Cpanel and Plesk are the two most common hosting platforms in the world today. These hosting platform simplify user interaction with the web server of an application or website. The platforms allow auto installation of common applications, security utilities to the server. The platforms also simplify user activities on registering domain, hosting an app or website, dns management, email management among others.
Cpanel is developed and maintained by an American company Cpanel Inc since 1997.
Plesk is developed and maintained by a Swiss company Parallels IP Holdings GmbH but spun off as an independent entity in 2016.
Common Areas of comparison
User Interface.
Online blogs have voted that plesk has a superior interface as compared to Cpanel. Cpanel has also changed considerably in the 11 version.
Windows Support.
Plesk unlike Cpanel has windows support. Cpanel primary supports Linux based operating systems.
Cost
The two platforms have almost similar cost packages.
Plesk cost around $40 per month per server while Cpanel cost $35 per month per server. Both platforms have cheaper packages for VPS and small number of users.
Admin Panel
Cpanel has a separate admin panel to login to the reseller account and server – whm
Plesk has same login panel for both admin and user portal and which can be confusing
Migration
Both platforms do not support cross migration between each other.
Both Plesk and Cpanel have automated transfer option from their own platforms