What are the differences between vestacp vs cpanel?

I have been reading about some control panels lately and have seen these two control panels mentioned several times. I only have some experience with cpanel because my shared hosting uses that one so I don't know about vestacp.

Can anyone explain the main differences between vestacp vs cpanel and maybe which would be better for someone new to most control panels?

I have never used Vesta myself so I don't know what the main differences are other than the fact that Vesta is an open source (free) and cpanel is a paid control panel.

I wish I could give you more differences but I really don't know them. I am sure that someone who knows control panels better will ring in and give you a more complete answer.

Cpanel is the most versatile control panel compare to vestacp .. Cpanel runs on PHP+Perl scripts where VestaCP has PHP backend.

With Cpanel you can create multiple server cluster , VestaCP do not support such functionalities.

Cpanel has multiPHP manager with which you can change the PHP version system wide as well as for a particular website / Vestcp do not have such functionality

so there number of differences to list.

Cpanel will definitely be more up to date if you're on CentOS 7 and Apache. See VestaCP post i made at https://forumweb.hosting/14537-centos-web-panel-vs-vestacp.html?p=89063#post89063

Gecko said:

I have never used Vesta myself so I don't know what the main differences are other than the fact that Vesta is an open source (free) and cpanel is a paid control panel.

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Thanks, I didn't know one was paid and one was free.

24x7CSM said:

Cpanel is the most versatile control panel compare to vestacp .. Cpanel runs on PHP+Perl scripts where VestaCP has PHP backend.

With Cpanel you can create multiple server cluster , VestaCP do not support such functionalities.

Cpanel has multiPHP manager with which you can change the PHP version system wide as well as for a particular website / Vestcp do not have such functionality

so there number of differences to list.

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So one of the biggest differences is that cpanel has more functionality that vestacp. I saw that some of the control panels have things that you can add onto them. Is vestacp like that?

eva2000 said:

Cpanel will definitely be more up to date if you're on CentOS 7 and Apache. See VestaCP post i made at https://forumweb.hosting/14537-centos-web-panel-vs-vestacp.html?p=89063#post89063

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Thanks, I will take a look at the post.

I do not advocate for any control panel here saying that from the paid CP with no doubt cPanel is the best, has everything and more than you need, on the other hand, free control panels, most of I have installed I found VestaCP to be easy to install and configure, fast and user friendly it is simple but gives you a basic and easy way to run several websites.

As you know VestaCP is free and don't have many options like cPanel.
My opinion: VestaCP is good if you don't wanna manage VPS from command and IF you have more websites you can easily managed them and you can have different user for each website.


VestaCP dont have File Manager by default you have to buy it. IF you wanna run some CMS you have to install it buy your self, no autoinstaller.

cPanel is cPanel, everybody knows them because they've become somewhat of an industry standard, but they have some problems. They're closed source and they're expensive. Anyone with a little bit of business knowledge knows it's very dangerous to let a piece of very important software be dominated by a company that you can't control. Vesta is GPL licensed so any hosting companies with programming resources can modify and extend Vesta and make it their own, which will be better in the long run because that will make your sales proposition more unique.

From a user's standpoint, vesta (the vanilla version) is still not as good as cPanel because cPanel is used everywhere. But they're not too far behind, and user can easily be educated into using them. So there's my answer really. The most important difference are that one is modifiable and can be used to enhance your business, the other is off the shelf software.

How we can compare a free hosting panel with a paid one?
It has too many differences. In this case, cPanel is always better.
I think we should compare free vs free, or paid vs paid hosting panel, it will be easier.

gagah said:

cPanel is cPanel, everybody knows them because they've become somewhat of an industry standard, but they have some problems.

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What problems does cPanel have?

gagah said:

From a user's standpoint, vesta (the vanilla version) is still not as good as cPanel because cPanel is used everywhere. But they're not too far behind, and user can easily be educated into using them.

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I've never used Vesta, what is it lacking that cPanel has?

Gecko said:

What problems does cPanel have?


I've never used Vesta, what is it lacking that cPanel has?

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As i've said before,

They're closed source and they're expensive. Anyone with a little bit of business knowledge knows it's very dangerous to let a piece of very important software be dominated by a company that you can't control

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I'm talking more from a company perspective of course. Using cPanel if your company is big enough and are focused on shared hosting means you can't innovate. You're forever tied to their development cycles and their codebase, or you have to depend on extensions and plugins. That's a subjective opinion, of course.

