Virtualmin Vs Plesk: Does Plesk offer any benefit?

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#1 Wed, 05/08/2019 - 14:32
oguruma

Virtualmin Vs Plesk: Does Plesk offer any benefit?

I am experimenting with both Plesk and Virtualmin in small Digital Ocean boxes. I was always under the impression that Plesk offered some kind of automation of server, but from everything I have seen it's just another panel.

I'm really in the market for a middleground solution between cheap shared hosting and expensive Wordpress hosting like WpEngine.

I looked at Plesk first since it came recommended to me on some other forum. But after experimenting with it, I can't see how it offers anything that Virtualmin doesn't. Although I will say I like the UI a bit better on Plesk.

Does Plesk do anything that Virtualmin doesn't?

Wed, 05/08/2019 - 19:25
andreychek

Howdy,

It's unfortunately tough to do a full feature comparison between the two... a seemingly inconsequential feature to one person is another person's favorite feature :-)

Some folks here may have ideas of features they like in one product that are missing from another, but my suggestion would just be to try them both out and see how they differ (though it sounds like you're doing exactly that!).

Though if you have any features in particular that you're after, feel free to ask!

-Eric

Wed, 05/08/2019 - 21:16 (Reply to #2)
oguruma

Well, what I am really after is the bang per buck of a VPS (ram/resources available) without the risk of royally screwing something up or ending up with a vulnerable server. And of course, the rest of the benefits of hosting sites on something other than shared hosting.

Plesk was pitched to me as being some kind of sever management software, but from what I am seeing in playing with it. It really is just a control panel.

Other than providing a nice UI, I can't see that it actually does anything...

Thu, 05/09/2019 - 10:04
adamjedgar

I don't use plesk and have no experience with it. However I have used all of the following panels

Webmin/Virtualmin, Ispconfig, Ispsytems, Vestacp, Centos Web Panel , Cyberpanel

Plus briefly looked a couple of others...

Forgetting about support (ispconfig ranks high with support), I would say overall the panel I like best is webmin/virtualmin. I like that I can get inside it (albeit a double edged sword), but in all honesty, I have trust in it...it is the least buggy of all of the above panels with the exception of ispconfig.

The downside to ispconfig is no file manager and its bloody painful to setup.

The virtualmin gui is terrible to navigate around, after 2 years I am still trying to understand the logic of navigation...that still elludes me btw, but I am finding myself more sure of its robustness as time goes by (particularly since I also got centos Web panel pro account) Cwp is a bloody nightmare. It's like a bunch of pretty pictures that hides a mess in the background!

So for me, whilst I keep the cwp system as well, its virtualmin no1 at present.

AJECreative is the home of $5 webhosting, $15/month VPS servers (1cpu,1gb RAM, 25GB storage)
Centos7, Debian9, or Ubuntu18LTS
Available Control Panels = Centos-Webpanel, Cyberpanel, or Virtualmin

https://ajecreative.com.au

Fri, 05/10/2019 - 12:38
Jfro

Depend on much more:

YOUR own knowledge experience.
Do you think you need support from your hoster?  ( aks them then upfront)
YOUR OS
YOUR PHP Database programs you yes of no need.
Which yes or no email.
Wich yes or no dns system ( bind whatever) and who if so your dns service provider is.
Yes or no in a cloud.
YES or no AWS...
Yes or no openstack instance.
Others who could help you and their knowledge experiences
Scripts like softaculous for example

And so on.

Fri, 05/10/2019 - 13:36
tpnsolutions
tpnsolutions's picture

Hi,

I just thought I'd throw in my two cents.

Virtualmin, Plesk, cPanel, and a whole lot of other "panels" are aim at fulfilling the same goal. Give you a point-n-click interface for managing your web hosting business.

If you have specific needs, point them out as this is the only way you'll really get a clear answer in terms of whether "Plesk" or "Virtualmin" can do the job. My educated guess is that whatever you think Plesk can do, Virtualmin can do as well. Being a senior Virtualmin user, I'd even go as far as saying that Virtualmin can do a lot more things that Plesk cannot do or rather isn't designed to do. Though, it's been a while since I last used Plesk myself...

Good luck with your research, but if you need some more personal assistance in making a decision feel free to drop me a line (prefer email)

Best Regards,
Peter Knowles | TPN Solutions
Email: pknowles@tpnsolutions.com | Skype: tpnassist
Thu, 05/16/2019 - 05:37
Jfro

My 3 cents to. ;)

Keep in mind:.

