Plesk vs. Portainer

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Plesk
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Plesk is a server control panel, providing a solution that enables usres to build and manage multiple sites from a single dashboard. Users can also run updates, monitor performance and onboard new prospects all from the same place. Plesk also boasts a robust toolkit for Wordpress management, and supports other CMS. It is available on the public cloud of the user's choice.
$12
per month
Portainer
Score 9.6 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
PleskPortainer
Editions & Modules
Web Admin Edition - Dedicated
$12
per month
Web Admin Edition - VPS
$12
per month
Web Pro Edition - VPS
$18.50
per month
Web Pro Edition - Dedicated
$18.50
per month
Web Host Edition - VPS
$30.50
per month
Web Host Edition - Dedicated
$54.50
per month
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
PleskPortainer
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsDiscounts available for an annual subscription.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PleskPortainer
Considered Both Products
Plesk
Chose Plesk
I've found cPanel to be much more intuitive than Plesk over the years. Both have had very clunky interfaces, however a great deal of development by both Plesk and cPanel has been done in this area. I feel that cPanel at the moment has an easier interface to work in (however it …
Chose Plesk
Plesk has a much more intuitive platform that allows for customization and scalability within an organization. It has the advantage when it comes to the ability to adapt to the current state of the company and grow with it organically. There are a few limitations that would …
Chose Plesk
The good user interface and many more
Chose Plesk
Both cPanel and Plesk are similar, however Plesk was choosen because it of it's ease of use and available extensions. The administrator can create client and site templates, which essentially is allocating resources for domains and/or clients. Also, Plesk is designed to …
Chose Plesk
I've only ever really used cPanel-type web host control panels. CPanels are very cumbersome and clunky. They don't allow one to update all their hosted website's CMS, templates, and plugins, from within their system. This is a SERIOUS time- and headache-saver, in my opinion! I …
Portainer
Chose Portainer
Dyrectorio was nice but it feels unpolished
Ugreen has docker management on its UGOS Pro and it seems quite nice for start but its UI is quite a bit worse then Portainer
Another downside is that its GUI seems to be locked on a specific port for now
Chose Portainer
Had already more experience using Portainer and it was covering all immediate needs where scalability was not a concern. Definitely easier to use and to get started for anyone.
Chose Portainer
Portainer is open source and can be installed as a docker container. Portainer can also be used free of charge as a business edition for a limited number of installations. All you have to do is register with Portainer and receive a license key. Portainer is very easy to install …
Chose Portainer
Azure and AWS have their own issues, especially around complexity just to setup one thing that Portainer can do in 10 seconds. Octopus deploy has excellent logs, analytics and dashboard views - but the configuration is more of a hassle than Portainer. Overall for the projects …
Chose Portainer
Portainer is very simple to use for anyone who is new to docker and trying to build a server. It makes everything super easy to use because of it’s excellent UI/UX which makes it a good tool for beginners!
Chose Portainer
I wrote that earlier, I tried Docker desktop so many bugs with WSL and not free and it get sign out every login time, Tried SUSE rancher too complicated and good only for power users and whoever runs Kubernetes and very heavy. tried Dokage very simple and couldn’t do …
Chose Portainer
Portainer is, in my opinion, the most accessible and straight-forward means of entering the world of deploying and managing containers while also maintaining the ability to progress into advanced professional deployments and use.
Chose 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 …
Chose Portainer
Initially looked into using Rancher for container management but it is aimed more at kubernetes deployments. I have used both at home and liked Portainer more, especially since we are using docker standalone. From
Chose Portainer
In Kubernetes management, in my opinion I would say that Lens is superior. But if you only want to manage a few stacks, Portainer is superior because the gui offers a comprehensive way of managing all the deployed images and its versions.
Chose Portainer
Microsoft Azure, and arguably the leader in the field. The most negative point and which made us make the decision not to continue with them and to go with Portainer is the price. This is one of the most important points to consider, especially in small companies.
Chose Portainer
The reason I chose Portainer is that graphically it wins over Yacht, it has many more options to use even in the free version. You can connect more than one environment to one panel which makes it much easier to use multiple instances of Portainer and saves a lot of time.
