It has long been my experience that most seasoned webmasters are huge fans of the website control panel available with most web hosts known simply as cPanel. Those who use it, exclaim often about its power and general ease of use over the alternatives such as Plesk. I on the other hand, am convinced anyone who thinks cPanel is easier to use than Plesk needs to stop drinking the pond water.

For less experienced users, I remain firm in my belief that Plesk blows cPanel out of the water with its ease of use. But rather than going on and on, let’s take a solid look at what this looks like for Joe Average, shall we?

Plesk demo:

Without even having a clue as to what I am doing, I can easily determine that I can add a domain name from the first page I arrive at. Just click domains, create new, follow the prompts. Simple. Instantly, everything I need is toggled to be turned on, even after hitting next, I am instantly presented with the place where I setup my FTP account. I cannot overstate how “droolingly” simple Plesk makes this, it’s almost frightening. I also have access to toggling support for perl, php, python or whatever else I need WITHOUT needing to dance around from option to option. By continuing to hit next, each step even down to domain policy is right there without me ever having to search for it.

Once my initial domain is setup, once again, Plesk owns the experience by instantly providing me with clear indications where I need to go to then setup my email accounts. Everything else I need is right there at my finger tips, for this given domain that I created as well. Subdomains, etc, the works.

cPanel/WHM:

Immediately, we find things overcomplicated. Why? Because I must decide whether I start with cPanel or WHM? Remember, am looking at this from the perspective of a very new user. I am not relying on any experience here, rather looking at how intuitive the options really are. Moving on.

Being as it appears that cPanel is the control panel and WHM is for managing the web hosting accounts, I guess one would start with WHM? Upon arriving at the WHM demo account, I am assuming that one would start with Basic cPanel/WHM Setup? After clicking on this, I find boxes where I am to enter in my default nameservers. Okay, did that…where’s the next button? And also, where do I add in my domain?

Frustrated, I then click home and then proceed to try account information, then trying server configuration, (pulling my hair out now), then finally setting on Multi Account Functions. None of these options are doing ANYTHING of value for just starting out. Awesome. So I click home once again. Wait, I see a cPanel link – perhaps this will help me get my domain setup? Not even close…

Finally I wise up and scroll down on the lower left side of the screen. At the bottom, there is an option for create a new account. Maybe this is where I add my domain? Yes, this is it. And this looks much better, too. So I add in the needed info. I also like the default mail settings detection option, this is good. Okay, all of this is set. Sadly, this is as far as the demo will take me. So I can only assume I must setup email from cPanel then? Back in cPanel, I find email, choose it and setup my account. Easy enough. Cool. Adding FTP, also doable from cPanel easily. There, that ought to do it for me.

What I learned from a newbie experience:

While cPanel/WHM are certainly usable enough, they are very poorly laid out. Seriously, cPanel and WHM should not be separated like this. I realize why they are, but the end user simply wants it to be combined, right there, easy to navigate. Plesk wins easily by making the entire setup process as complex as installing software onto Windows. Just keep hitting next.

So yes, cPanel is definitely demonstrating more powerful options with the ability to restart things like POP3, SSH, DNS and FTP services, Plesk makes getting started MUCH easier. That and the fact that most of the functionality folks want from a web server is right their for the choosing, all without dancing from setting to setting in a blind hope of getting things working.

To the advanced user, cPanel obviously makes sense as you are already familiar with jumping all over the place to get things done in exchange for powerful server control. But for most people, Plesk is going to tick folks off far less when they are simply trying to get their website up and running without a trip to the nearest freelancing website for help.