Plesk Review: Advantages and Disadvantages

• Eqservers
• Control Panel Tutorials
• 02/10/2014

Plesk by Parallels Inc. is a popular web hosting control panel known as Parallels Plesk Panel. For those who seek an alternative to cPanel, Plesk offers a reliable and secure choice. Plesk uses frames to run a web based control panel GUI. When you compare the list of features, Plesk is similar to cPanel. It offers all the bells and whistles that the industry leader cPanel does and promises more in terms of security and targeted features like WordPress mass management tools.

cPanel is rated highly because it ticks all the boxes for a typical web hosting user’s requirements and offers a huge community that enables beginners to hit the ground running. Plesk on the other hand offers usability and a beginner friendly interface. While cPanel is a clear leader among web hosting control panels, Plesk is rated quite high by its users. Today, we take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of choosing Plesk over its competition.

Advantages

1. Free to try: Unlike other major control panel software, Plesk offers a free trial license. You can try Plesk before you decide to actually use it.
2. Easy to install: Plesk has quite a straightforward and simple installation process. The reliability and security  tweaks come built in. It is quite an advantage compared to cPanel which has a few known vulnerabilities in default setup mode.
3. Easy on resources: Plesk needs minimal resources. Dedicated server users love Plesk because unlike its competition that can hog resources, it is very light and compact.
4. Modular Interface: The Plesk interface is much like Windows XP. It is organized based on web hosting administrative tasks. The controls are divided into set of options.
5. Customizable: Like cPanel, Plesk can also be tweaked for specific requirements of a web hosting service provider or dedicated server admin. Virtuozzo is a software that makes it fairly easy to customize Plesk and create templates to suit a particular business requirements.
6. Preferred choice for Windows: Most Windows server admins chose Plesk, it’s like cPanel for windows platform. If you are looking for an advanced solution that is a great alternative for cPanel and not just a replacement Plesk is a great choice.

Disadvantages

1. Security concerns: Even though Plesk has done a great job at accepting and fixing security vulnerabilities, the bottom line is that there is a history of security concerns.
2. Backup and Restore: Plesk does a lot of things better than its competitors but loses out in this critical function. The backup and restore option needs a lot of free disk space and in most cases large files that must be transferred to a secondary server.
3. Complex: Unlike cPanel, installing scripts isn’t a breeze. There are no one click installs or wizards. It is not easy for beginners and needs some getting used to.