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What is Plesk?

Plesk is a control panel for cloud and VPS hosting. It works as an intermediary between system services and administrators, allowing you to get your work done without the need for complex command-line operations – from website deployment and server management to resource monitoring and security configurations. You can tailor Plesk to your preferences with hundreds of extensions, including advanced security features and toolkits for WordPress and other popular content management systems.

Plesk is a great tool to simplify the daily tasks of web admins, hosting providers, and developers. You don’t need any coding skills to use Plesk, making it a suitable tool for users with all levels of experience.

With the core needs of your business taken care of, Plesk lets you focus on your most important goals: growing your business and providing the best service to your customers.

How does Plesk work?

Plesk is a control panel that simplifies the work of web hosting providers and administrators around the world. The tool streamlines daily operations in web hosting by centralizing and automating essential tasks, such as server management, security configurations, and regular backups.

Plesk can help anyone efficiently set up and manage domains, configure websites, and handle email accounts. You don’t need extensive technical knowledge or even coding skills to use Plesk. Even if you only manage a few websites, Plesk can make your life easier.

Meanwhile, the tool supports hundreds of plugins and extensions, which are available in bundles or as single modules. This particularly benefits web hosting providers that are using many different servers and content management systems to manage their clients’s websites. Plesk allows you to hundreds or even thousands of virtual hosts on a single server, providing your customers with easy and simple access to any products they prefer using. This takes a lot of manual work out of your hands.

Key features of Plesk

These are the most important features of Plesk:

Simplified server and website management

Plesk allows you to manage your customers’ servers, domains, email accounts, and websites in one centralized interface, without the need to switch between different services and applications and their respective control panels.

Modern web stack

Plesk includes an optimized web stack curated to make your life easier, including Composer, MongoDB, and Docker integration.

Optimal security

In web hosting, security is vital. Keep your server safe with ModSecurity’s firewall management, fail2ban’s brute force protection, and advanced server monitoring to quickly detect any issues on one of your domains.

WordPress Toolkit

WordPress is a popular content management tool, used by over 40% of websites in the world. Plesk’s dedicated WordPress Toolkit simplifies the deployment of WordPress websites, continuously scans your websites for issues, and automatically installs any updates to WordPress and its different plugins and themes.

Seamless integration with third-party tools

Plesk integrates with leading tools like Git, Docker, and cloud services such as AWS and Google Cloud, giving you more flexibility to build, deploy, and scale projects with ease.

Automated server maintenance

Minimize manual effort with automated server management tasks, such as updates, backups, and patches. Plesk lets you schedule and customize these tasks to suit your business needs.

Multi-language support

Whether your customers speak English, Spanish, or any of the other supported languages, Plesk’s multi-language interface ensures accessibility for a global audience.

One-click applications

Install popular applications like Joomla, Drupal, or PrestaShop in seconds with Plesk’s one-click installer, making it easy for your customers to launch and manage their projects.

Advanced reseller tools

Empower your resellers with tools to manage customer accounts, set up packages, and customize offerings, all while maintaining centralized control over server resources.

Easy database management

With built-in support for MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL, Plesk simplifies database management, providing powerful yet easy-to-use tools for developers and admins alike.

Developer-friendly environment

Plesk supports multiple programming languages and environments, from PHP and Ruby to Node.js and Python, ensuring it fits a wide range of development projects.

Why use Plesk?

Plesk helps you simplify and automate your daily operations in web hosting and server management while providing you with robust security and hundreds of extensions to tailor the tool to your needs.

Simplify your tasks

If you work in web hosting or development, chances are that you are working with a large multitude of servers, domains, and websites that fall under your management. This creates a large amount of complexity. Your workdays may be full of repetitive, yet error-prone tasks, such as domain and server management, file and directory organization, and FTP account administration. With Plesk, these tasks are turned into streamlined or even fully automated processes. This means you have more time to focus on your core business – creating and maintaining beautiful and functional websites.

Robust security

Cybercriminals do a lot of damage every year, both financially and to companies’ reputations. Defending your online assets should be a major priority for anyone in web hosting these days. With an integrated WebApp Firewall (ModSecurity) and Brute Force Protection (fail2ban), Plesk helps you protect your assets, keeping your websites and servers secure.

Hundreds of extensions

Plesk makes it possible to customize your system with hundreds of extensions for tools and CMS systems that your customers may use, including the WordPress toolkit, SEO tools, security add-ons, and more. This means that you are never stuck with a package deal and that you have full freedom to tailor your Plesk experience to what your business and clients need.

Competitive pricing

Openprovider is proud to offer the most competitive pricing for Plesk on the market. With us, you benefit from consistently low prices while taking advantage of everything that Plesk has to offer, including the full catalog of Plesk extensions. If you are an Openprovider Member, the prices even get better, with discounts increasing with every tier of the Membership Plan. For Members, prices for Plesk licenses at Openprovider start at just €6.02 per month!

Types of Plesk licenses

There are three core Plesk licenses: Web Admin Edition, Web Pro Edition, and Web Host Edition. Each of them comes with different features. The most important decisive factor is the size of your domain portfolio.

Web Admin Edition is the best choice for users with less than ten domains. Prices for this edition start at €6.02/month for Openprovider Members.
Web Pro Edition serves users with a portfolio of up to thirty domain names. Prices for this edition start at €9.15/month for Openprovider Members.
Web Host Edition is the most advanced version, designed for those who work in large web hosting companies. It can be used with unlimited domains. Prices for this edition start at €15.69/month for Openprovider Members.

Click here to see a full overview of the differences between the three editions, and click here to see our pricing.

Be aware that you can always upgrade to a higher plan if you need to!

Plesk licenses for dedicated and VPS servers

Different Plesk licenses are also applicable for different server types: dedicated or virtual (VPS) servers. You can purchase all three editions for either a dedicated or a VPS server.

Dedicated server: As its name indicates, you will have to choose this option if you want to install the license on a “dedicated server: a server that you own and that is not shared with other services. o basically if you own the server and it is not shared with other services.
VPS server: This is the option that you should choose if your services are located on a virtual server (for example OpenVZ, VMware, or Xen).

How to install Plesk

After choosing the best Plesk edition for you, head to the control panel to purchase the Plesk license of your choice.

Navigate to “Plesk Licenses” → “Order new Plesk license” in the left-hand menu.
You will be presented with several options. Choose the first one “Plesk 12 / Onyx / Obsidian keys”.
From the dropdown menu, you can select the type of Plesk license you want to purchase. Choose the Plesk license that suits the type of your machine: VPS or dedicated server.
Enter the IP address of the server that the Plesk license will be connected to. It is against the PLESK EULA to use one license key on multiple machines. You can find more information about this here.
Once you select your license, you can also add a title or comment to easily identify the Plesk license you purchased for a specific server. This is optional.
Once you are all finished, click “Order Now”.

After the order is processed, you are presented with an order confirmation screen, including an activation code. This activation code is your license ID, through which you activate your Plesk license after installation.

How to access the Plesk Control Panel

After purchasing your Plesk license and obtaining your Plesk license key, you need to install it on your server before you can start using it. Depending on the operating system you are using, please check the installation instructions for Linux or Windows. After the installation, you should activate your paid license using the key you received.

Open Plesk, go to Tools & Settings → License Management (under “Plesk”), and click on “Install Key”.
Enter the code you received in the email to the “Enter an activation code” field and click OK.

Once you activate the product, you can access the Plesk control panel and set it up to your preferences.

Do you have any questions about getting started with Plesk? Take a look at our Knowledge Base, or contact our support team – they are always happy to assist you!

Ready to get started with Plesk? Get your Plesk license today!