Is Plesk for Windows Still Viable?

[Mr Fett]

Hi all,

I'm posting this dramatic question to open up a discussion about the future of Plesk.

Let me start by saying I'm a BIG fan of Plesk. I've done two courses, attended conferences (last one in Amsterdam) and written positive reviews. I love Plesk 12's new feature set. I've been managing windows web servers for almost 15 years now.

The problem I have is that Plesk is constantly breaking. I would guess that 75% of the time that Plesk auto-updates, something breaks. This is can be as simple as all file permissions being rest to as drastic as me waking up this morning to find all my websites offline and the Plesk Panel inaccessible).

If a Plesk update breaks something, I have to pay for a support session to have it fixed if I can't fix it myself - that doesn't seem right to me either.

Finally, during one of the technical discussions in Amsterdam last year, another hosting provider mentioned a fundamental problem with WordPress websites hosted on Plesk for Windows - I didn't catch the details but afterwards he said that the Plesk team had told him that the problem was unresolvable and that effectively hosting WordPress on Plesk for Windows was going to be a no-no going forward.

Even before I found this out, I've always felt that Plesk for Windows felt like it was an 'afterthought' with Parallels' energy being directed at the Linux version.

So there it is, any thoughts? Parallels - any comments?

I would love to stick with Plesk but I'm running out of excuses.

Bob

 

[Mr Fett]

Ha ha - excellent. I created a poll called 'Have You Had a Problem with Plesk in the past 12 months?' but the poll doesn't display the question!

 

[abdi]

The problem I have is that Plesk is constantly breaking. I would guess that 75% of the time that Plesk auto-updates, something breaks. This is can be as simple as all file permissions being rest to as drastic as me waking up this morning to find all my websites offline and the Plesk Panel inaccessible).

Honestly speaking, the plesk developers should ALL be fired and hire a totally new team....That's it!!!

I started using plesk in 2003, and as much as one might not like to hear this, truth is THE MOST STABLE VERSION OF PLESK - ALL TIME WAS VERSION 7/9.

Version 7/9 were very stable, error/bug free ...

With 10 and above, its almost impossible to migrate smoothly (the default way) over 100GB of data, and the same applies when an upgrade is run.

 

[abdi]

Finally, during one of the technical discussions in Amsterdam last year, another hosting provider mentioned a fundamental problem with WordPress websites hosted on Plesk for Windows - I didn't catch the details but afterwards he said that the Plesk team had told him that the problem was unresolvable and that effectively hosting WordPress on Plesk for Windows was going to be a no-no going forward.

Could you please tell us in detail the fundamental problem with plesk and wordpress...

 

[Mr Fett]

Hi Abdi - I didn't catch the details of it as it was a discussion between one of the other attendees and Sergev! I gave the attendee my business card and asked him to email me the details but I never heard from him! :-(

 

[jamin]

We have used Plesk for over 10 years now and have seen product mature to now where I feel it is the best hosting panel around. Plesk for Windows over the years has been some what temperamental to say the least however in Plesk 12 we have found it to be very stable.

None of our Plesk servers are upgraded, they are all new and websites on older Plesk version are migrated to them.
I have always found issues with upgrades and now do not attempt them on updates to major versions. With that said however using Plesk (linux) Pp template all upgrades from 11.5 have been smooth and without incident. As for anyone trying to host WordPress on Windows they are mad to even attempt it. (my opinion)

All our clients that we move from other hosts that run WordPress on Windows have had issues, when we move them to a linux install the issues disappear. These issues vary but most of the time things just seem to stop or break. What surprises me the most is that they seem to run XAMPP which really perplexes me.

I think most who uses Windows servers do so because they have no clue on how to manage a linux server. At least if they use Plesk on Windows they can use Plesk on Linux which in our case when we sell a managed service the client experience is a positive one as they do not need to re learn a new control panel. There certainly are instances where you need to run sites on Windows, but from years of experience there are not many!

I think from time to time we will experience issues with any server and or server software like Plesk, it comes down to knowledge of product and support. Over the years I have found the (SWSoft) and now Parallels team to be great at what they do. The company is not perfect, but from experience and trying to deal with others control panel providers over the years they are certainly a few steps ahead of the competition.

 

[Mr Fett]

Hi Jamin,

Thanks for your post - very useful to hear another perspective - in particular your views on WordPress "As for anyone trying to host WordPress on Windows they are mad to even attempt it". I've had come to this conclusion myself as well - I think Parallels should come right out and stop supporting WordPress on the windows version because it clearly doesn't work properly (but by including it, they are making the statement that it works).

Unfortunately for us, as a small company with ASP.NET AND PHP driven sites, that means more expense.

I have found Parallels support to generally be able to fix problems but not quickly (my Plesk panel is still broken from an update on Thursday).

Curing the Symptom
I think the final thing that shakes my confidence is that when anything does go wrong, all the advice I get (from these forums, from Parallels support and from my hosting providers) is to run the Parallels Reconfigurator or run command line reset tools. While that sometimes fixes the problem, its curing the symptom - it doesn't answer the questions of "Why did this go wrong in the first place?" or "What can I do to prevent this happening again"?

What Next?
I think we're just going to move our Windows sites to a small server and move our WordPress sites to a managed WordPress provider. I don't say this lightly as we're a Parallels Partner, have significant money deposit with them and are invested in using the Parallels Cloud Server suite, but Plesk for Windows has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Out of curiosity, what are you generally hosting on your Plesk for Windows servers? I'm assuming ASP.NET websites?

Bob

 

[jamin]

HI Mr Fett,

Most of our Windows hosting are clients that don't really know any better. They know Windows and think their website will run better. The ones we actually get to talk to and advise we move to linux. The Windows users that really need Windows are few. They run a combination of things like ASP.NET and apps that are Windows specific. Anything with the word Microsoft in it cost money and in tern increases the cost to provide the given service. The less Microsoft products we have the better from a pure cost and management overhead. Don't get me wrong there is a place for Windows and it sometimes does some amazing things. At least with Plesk as hosting providers we can provide a single Panel to all users.