cPanel
Ranked 2 of 3 server admin tools by recommenders
Lets people set up domains, TLS and email in minutes through a click-button interface, with a long record of no known bugs. Critics point to serious security vulnerabilities.
Lets people set up domains, TLS and email in minutes through a click-button interface, with a long record of no known bugs. Critics point to serious security vulnerabilities.
26 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 19
- approval share
- 27%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Easy domain, TLS and email setup
“there aren't that many ways for a normie to create their own (sub)domain with TLS and an email in under five minutes”
Comment from 9 May 2026 in “CPanel's Black Week: 3 New Vulnerabilities Patched After Attack on 44k Servers” “an amazing little bit of software with all of the click a button to setup”
Comment from 9 May 2026 in “CPanel's Black Week: 3 New Vulnerabilities Patched After Attack on 44k Servers” Long track record without known bugs
“cPanel is just about as far away from “unproven” as possible.”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “The Internet Is Falling Down- CPanel/WHM Authentication Bypass CVE-2026-41940” “I didn't hear of any bugs in the last 14 years”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “The Cloudflare outage might be a good thing”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Serious security flaws and large attack surface
“Anyone who has ever seen cPanel's software engineering abilities (ie any of the source) should not be surprised by this”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “The Internet Is Falling Down- CPanel/WHM Authentication Bypass CVE-2026-41940” “cpanel itself -- the admin of everything provided for that domain by the hosting provider -- it's a huge surface area.”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “The Internet Is Falling Down- CPanel/WHM Authentication Bypass CVE-2026-41940” “this vulnerability affects - and we cannot stress this enough - all currently supported versions of cPanel & WHM”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “The Internet Is Falling Down- CPanel/WHM Authentication Bypass CVE-2026-41940” - Comment from 9 May 2026 in “CPanel's Black Week: 3 New Vulnerabilities Patched After Attack on 44k Servers”
- Comment from 1 May 2026 in “The Internet Is Falling Down- CPanel/WHM Authentication Bypass CVE-2026-41940”
- Comment from 9 May 2026 in “CPanel's Black Week: 3 New Vulnerabilities Patched After Attack on 44k Servers”
- Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Ask HN: Is there still an opportunity for an affordable CPanel alternative?”
Bloated, dated and hard to use
“their largely unnecessary complications (except enterprise maybe)”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “The Internet Is Falling Down- CPanel/WHM Authentication Bypass CVE-2026-41940” “GSuite is much easier to set up than CPanel.”
Comment from 9 May 2026 in “CPanel's Black Week: 3 New Vulnerabilities Patched After Attack on 44k Servers” “good riddance to that bloated slug cPanel”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “The Internet Is Falling Down- CPanel/WHM Authentication Bypass CVE-2026-41940” - Comment from 10 May 2026 in “CPanel's Black Week: 3 New Vulnerabilities Patched After Attack on 44k Servers”
Aging codebase with few maintainers
“Probably the grayest of the gray beards. Perhaps not enough Perl Wizards left to maintain it nowadays.”
Comment from 10 May 2026 in “CPanel's Black Week: 3 New Vulnerabilities Patched After Attack on 44k Servers” “30 years isn't really a good thing, here.”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “The Internet Is Falling Down- CPanel/WHM Authentication Bypass CVE-2026-41940”
Other server admin tools people recommend
The two most recommended other server admin tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 3 server admin tools, rankedWhat people said
25 of the 26 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“1 expensive cPanel wannabe”
“Not a peep from cpanel or plesk.”
“Cpanel increased their prices exponentially in the last few years.”
“Probably the grayest of the gray beards. Perhaps not enough Perl Wizards left to maintain it nowadays.”
“Nothing wrong with those stacks.”
“it always was a dumpster fire”
“So CPanel's security is just as bad as their UI”
“GSuite is much easier to set up than CPanel.”
“there aren't that many ways for a normie to create their own (sub)domain with TLS and an email in under five minutes”
“an amazing little bit of software with all of the click a button to setup”
“Their clients can run code as an user without much sandboxing/guardrails at all.”
“Anyone who has ever seen cPanel's software engineering abilities (ie any of the source) should not be surprised by this”
“Luckily my site uses Plesk after moving away from cPanel years ago.”
“good riddance to that bloated slug cPanel”
“30 years isn't really a good thing, here.”
“their largely unnecessary complications (except enterprise maybe)”
“cPanel is just about as far away from “unproven” as possible.”
“cPanel being the backbone of the internet's cheap hosting layer was already a monoculture risk waiting to bite us”
“has a weird fallback path that writes it in clear text”
“this vulnerability affects - and we cannot stress this enough - all currently supported versions of cPanel & WHM”
“are you saying it's not battle tested, boring, proven, and widely audited?”
“cpanel itself -- the admin of everything provided for that domain by the hosting provider -- it's a huge surface area.”
“cPanel's critical vulnerability today (9.8)”
“I still have to deal with CPanel as I have friends hosting their sites on GoDaddy”
“I didn't hear of any bugs in the last 14 years”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.