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WauHost vs cPanel: which control panel fits a small team?
cPanel is the long-standing panel of the hosting industry. WauHost is made for people who own a handful of websites. Here is how they differ, and when each is the better choice.
cPanel (with its server-side half, WHM) has run shared hosting for over two decades. If you’ve bought hosting, you’ve probably used it. WauHost asks a different question: what if the panel were made for the people who own the websites, not the company renting them out?
The short answer
- Choose cPanel if you sell hosting, need email accounts on the same server, or run many customer accounts with reseller permissions.
- Choose WauHost if you look after a handful of WordPress websites on your own server and want them updated, backed up and watched without becoming a server expert.
Side by side
| cPanel & WHM | WauHost | |
|---|---|---|
| Made by | WebPros, which also makes Plesk | Aisoft Technology |
| Price | Monthly licence by number of accounts: Solo (1 account) from $29.99, Admin (5) $35.99, Pro (30) $53.99, Premier (100) $69.99 plus $0.49 per extra account1 | Free for up to 10 websites per server |
| Runs on | AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, CloudLinux, Ubuntu 24.04. Not Debian2 | Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 12 |
| Web server | Apache (EasyApache 4), optional NGINX reverse proxy or LiteSpeed3 | NGINX with PHP-FPM, one PHP pool and Linux user per website |
| Email hosting | Included | Not included (keep mail with Google, Microsoft or Zoho) |
| Reselling | Yes, reseller accounts with permissions and limits4 | No, by design |
| WordPress | WP Toolkit included | Built around WordPress: backup before every update, homepage compared after, one-click restore |
| Backups | Scheduled, many destinations (S3, B2, Google Drive, SFTP…)5 | Nightly, plus before every update; restore shows exactly what will be undone |
| Malware protection | ImunifyAV scanning free; Imunify360 sold separately6 | Nightly plugin checks against a vulnerability feed, file checksums, read-only lockdown |
| How you see it | Menus and icons, one area per task | A live map of the server and every website |
Where cPanel is the better choice
cPanel is mature, widely documented, and almost every hosting company knows it. If your customers expect their own cPanel login, if you need mailboxes on the server, or if you’re running a hosting business with dozens of accounts, it does that job well and WauHost doesn’t try to.
Where WauHost fits
Most small businesses, publishers and agencies don’t sell hosting. They have a few websites, one server, and nobody whose full-time job is to look after it. For them, WauHost aims to remove the risky parts:
- No licence to budget for up to 10 websites
- Updates that can’t quietly break the homepage
- Old, risky plugins flagged every night
- Firewall changes that undo themselves unless you confirm
- Your websites keep running even if WauHost is switched off
Moving from cPanel
A cPanel server usually stays where it is. You’d set up WauHost on a fresh Ubuntu or Debian server and bring websites over one at a time, so nothing is down while you move. Email stays with your mail provider.
- cPanel pricing, monthly list prices excluding VAT, as shown on 22 Oct 2026. Premier is the only tier for dedicated servers.
- cPanel system requirements
- NGINX with reverse proxy
- WHM resellers
- WHM backup configuration
- ImunifyAV and Imunify360 on cPanel