Is it better to get a VPS with cPanel, Plesk or Directadmin?

Many VPS hosting companies give you options on how you want your VPS configured. Is it better to go with cPanel/WHM, Plesk, Directadmin or some other options? I would hear your advice on which way should we choose? why?
The VPS hosting in my mind should start with 4GB of RAM which allows us install hosting panels completely and other services.

Command line is best option*

Most important Question is, Which control panel you are familiar with?
Provide may set you up but you will have to manage respective vps afterwards unless it's full managed.

Resources requirement will differs case by case basis. You can disable Non-usable functions to conserve resource usage!

At the end, you will have to optimize your vps, no matter which control panel being used.
You can make any control panel perfect.

Choose from Cpanel | Plesk.
you will find plenty tutorial to go around.

Cpanel > Easyapache 3 is going to expire soon. you will have to make appropriate setup with Easyapache 4.
Plesk > Carefully tune server* plenty feature if you know your way around*

centos web panel | vestacp are free options.
severpilot | centminmod are non-control base options.

Enjoy!

The question is really, which one are you more familiar with?

In terms of cPanel and Plesk, they are offer pretty much the same features and functionalities, but displayed differently.

However, cPanel only really works on Linux based servers whilst Plesk can be used on Linux and Windows.

If you're going VPS to host websites like WordPress, both cPanel and Plesk offers easy ways of installing WP installs, so you'll be fine with either of them. My personal preference? go cPanel.

You are correct in saying if you install a Control panel on a VPS your looking at around 4gb minimum.
If you are just starting out as a new company i would highly recommend going reseller first as you will be able to get most of the software all ready done and then later you can branch out into hosting and running your own server regardless if its virtual or dedicated.

I recommend to use Plesk because of better UX and better compatibility with Linux distributions (works also on Ubuntu and Debian while cPanel only runs on CentOS). Also Plesk is better suited for Web Professionals with native Git & Docker support. If you want to run WordPress sites than definitely have a look at the WordPress Toolkit.

Depends on your preferences. Should you want to use your server for selling good old shared hosting, sell resources and let users manage sites - cPanel+CloudLinux would do the job.
If you are going to manage websites by yourself - you will find Plesk more convenient probably. Embedded Git, Docker and WordPress management might be handy as well. Built-in cgroups support is less powerful than CloudLinux, but works on both CentOS and Ubuntu.

If you belong to Ubuntu-/Debian-breed, then cPanel won't fit.

4Gb might fit or not - greatly depends on what sort of website (and how many) you will be running there. Nginx-proxy in Plesk helps saving RAM though by shortening life of RAM-consuming Apache processes (so less processes run simultaneously)

Regards

Hi Maxoq,

As cloudean rightly noted, choice is really between Plesk and cPanel. DirectAdmin is really from the past century, both capabilities and UI wise. While cPanel has native WHMCS integration (not sure if you use that), Plesk caters great for any purpose. If you need it just for out of the box security/cron/dns/ftp - best choice, low RAM and disk space footprint, cheap license. For regular shared hosting - again best choice (IMO - best in class customer control panel). Good as well for special solutions like wordpress or e-commerce plans - i.e. automatically provide a pre-configured instance, rather that having to have customer to "choose from our catalog" or installing yourself.
almost forgot - DOCKER built-in!

I say cPanel is more popular and easier to manage.

Well, it isn't always to do with CPU/MEM. Disk IO could be a bottleneck too making you think cPanel is quicker than Plesk or vice-verser.

It could just be that you think Plesk runs better on a lower spec VPS regarding CPU/MEM because drives are probably not as overloaded whereas when you try cPanel, the actual provider itself may be overloading their drives, etc which makes you think cPanel is slower.

There are too many factors that come into it to say which control panel is faster and to compare fairly you'd need to use same spec machines and network If anyone is up to doing that, then feel free to share the results. But usually PHP/HTTP will pretty much run the same on both control panels and so I wouldn't worry too much about the control panel as that itself is not the only thing that serves the website.

Feel free to test both control panels on 2 test VPSs as the member suggested above.

Hello,

Looking at some of the cPanel stuff it, they are explanations which are tired and have been stated for years. People like saying cPanel if for Linux and Plesk is for Windows. Plesk started on BSD, moved to Linux and added Windows Successfully I might add. Ubuntu has become the new leader is Linux server Distributions this last year. Plesk supports both 14 Linux Distributions to include both RedHat and Debian branches. Plesk supports 4 Windows versions as well. They do this with consistancy between the UI, CLI and API's so a company and user can support both without having to learn two differen systems.

Plesk Supports Admin, Reseller and Customer or even Power User interface in one installation. Do people forget that cPanel is just the domain admin view... you actually have WHM and cPanel if you want a full stack.

Plesk is a ready to code platform for developers. You can easily select between http2 with Apache, Apache + Nginx, or just Nginx at the domain level. You can selected between Plesk 5.2 to 7.1.1 with cgi, fastcgi or fpm for the same, at the domain level. You can use Ruby on Rails and Node.js with selectable versions like php at the domain level.

Plesk has an extension catalog which has something like 60+ that allow you to add features cPanel only dreams of and is trying to add to their core. With Plesk you can add and remove as you see fit. The extensions cover things like security, access, keeping your webapps up to date, system scanner, website scanners, website analysis, order a pizza from your UI. one of my favorit.

cPanel is not the easy interface people say. I ran my own hosting companies for many years. Plesk has the easiest interface for customers to learn. My children used Plesk to manage website with Plesk when they were in middle school. cPanel just picked a name for their company which is used to describe ALL the solutions. When someone asks what they need to support a hosting server, someone says you need a cpanel (control panel).

