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WauHost vs Plesk: a hosting company tool or a website owner's tool?
Plesk runs on Linux and Windows and covers everything from one website to a hosting business. WauHost does less, on purpose. Here is how they compare.
Plesk is one of the two big commercial hosting panels, alongside cPanel (both are made by WebPros). It runs on Linux and Windows, handles mail, DNS and resellers, and has editions for website owners through to hosting providers. WauHost is narrower: WordPress-first, Linux-only, for people who own their websites.
The short answer
- Choose Plesk if you need Windows hosting, mail on the server, many subscriptions or reseller accounts, or a large extension catalogue.
- Choose WauHost if you want a free, plain-language panel that keeps a handful of WordPress websites updated, backed up and watched.
Side by side
| Plesk Obsidian | WauHost | |
|---|---|---|
| Made by | WebPros, which also makes cPanel | Aisoft Technology |
| Price | Per-server licence in three editions: Web Admin (10 domains), Web Pro (30), Web Host (unlimited). 14-day free trial1 | Free for up to 10 websites per server |
| Runs on | Ubuntu, Debian, AlmaLinux, Rocky, RHEL, CloudLinux, and Windows Server2 | Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 12 |
| Web server | Apache with nginx on Linux; IIS on Windows2 | NGINX with PHP-FPM, one PHP pool and Linux user per website |
| Email hosting | Included (Postfix, Dovecot, Roundcube on Linux)2 | Not included (keep mail with Google, Microsoft or Zoho) |
| Reselling | Reseller, subscription and account management in every edition1 | No, by design |
| WordPress | WP Toolkit (a limited “SE” version in Web Admin)1 | Backup before every update, homepage compared after, one-click restore |
| Backups | Full and incremental, scheduled; cloud storage such as S3 through extensions3 | Nightly, plus before every update; restore shows exactly what will be undone |
| Security | Fail2Ban (off unless installed with the recommended preset), ModSecurity rule sets, Imunify360 as an extension4 | Nightly plugin checks, file checksums, read-only lockdown, firewall changes that undo themselves |
| Cloudflare | DNS sync extension (A, AAAA and CNAME records, one way)5 | Built in: with an API key, by guided steps, or not at all |
Plesk’s pricing page lists its current prices by edition and region; we don’t repeat them here because they change.
Where Plesk is the better choice
Plesk does a lot. If you host Windows or .NET applications, need mailboxes on the same server, manage many customer subscriptions, or rely on its extension marketplace, it’s built for that and WauHost isn’t.
Where WauHost fits
If the job is “keep our few WordPress websites healthy”, most of that power goes unused. WauHost puts the effort into a few things done carefully:
- Free for up to 10 websites per server
- A live map in plain words instead of settings pages
- Protection switched on from day one
- Cloudflare set up fully, not just DNS records
- Your websites keep running even if WauHost is switched off