “learning curve” thing, but to date I prefer Plesk over cPanel when it comes to domain management. I think the graphical interface is laid out nicer in Plesk and for some reason I can’t get simple things like changing a domain’s IP to function correctly in cPanel. Even with a simple google search I’ve seen long explanations of how to change an IP in cPanel. This brings me back to the support of using an excellent host that can help with issues such as this. As simple as it seems some things don’t click right away and time is what you want to save.

5. Memory Usage

I’ve heard time and time again that cPanel is a resource hog, but in my experience I have to disagree. cPanel may use up a lot of resources, but at the same time it properly uses those resources without errors. I’ve had many instances of my server crashing and hanging with Plesk due to memory issues, which caused me to open my eyes to cPanel. Yes most of these problems can be caught by a module program such as Watchdog, but it just got tiring to see these errors. OOOOpppps I already gave away my preference as a web host control panel. I originated as a Plesk fan, but migrated over to cPanel after unexplainable memory problems causing system hangs.

6. Backup Utility

I give Parallel’s Plesk backup manger hands down a win in this category. The cPanel-WHM and Plesk both have backup utilities on the manager end, but for the end user “the client” only manual backups can be made in cPanel. Yes there are solutions to this problem by using cron jobs linked to scripts available on the net, but really this utility should not take so much thought. In Parallel’s Plesk backup manager you can schedule backups that will save all or some content, and set the maximum number of backups in repository. Both allow you to schedule a backup task at any interval to either an ftp location or a local folder.

7. Mail Server Settings

Both web control panels can take care of your basic needs when it comes to an email server with spam filtering, webmail, and domain keys, but where cPanel really shines is that the mail server has a setting that allows outbound email to be associated with the domain that is responsible for sending the email. Why is this important? Well in world today we are aware of all the problems that spam and viruses cause, so in order to fix this issue sites such as yahoo, aol, hotmail and so on will monitor inbound emails and determine IP addresses that should be blocked. Well if a client gets a virus and starts sending out spam from their account without you becoming aware of it your email server IP can potentially become black listed. In Parallel’s Plesk the server’s IP is used for all outbound email, so there is no way to protect yourself and other clients from a bad apple in the group. A manager can enforce settings such as outbound file size and the amount of emails allowed out over a period of time, but settings like these can possibly cause emailing headaches for clients. I’ve heard this topic come up many times in relation to godaddy, which is known to block outbound emails after a limit has been reached.

8.  Spam Protection

cPanel gets the thumbs up in this category based upon inclusion within its base package. Both use SpamAssassin, but in order to use it with Parallel’s Plesk you must purchase an add-on package called control panel Power Pack, which in my opinion cost more than it should and includes items that you weren’t shopping for anyway. It’s like ok we got you to buy into our software and now that you realize you don’t have spam protection we can get money out of you for something you thought was already included.

7. Databases

No winners here both have been able to take care of all my needs, so look on for a deciding factor.

8. Cron Jobs

Both work just fine with cron jobs my only complaint to Parallel about Plesk is that the cron job feature always threw an error if you tried to edit an existing cron job. The cron job still updated to whatever setting you changed, so all is good there, but the error screen meant that I would have to navigate back to that backup screen after every attempt to edit an existing cron job. So this complaint will not hinder you from completing anything it will just slow you down. Maybe this problem has been fixed we can only hope.

9. SSL

Oh joy setting up an SSL ok not hard I just need to generate a csr and deliver that to get the ball rolling and then input what I get back and we are good to go right. Well on both platforms these are the general steps to get everything rolling, but trust me if you do it on Plesk and then go and setup one on cPanel you will be thinking what the heck is going on here. There is something about the layout of cPanel that just doesn’t add up and causes confusion. I had to look at the help guide to make sure I was doing it right, but with Plesk it was like filling out a checkout form on website ok step1, step2, step3, ok thank you very easy to complete good bye.

10. PCI Compliance

If you are going to get into ecommerce sites or anything that handles sensitive data you need to follow some government standards or potentially face hefty fines. Most of the setting here will require you to have some level of comfort in shell access, but when it comes to simplicity I have to give cPanel the thumbs up here. From the interface you can actually adjust the httpd.conf to your liking and do other little things in cPanel that make it easier for you to pass PCI compliance. I also must say that when I did an initial scan on Plesk and cPanel there were a lot more issues to take care of on Plesk than there were on cPanel. Although I guess there are two ways to look at this if you want to really dig deep and learn about PCI and what types of vulnerabilities there are then get Parallel’s Plesk, because you will have more settings to change out of the default settings.  

11. Upgrading

I can’t say how well cPanel handles upgrading its software, but I have had experiences with Parallel’s Plesk. When performing software updates from within Plesk the keyword is “backup.” I’ve had a situation where I allowed Plesk to update my system, because it threw me a flag upon login that I was due for an update and you can probably already tell where I’m going here. Like a bird in the masses I followed the flag and the update didn’t work along with breaking many things. So thankfully a trusty system backup fixed everything. This is another situation when it is nice to be under a hosting company with a support team to aid you in these types of unforeseen situations.

12. Client Interface

Both control panels have an easy to follow clean interface for your clients to access mail and whatever settings you allow them to change.

13. Conclusion

All in all both of these web hosting control panels are fun to work with and will take care of just about your every need, but currently I have to give the edge to cPanel for some of the multi-domain, email, and memory usage issues I had. Hopefully I’ve been able to answer some questions you may have had about these two great web control panels and if you have any questions feel free to message me.