What Is GridPane

GridPane is an SaaS service where you can deploy and manage your own WordPress servers and sites.  It has direct connections to multiple cloud server providers that make provisioning servers fast and easy.

The company is operated out of Michigan, USA.

They are partially funded by Automattic (the operators of the WordPress brand.)

WPCloudDeploy VS GridPane: Similarities

Both WPCloudDeploy and GridPane allow you to deploy and manage your own WordPress servers that are optimized for building and managing WordPress sites.  All the key WordPress management tools are available in both offerings including:

• Server Provisioning
• Site Provisioning
• Site cloning
• Free SSL Certificates via LetsEncrypt
• Changing Domains
• Staging Sites
• Site Backups
• Moving sites between servers
• Customizing webserver parameters,
• Tracking performance
• Integration with 3rd party services
• WP-CLI
• and much more…

While there are a lot of tiny differences between how similar features work, both products are 100% focused on WordPress to the exclusion of other technology stacks and therefore both are highly optimized for that platform.

WPCloudDeploy VS GridPane: Key Differences

There are three key differences between WPCloudDeploy and GridPane:

1. WPCloudDeploy is a self-hosted product:  While GridPane is hosted and managed in the “cloud’ on your behalf, you run WPCloudDeploy on your own servers.  This means that no staff member at WPCloudDeploy will ever have access to your servers and sites unless you affirmatively grant them that access via a support request.
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

Since Gridpane is an SaaS service, you are locked into a fixed set of personalization options.  While there are a lot of options, it is still a fixed set.  You can, of course, pay them to make  customizations for you and that is a service that is offered.

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

As with your customization options, GridPane is limited in the languages that can be used.

WPCloudDeploy can adopt any language you like simply by providing the translation terms using any of the many standard WP translation tools.

Deployment Options

As with any SaaS service, your dashboard is running wherever GridPane determines is best.

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.
• Even build your own “GridPane” lite service if you like.

Server Providers

GridPane has direct support for five server providers plus the ability to bring your own server.  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

GridPane has a classic and familiar Linux command line option – a core command ‘gp’ followed by subcommands and parameters.

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 GridPane: Other Relevant Differences

Gridpane provides support for multiple tech stacks – you can choose from any combination of NGINX, LITESPEED, PERCONA and MARIADB.

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

Thus, GridPane has many stack combination options while WPCloudDeploy has two.

As an SaaS service it is far easier to get started with GridPane.  WPCloudDeploy has an installation step that can sometimes be tricky (hence our free install service when you purchase a license.)

Consistent with SaaS services, the GridPane UI is custom-made and functional.  WPCloudDeploy’s UI is recognizably WordPress on the backend with a highly customized UI for your end customers on the front-end.

Pricing

Both WPCloudDeploy and GridPane offer tired pricing levels and both offer a free option.

Aside from the actual costs, a major difference is that WPCloudDeploy includes support for teams and role-based security at all levels while GridPane reserves those for their higher tiers.

Converting From GridPane 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

If you’re looking for an SaaS style product to manage your WordPress business and you’re not price conscious, these folks should be first on your list.  Obviously, for a self-hosted, privacy-focused, feature-packed product, choose WPCloudDeploy.

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Last Updated

• October 11th, 2022: Minor updates to note new GP financing partners, WPCD OpenLiteSpeed support, new providers + grammer clean up.
• June 3rd, 2022