cPanel vs. Portainer

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
cPanel
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
cPanel headquartered in Houston provides website hosting providers with workload and server automation, as well as a management console for creating and launching websites, managing email and web files, and other administrative tasks.
$15.99
per month
Portainer
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Portainer is a centralized container management platform for containerized apps and IoT device management. It helps accelerate container adoption and reduce time-to-value on Kubernetes, Docker, and Swarm with a management portal, allowing users to deliver and manage containerized applications from the data center to the edge. Portainer helps - Reduce the operational complexity associated with multi-cluster management Bridge the skills gap and facilitate feature…
$0
Pricing
cPanelPortainer
Editions & Modules
cPanel Solo
$15.99
per month for 1 account
Admin
$24.99
per month up to 5 accounts
Pro
$35.99
per month up to 30 accounts
Premier (on cloud)
$53.99
per month up to 100 accounts
Premier (on metal)
$53.99
per month up to 100 accounts
Portainer Business - 3 Nodes Free
$0
Home & Student
$149
per year
Starter
$995
per year
Professional
$2995
per year
Enterprise
Contact Sales for Pricing
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
cPanelPortainer
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
cPanelPortainer
Features
cPanelPortainer
Container Management
Comparison of Container Management features of Product A and Product B
cPanel
-
Ratings
Portainer
8.3
94 Ratings
4% above category average
Security and Isolation00 Ratings8.590 Ratings
Cluster Management00 Ratings8.475 Ratings
Storage Management00 Ratings8.380 Ratings
Resource Allocation and Optimization00 Ratings7.883 Ratings
Discovery Tools00 Ratings8.570 Ratings
Analytics, Monitoring, and Logging00 Ratings8.290 Ratings
Best Alternatives
cPanelPortainer
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
GitLab
GitLab
Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
VMware vCenter
VMware vCenter
Score 8.4 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
cPanelPortainer
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(14 ratings)
9.0
(94 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(5 ratings)
8.4
(15 ratings)
Support Rating
8.3
(9 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
cPanelPortainer
Likelihood to Recommend
cPanel
I personally use it for any website hosting I do for me and others. There are a few others but I have stuck with the old tried and true and it always works for me and I know how to get around it so it has become a breeze for me. For those who are extremely new to websites and hosting or to those with very little technical know how cPanel could be very overwhelming and they might want to do like a managed WordPress hosting where they don't really have to see or deal with cPanel. I also probably wouldn't use it for straight email hosting. If you have thousands of cPanel accounts it may get very expensive and that could be a factor.
Read full review
Portainer
Many developers, especially lesser experienced developers, don't have a really good background in setting up containers from the command line. Portainer is invaluable to them. Giving a UI to them gives them much more confidence and allows them to learn properties and capabilities of containers under far less stress. On the flip side of this, giving then a UI on a production system can lead to chaos...never give junior developers access to production servers.
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Pros
cPanel
  • The dashboard is very intuitive. Even beginners can figure out how to do things without very much help.
  • The online community is very helpful and the online documentation makes administering any tasks a lot easier.
  • User creation and administration for FTP access is also very simple.
Read full review
Portainer
  • Separating server maintenance with application development, providing a clear user interface for developers who don't want to worry about the underlying server.
  • RBAC for container deployment linked to a SAML IDP, not something particularly easy in a native Docker instance but point and shoot in Portainer, allowing the use of Azure / Okta etc to provide user access.
  • Image management with multiple repositories is super clear and reduces incidents
Read full review
Cons
cPanel
  • The costs can be a limiting factor for some businesses if you are not using a web hosting company that uses it. I have been experimenting with Cloud hosting, which can be very daunting for the novice. There is an option to install it on the cloud but it is expensive.
Read full review
Portainer
  • When setting up static IPs for a new container, having the used ones for a specific network at hand would be cool or something like a mini IPAM of some sort...
  • Using the developertools to see "oh, it's a 40x or 500" when something doesn't seem to load because the ui just states "Didn't work" is kinda annoying. expandable toasts or something would be nice.
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Likelihood to Renew
cPanel
No answers on this topic
Portainer
It is an excellent tool.
Read full review
Usability
cPanel
Although it can be a little bit bloated with a lot of options and configurations, it's very straightforward to use and maintain. So it's a great option even if you don't have large experience in hosting configuration. The WHM tool is more suited to heavy users since it requires more expertise, so it has a steep learning curve to better understand how to use it.
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Portainer
Accessibility for Non-Experts: even with some people having a bit longer on-boarding it is still very simple Quick setup is insanely useful, we can get it running in 10 seconds after installing docker Portainer has once again super clean UI and is very user friendly. Deployment/monitoring and management are super easy. I can tell just from a glance if something is out of date (watching at you Watchtower not doing your job for some reason)
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Support Rating
cPanel
The support comes in the form of an extensive library of how to articles and community input. For most situations this will give you plenty of information and resources to trouble shoot. Live support really then would need to default to the hosting provider who provides the cPanel for your use.
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Portainer
One of their staff members jumped on a video call immediately with me and led me through the problem and solution during a quick session of screen sharing. In this day and age that is above and beyond, especially when it comes to software. It took approximately 5-10 minutes to diagnose and fix, including pleasantries!
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Implementation Rating
cPanel
No answers on this topic
Portainer
It is really easy. Just follow the documentation.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
cPanel
The direct server management tool access provided by cPanel hosting accounts is far superior to any shared or "standard" web site hosting packaged offered by any of the numerous web host providers I have used and or evaluated over the 20+ years of my experience working in the internet industry.
Read full review
Portainer
Portainer takes the cup in terms of usability and features. It is also more useful for smaller deployments, whereas Kubernetes in our opinion and experience, could probably be more suited to certain other use cases. Portainer is also a fresh feel among all the preexisting container management solutions and brings positivity and a new breeze in the industry.
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Return on Investment
cPanel
  • cPanel makes back end server administration easy. This saves time and overall effort.
  • cPanel is readily available with most hosting packages. It integrates with both Apache and Nginx.
  • cPanel allows you to perform some of the same functions as WHM, but with an easier interface.
Read full review
Portainer
  • Increased productivity: Portainer's user-friendly interface and streamlined container management can help increase the productivity of IT teams.
  • Cost savings: By simplifying container management, Portainer can help reduce the time and resources required to manage container environments, potentially leading to cost savings.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Portainer Screenshots

Screenshot of Portainer is a universal container management platform to help adopt and manage Docker, Kubernetes, Nomad and Edge environments.