Chose Portainer
I've only used Portainer for docker management
Chose Portainer
Portainer, Amaze powered by Famous.co and 99tests
Chose Portainer
Portainer is free and a lot easier to live with than hyper-v
Chose Portainer
I am using Rancher in Kubernetes environments. It was really the first product I used with it and never really had time to test out how well Portainer behaves on Kubernetes. For the exact same thing - Docker Swarm management I used Swarmpit some time ago, but I like Portainer …
Chose Portainer
Of course it has to be stacked against Rancher, and to be frank Rancher is great. Honestly the comparision is like comparing MacOS to Windows.
Chose Portainer
Portainer is a user-friendly container management platform focused on Docker, providing a simplified graphical interface. Kubernetes (K8s) is a robust container orchestration platform that automates deployment and scaling, suitable for complex container environments. Docker is …
Chose Portainer
Portainer is a lot easier to use when compared to kubernetes. it is easy to get over whelmed by all the options in kubernetes but portainer makes it simple to build and deploy even to kubernetes.
Chose Portainer
Portainer seems to be the best when you start with small environments and can grow with them.
Portainer is also good for beginners with not too much knowledge about containers.
Finally the start-up with 5 nodes for free was a great benefit.
Features
PleskPortainer
Container Management
Comparison of Container Management features of Product A and Product B
Plesk
-
Ratings
Portainer
8.5
Ratings
10% above category average
Security and Isolation00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Cluster Management00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Storage Management00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Resource Allocation and Optimization00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Discovery Tools00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Analytics, Monitoring, and Logging00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
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PleskPortainer
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.0 out of 10
GitLab
GitLab
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.0 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
VMware vCenter
VMware vCenter
Score 8.7 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
PleskPortainer
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
PleskPortainer
Likelihood to Recommend
The Plesk web hosting management platform is well suited for both novice web admins through to experienced technicians. While it allows experienced users to "get under the hood", those that are new to web hosting admin will quickly become comfortable with performing administration processes
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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
  • Automatically update the CMS, plugins, and templates of all your websites, depending on your CMS, all at the same time, with just a few strokes of your keyboard.
  • Enables one to set up a schedule to back up your websites, automatically, and easily download/save the backup files off-site, for safety.
  • Makes it easy for users to use a backup file to reinstall a website, with just a few strokes of the keyboard. Excellent service!
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  • 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
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Cons
  • Better integration with independent WAF tools like Wordfence
  • Create a simple function for staging sites and to push from staging to live
  • Provide function to back-up DNS settings before making changes
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  • Lack of granular RBAC control: While Portainer does have role-based access control (RBAC) features, they are not as granular as some users would like. Some users have reported that they would like to have more control over permissions for individual users or groups. This would enable more fine-grained control over who has access to which containers or clusters.
  • Limited support for non-Docker container technologies: While Portainer is primarily designed to manage Docker containers, it does have some limited support for other container technologies like Kubernetes and Docker Swarm. However, this support is not as robust as it is for Docker, and some users have reported that they would like to see better support for other container technologies.
  • Limited control over container networking: Portainer's networking features are somewhat limited compared to other container management tools. Some users have reported that they would like more control over container networking, including the ability to create custom networks and control IP addresses.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
It is an excellent tool.
Read full review
Usability
No answers on this topic
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
No answers on this topic
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
No answers on this topic
It is really easy. Just follow the documentation.
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Alternatives Considered
I've only ever really used cPanel-type web host control panels. CPanels are very cumbersome and clunky. They don't allow one to update all their hosted website's CMS, templates, and plugins, from within their system. This is a SERIOUS time- and headache-saver, in my opinion! I no longer have to log in to every single website and waste time updating the site. Also, backing up a database is pretty basic, but reinstalling a broken website with that backup doesn't always work. To date, I've never had a problem with reinstalling a website that I backed up, using the Plesk system.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Time savings and eliminating redundancies.
  • Reducing the need for multiple systems and spending on each.
  • Creating more visibility into what teams are working on and getting projects done faster.
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  • Instead of having 1 senior who does all the setup, debugging and caretaking of "all things docker" we now split the load on basically everyone in the team. Hard to put into direct numbers but with everyone helping themselves, noone alone is forced into that position "because you know how to do it" and overall we're more productive
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.