1- DOCU from virtualmin itself is often outdated.

2- Security PCI and such thing you have to find out yourself. (default a lot is not at the present time now)

3- Third party addons plugins if needed, check if they are also available and not outdated.

If you have knowledge as Server admin, and or someone to do such for you, then those 3 cents are not that important. ;) ( otherwise starting takes more time to find and configure all you needs)

Thu, 05/16/2019 - 16:34 (Reply to #7)
adamjedgar

yes jfro, your point 1 is of particular concern to me...virtualmin docs are pretty limited. In my view this is a major let down when compared with ISPConfig which has dedicated a huge amount to such resources at howtoforge.com.

Perhaps what Virtualmin needs is a dedicated place for howto tutorials, that if written by the community are checked by developers to ensure they work, so this gap can be filled.

AJECreative is the home of $5 webhosting, $15/month VPS servers (1cpu,1gb RAM, 25GB storage)
Centos7, Debian9, or Ubuntu18LTS
Available Control Panels = Centos-Webpanel, Cyberpanel, or Virtualmin

https://ajecreative.com.au

Thu, 05/16/2019 - 16:46
BBuchanan1013

I guess Google isn't anyone's friend. Found this helpful for documentation : https://doxfer.webmin.com/Webmin/Main_Page

Fri, 05/17/2019 - 06:10 (Reply to #9)
Jfro

Hmm is only a to old base. Eveyone has find it i hope, me with duckduckgo

Lot of latest changes on pages 13 sep 2016 om 18:24. https://doxfer.webmin.com/Webmin/Tutorials .

So it stay outdated to old and not complete. https://doxfer.webmin.com/Webmin/Webmin_Documentation:News

ONLY PLUS is as BASE and YOU ALL CAN help them, there, i not while my texts arent understandable . ;)

Features virtualmin page lates change in 2015 https://doxfer.webmin.com/Webmin/Virtualmin_Features . so no php 7 no multple php no letsencrypt and so more.

EMPTY pages as https://doxfer.webmin.com/Webmin/Cloud_Storage_Providers

Fri, 05/17/2019 - 14:25
tpnsolutions
tpnsolutions's picture

Hi,

You do realize that the first link on the website reads "Documentation"... It's a dedicated section to documentation for VIrtualmin... It is kept up to date, so I'm not sure what everyone is talking about...

Best Regards,
Peter Knowles | TPN Solutions
Email: pknowles@tpnsolutions.com | Skype: tpnassist
Fri, 05/17/2019 - 18:43
Jfro

HI Peter,

When following your link you can read left under security, the link for pci compliance is only one example. https://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/security/pci

second one: https://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/webdev/php

That is not up to date, and 1 of my 3 cent therefore. ( hmm 2 from 3 the outdated docu and the partly outdated protocols / pci compliance and so. )

I mean you have todo a lot of searching , different findings and to often also outdated or none info on page if you find this page for example https://doxfer.webmin.com/Webmin/Virtualmin_Features most links there no text .

So i only pointing out how hard it is to find up to date DOCU, and not all is uptodate at all.

No hard feelings i hope but those things could be better. ;)

For other WIKI / DOKU i know when diffrerent versions , for older versions Documentation they use a kind of archive, so new version then DOCU there is for this newer version and up to date, ARCHIVE for older version ( for time being if older and not uptodate put some text / links that it is outdated for new version or has to be updated such kind of text)

I hope you understand for newbie, it looks like OH what outdated, or even worse if no experience they could use verbatim copy of to old configs and use them!

Here i mis LE (Lets encrypt) for example https://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/web/ssl

Sat, 05/18/2019 - 03:10
tpnsolutions
tpnsolutions's picture

Hi,

If you feel there are missing pieces or dated articles on Virtualmin, you are welcome to open an "Issue" and let the team know. We are happy to update information if it has become stale or is no longer useful, however simply complaining about it does nothing to actually address the matter. That is, information is updated as often as it is deemed necessary to update, not simply neglected for no reason. Again, if you feel there needs to be some updates made to certain information on the site, we're more than happy to address the matter when it is pointed out.

The bulk of the time, what is being maintained and should be understood for those who are not aware is the actual code, the product itself so even if you feel documentation is lacking, (which we'd be happy to address) the product itself is not lacking.