What's lacking in Vesta currently is the same as any other open source alternative, which is there's a learning curve for a new shared hosting clients, or an easy way to make plans, manage accounts, etc for providers. It just feels...barebones, compared to a matured application like WHM. Their business model is also kind of odd (or unique), in that you have to pay a license to use the built-in file manager, or you need to use SFTP or 3rd party file manager. Other than that, their feature set is already on par with cPanel including SNI support, and their rate of developments in github is really fast.

Well if you want difference between cPanel and Vesta, then its actually a big list.
I have used VestaCP myself, but it is not that good as cPanel, serious website must use cPanel to use their features.
These are the things that VestaCP does not have:
No Site builder
No Lets Encrypt Automatic Installer
Not a proper backup system
Many SEO Tools are not there
Cloudflare
and so many others

Remember that these were only some of them, there are actually a lot difference due to the fact that you are actually comparing a paid control panel with the free control panel.

If you are used to cPanel there is CentOS Web Panel which is quite similar and free ofcourse, there is even the option to install softaculous.

I have used vestacp and cpanel as well and I think I am eligible to answer here.

If you are on shared hosting and recently moved or trying to use vps, better get a vps with cpanel/whm licensce. There are many providers out there, who are offering them bundled. VestCP is not bad, but when you are coming from something like CPanel, you will not like it.

There are too many difference between vestacp and cpanel. Unless you are comfortable with using free control panel and ready to dig into respective forums, fix the bugs they might be having and enjoy the learning curve, i will not suggest any control panel other than cpanel.

If you are on windows server then plesk, is probabily the best control panel software out there. Cpanel if you are on any linux os. If buying cpanel licensce costs you too much, try providers who offer the whole bundle for cheap price. You should be able to get a basic vps with cpanel/whm included for $20 per month. This is a basic vps.

Hope this helps you. Thanks.

Vesta is a simple and lightweight web control panel. It does not support the more enterprise-like features (like multi-server setups).Performance-wise, cPanel is highly responsive and offers great speed. Due to command line utilities, cPanel API is accessible to non-coders.

If you are using Windows server, you may try Plesk or ZPanel. I like Plesk as it offers a cleaner interface compared to cPanel. Both are pretty similar feature-wise. In conclusion, I would recommend to go for Plesk.

cPanel/WHM is the control panel most used by hosting companies. It provides two differentiated accesses: cPanel is the control panel for domain owners, and WHM (Web Host Manager) allows us to perform administration tasks on the server.
cPanel / WHM is only supported by Linux systems (specifically CentOS), although a version for Windows called Enkompass is available. Its main advantages are:

• Professional support by the manufacturer
• It has a large community behind the project that can serve as support and help.
• We can use external plugins that provide advanced functionalities.
• It is recommended to use in conjunction with CloudLinux to increase the security and performance of our server.
• If we have technical knowledge, we can make customized system configurations.
• We can create clusters of certain services.

On the other hand, its weaknesses are:

• The usability of the user interface, although it has been considerably improved in recent years, is not entirely optimal.
• We can not centrally manage multiple cPanel/WHM servers.

Vesta is a free hosting management panel that stands out for its easy use and handling, as well as being very intuitive. It is aimed at the management of Linux web servers based on PHP + BASH.

Some of the technical characteristics of this management panel are:

• Firewall: Iptables / Fail2ban
• Web: Nginx + Apache / Nginx + PHP-FPM / Apache
• Monitorization: Monit, Webalizer, Awstats, rrdtool
• Imap / Pop3 Server: Dovecot
• BBDD: MySQL + PHPMyAdmin / PostgreSQL + PHPMyAdmin
• FTP: vsftpd / ProFTPD

The main advantage of VestaCP is that its control panel is straightforward and is ideal for users with basic knowledge. This control panel has native support for Nginx as an Apache inverse proxy, managing to optimize the consumption of resources by caching a large volume of static files from the website.

cPanel is way too powerful than any other control panel and very easy to use. With one click you can do any thing. Tools like a one-click migration of your entire website make cPanel awesome. cPanel is paid one, but there are many hosting companies which give cPanel for FREE for lifetime.
I got cPanel free from a hosting provider, which is cheap and the best hosting ($2.45/month). I have not used Vestacp much, it is free, but have very fewer features compared to cPanel.

HTH!