One last thing, if you use WordPress, and who doesn't these days...your only choice is Plesk with their WordPress Tool kit. It is all the buzz in the WordPress world.

cheers

A lot of great feedback has already been provided but here's why I would prefer Plesk over cPanel at any time. Plesk provides me with one intuitive interface and allows role based user management which cPanel cannot do. It's always cPanel plus WHM you have to deal with. Worked fine in the past but hey - it's the year 2017. Plesk also has a bunch of cool built-in security features. Honestly said, I'm not an expert but making both my server and my site secure was as easy as pie. Last but not least I don't think that a one-size-fits-all approach is still applicable. Unlike cPanel, Plesk offers three use case based editions and the integrated extensions catalogue lets you do whatever you want today and will need in the future. No need to migrate or jump through time consuming hoops in order to do what you need to get done. Keep your eyes open - there are also a lot of hosters out there who offer cool bundles with Plesk already pre-installed!

The command line is still the best to use. But for simple sites I manage for clients I just tend to stick to cPanel. It's what they know the best and it's easy to find solutions to potential problems due to cPanel's relatively huge market share.

Personal pick would be Plesk if I had to choose between the two though. Plesk seems like it's made for more than just your typical Apache/PHP hosting setup.

been cpanel fan all along and had tried plesk few times in early 2008/2009 and just for the curiosity I happened to check whats up with plesk and what they have done/achieved with new plesk is out of the world. It has everything you want to make your life easier with day to day operations whether you are an admin/developer or hoster. Tons of new features for everyone , you can customize/hide things you dont want to see and bingo! i love their wordpress toolkit for mass management of wordpress instances which is unlike others who offer just installation. For a developer new plesk is best thing they can ask from their service provider, it has everything they need to run their code without worrying about dependencies etc. Like everybody else says here, you gotta try all you have as an option and choose the one you like the best.

I would say that cPanel is good product, but if we talk about features, cPanel is always in the role of catch-up in relation to Plesk.
As I wrote here already:

Look at the cPanel changelog for the last year - https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/ALD/Release+Notes
What do we see?

- Mod_security vendors (in Plesk since 2014)
- Switch to RPM (in Plesk since 2002-2003)
- Multiple PHP support (in Plesk since 2015)
- PHP-FPM support (in Plesk since 2013)
- Subaccounts (in Plesk since 2009 as Users)
- 2-Factor Auth (in Plesk since 2014)
- SNI support (in Plesk since 2010)
- IPv6 support (in Plesk since 2010)
- DNSSEC support (one day difference in cPanel favor)

It looks like that cPanel copies Plesk!
And Plesk Onyx has Git, Docker, Node.js, Ruby on Rails support out of the box!

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If we compare communities I see Plesk community and I do not see cPanel community. I see only cPanel staff on their forum.
When I go to cPanel forum and ask a question - I get reply only from cPanel staff.
But when someone asks a question on Plesk forum of FaceBook Plesk - a lot of different Plesk community members will be happy to help you, especially Plesk Gurus!

jlsoft said:

I recommend to use Plesk because of better UX and better compatibility with Linux distributions (works also on Ubuntu and Debian while cPanel only runs on CentOS). Also Plesk is better suited for Web Professionals with native Git & Docker support. If you want to run WordPress sites than definitely have a look at the WordPress Toolkit.

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I don't understand why Plesk manages all accounts in a place (URL), I used cPanel, it allowed me login with separated URLs like cpanel.example.com
I used Plesk - Web Admin, or it managed other FTP accounts by using an account, or when I login into an account on SSH, I can see other domains. That's not good if I share my account to others and they can see my account when they logged into their account?
I don't want to compare features of Plesk, cPanel, or Directadmin on my question but I want to know when I start a new VPS, on a managed server, which one will be easier to install and configure for my hosting provider? I mean It should be easier and faster.

shard said:

If you belong to Ubuntu-/Debian-breed, then cPanel won't fit.

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I got Plesk on Debian, just wondering if I can install it on Centos while I also can install cPanel on Debian or Ubuntu?

I really like jlsoft, he's a fierce plesk evangelist *cough*fanboy*cough*

But really, the main reason why cPanel is so widespread at this point is because most large US-based webhosting (Godaddy and the EIG brands), all use cPanel, and for smaller webhosting companies to survive, they must provide reasonably easy migration path both for the users migrating from them and for the staff that will be managing them. Others will say using a custom or different panel like plesk will actually help made your products more unique, but to re-educate and convince the customers that other panel is better just means more cost.

I'd not debate whether or not plesk or cpanel is better because at the end of the day if you're running a business you have a strategy and you need to stick to it. For personal projects or more tech-minded crowds, go wild, use Ajenti for all i care.

The other reason I feel Cpanel is popular is this Control panel is regularly upgraded and made much simpler everytime. Most of the other control panels are not upgraded or secured the way Cpanel is done over the years.

True. Keeping Apache and PHP up2date has been easier in cPanel with amazing EasyApache function. It is only about a year since Plesk started updating Apache and PHP.

As for Control Panel itself I was quite disturbed with cPanel backup vulnerability remaining unpatched for quite a while. Hope it had improved since then

I think cPanel is the preferred option.

Please choose cPanel/WHM since it is the most bug free and user friendly panel. The biggest advantage is that they are providing free SSL (comodo) for all the websites hosting in the WHM panel. Also, another biggest things is that they are providing support.