*** please take my comments with a grain of salt, as I realize my words may seem a bit harsh however I am very protective of this project since I know the team is doing its best to keep all the pieces up to date moving forward. ***

Best Regards,
Peter Knowles | TPN Solutions
Email: pknowles@tpnsolutions.com | Skype: tpnassist
Sat, 05/18/2019 - 04:00
Jfro

Uh sorry i am not simply complaining and did in this year and last year pointed out some of those things also the PCI compliance links and info there to Virtualmin.

There was communication about those, and so on.

Product itself is lacking on the security part for using to old protocols and ciphers and some settings i did mentoined that before i also posted links ( maybey private to virtualmin) with results of some from this site that is using virtualmin to as example what i mean. https://discovery.cryptosense.com/analyze/www.virtualmin.com/d0f0cf2   3 parts Virtualmin.com IP itself has Support for SSL 3.0 and Support for RC4 cipher  both depricated in 2015, and  The server supports the "diffie-hellman-group1-sha1" algorithm. 

Here i did: https://www.virtualmin.com/node/60390 . PCI compliance and some base security links and info's

I did post links how to help and solve as this one https://cipherli.st/

Sorry i did spend a lot of time the past year to point that part out. ( while this is important for newbie's to have and stay safe online with uptodate settings..)

Also some other probs if you understand some of my other posts, ( i was not alone with the other probs) sorry don't have the links for those. ( one is do a setting in postfix config in gui then not working ..)

So i'm not angry only trying to help please understand?

( even if you cand find updated Docu, my advice to have the parts you find with search are outdated to link them to newer of place them in a overall Archive named old....) The doxfer part i mean for example could have a link to docu here on this site and some text that that doxfer part is not mantained.?? https://doxfer.webmin.com/Webmin/Webmin_Documentation:News

For all this page please take a look yourself and klick some links there https://doxfer.webmin.com/Webmin/Virtualmin_Features

For PCI compiance part i remember tried to open a forum subject about that, issues no i'm only answer in issues if i think (GPL), my text could make sense, and i do in private pointing out forum spam while timezone i'm awake before you. ( Virtualmin is deleting those spam then )

Please understand i try to help though dislexion and other language grammar problems.

Little proof of that: https://www.virtualmin.com/comment/812337#comment-812337

Meaning giving some of my time to virtualmin (forum) instead.

p.s. for such important and ever changing things as security those documentation and also software itself should be mantained to be up to date for me such is a sign of quallity yes or no? https://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/security/pci

Here for example missing parts for SFTP and SSH with encryption Key's i suggest. https://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/security/faq

Please take note of my posts here and if needed delete them is ok for me.

Sat, 05/18/2019 - 08:16 (Reply to #14)
tpnsolutions
tpnsolutions's picture

Hi,

Thanks for elaborating on your point, I'm going to go through it a bit more and see what can be done to address things.

Best Regards,
Peter Knowles | TPN Solutions
Email: pknowles@tpnsolutions.com | Skype: tpnassist
Sat, 05/18/2019 - 08:26 (Reply to #15)
Jfro

Thanks.

I know my grammar is hard to read so good luck . ;)

Sat, 05/18/2019 - 05:57
jimdunn

Hey oguruma (to answer your original question), from my own personal experience I found that Plesk gives you the ability to "spoil" your resellers and users with a pretty interface. Don't get me wrong, I love a pretty interface, and Plesk has one.

Unfortunately there's a downside to Plesk. You have MUCH LESS control over your server and when/how updates are done.

My resellers and users complained (at first) when I moved to Virtualmin, saying it wasn't as pretty as Plesk. It might be true but after having Plesk force an upgrade one night that broke all my websites and cost me hours of sleep, I decided on Virtualmin.

Now I have the maximum amount of control over my server and am still able offer a control panel to my clients.

I loved the ability to test Virtualmin using the GPL edition and then later purchased a recurring license so that resellers could have their own control-panel (and those auto-installer scripts).

Sat, 05/18/2019 - 06:12
Jfro

Almost every CP has had issues for some after a update once.

For me such things to swicth or choose a CP, is how they handle such problems as after UPDATE things are broken. ( And for such ... updates when they happen more often it could be a sign of yep not so good CP, but also having a to different installation with settings compared to deafult from the CP )

We had such with PLESK , while a important security update we find PLESK to late , so updated that part outside PLESK, hmm was not so good idea, one of the next PLESK updates broke MYSQL DB's then. ( Still my own fault, but after that looking and testing CP's where CUSTOM changes are given less problems)

UTOPIE: a CP where you can have all ( trusted not conflicting eachother ofcourse) REPO"S you want and handling in GUI the most basic often needed things, and file editor. So A K.I.S. CP is hard to find.

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