What Is cPanel

cPanel is an all-in-one Linux management panel you run on your own Linux servers.  It includes management tools for everything from DNS & EMAIL to WordPress.

The company is owned and backed by Oakley Capital.

WPCloudDeploy VS Cpanel: Similarities

Both WPCloudDeploy and cPanel allow you to manage WordPress sites on a server  All the key WordPress management tools are available in both offerings including:

• Site Provisioning
• Site cloning
• Free SSL Certificates via LetsEncrypt
• Changing Domains
• Staging Sites
• Site Backups
• and much more…

Both WPCloudDeploy and cPanel offer options to sell WordPress hosting services.

WPCloudDeploy VS cPanel: Key Differences

There are three key differences between WPCloudDeploy and cPanel:

1. WPCloudDeploy is a dedicated WP solution:  cPanel is a generalized solution for all things related to Linux.  It includes support for many different technology stacks and applications, including WordPress.
2. WPCloudDeploy is built on WordPress:  This makes it instantly familiar to any experienced WordPress user.  And you install it the same way you install any other WordPress product extension – as a plugin.
3. Open-source: WPCloudDeploy is 100% open-source and available on Github – you can see exactly what you’re installing and audit the code at any time.  If security and transparency is your jam then WPCloudDeploy is probably the tool you want to use.

Customization Options

cPanel includes some limited customization options that are built-in but you can also install additional functionality from a suite of 1st party and 3rd party plugins.  Plugins can be created by yourself or any other developer.  However, you cannot customize the core cPanel code.

Because WPCloudDeploy is an open source product built on WordPress, the sky’s the limit when it comes to customizations and you have a lot of flexibility in how those are accomplished.  You can:

• Customize the existing code by forking it into a new codebase
• Extend it using the WordPress extension model (plugins)
• Combine it with other WordPress plugins

As an experienced WordPress developer or manager, you can do many of the customizations yourself.  Or you can ask any other WP developer to do the work for you.  Or you can ask us of course.

Language & Locale Options

cPanel has a locale system where you can translate it into any language/locale you need.

Similarly, WPCloudDeploy can adopt any language you like.  All you have to do is provide the translation terms using any of the many standard WP translation tools.

Deployment Options

You deploy cPanel onto each server you manage.  It also has support for “clusters” and the ability to use a single console to manage multiple servers.  This makes cPanel very flexible.

WPCloudDeploy can be run on any appropriately configured server anywhere and can be installed in multiple locations if necessary.  With this flexibility you can:

• Setup a dashboard for a specific set of customers.
• Setup multiple management dashboards for each legal jurisdiction in which you operate.
• Deploy and manage servers in different geographic regions which helps with scalability and service availability

Server Providers

cPanel does not have direct support for cloud providers – i.e.: You cannot provision a server at the cloud provider from inside your cPanel console.

WPCloudDeploy has built-in support for 12 providers (10 public cloud providers & 2 private cloud providers) as well as ability to “bring your own server”.

WPCloudDeploy also has an extension toolkit where you can build your own provider.  Or you can ask to have one built for you at a cost of around 3K (for providers that generally follow the openstack api style format.)

Command Line Options

cPanel allows direct access to your server with an ssh login.  It has various cPanel-specific commands that help you manage the platform but not necessarily WordPress itself.

WPCloudDeploy uses Bash scripts that you can execute in either of two ways:

• As a menu driven program – run the script, pick from a set of menu options and get an interactive q&a session that guides you through command completion
• Can be run unattended by setting environment variables

WPCloudDeploy VS cPanel: Other Relevant Differences

Sites deployed on cPanel uses a custom stack that includes APACHE, NGINX and MARIADB . However, because their servers are designed to run multiple types of services (not just WordPress) the stack is not fully optimized for WordPress.

WPCloudDeploy supports both a LEMP stack (Linux, NGINX, MySql/MariaDB, PHP) and a LOMP stack (Linux, OpenLiteSpeed, MySql/MariaDB, PHP).

Pricing

cPanel has a per-server and per-account charge.

WPCloudDeploy charges a single annual fee or lifetime fee with no per-server or per-site limits.  You have three levels to choose from based on the functionality you need.

Converting From cPanel to WPCloudDeploy

You can transfer your sites using any WordPress backup tool.  We recommend UPDRAFT PLUS though many folks seem to prefer using DUPLICATOR PRO (something we’re far less familiar with).

Other

The above summary is only focused on the product differences and similarities.  There are, of course, differences between the companies themselves – including large differences in operations, pricing, support policies, affiliate programs and more.

Bottom Line

Both cPanel and WPCloudDeploy run on your own servers.  If you need a tool that allow you to manage multiple application types (i.e.: more than WordPress), cPanel is a logical choice.  If your primary requirement is an optimized WordPress solution then WPCloudDeploy is a much better choice.

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Last Updated

• October 11th, 2022: Minor updates to note WPCD OpenLiteSpeed support, new providers + grammer clean up.
• June 7th, 2022