ROFL! I received an mail about the new "Wordpress Toolkit Deluxe"...!
And guess what... You have to pay for this ofcourse. LMAO. You increase license price to improve things and now you "improved" the WP Toolkit, but are charging top Dollar for it. #pathetic.
Nobody is going to pay for this, after the latest (and upcoming) price hikes with Plesk...
@HHawk
I have read your messages and do understand your "frustration" (for lack of a better word) to some extent.
I certainly agree that there are many things to improve at Plesk and/or within Plesk and/or by Plesk and/or by Plesk Team.
However, there is some degree of reality that we have to take into account, amongst others being that prices increase in general - this is not limited to Plesk, it is also present in the entirety of the hosting industry : servers getting more expensive, licenses being forced upon users etc and so on.
It might seem to be a harsh reality, but - as you predicted to some extent - it will be relatively short-lived.
In the long run, there will always be space for solutions that combat the common pitfalls in existing products - sooner or later somebody will fill the gaps.
In the past, Plesk has done that in an excellent way.
In the present and future, Plesk is still able to compete with alternative solutions by just emphasizing specific product features.
That focus or emphasis is valuable or not at all valuable, depending on who is making the conclusions and from which angle.
As for me personally, I do not understand why we need a lot of features that are currently included in Plesk and that make Plesk bloated.
For instance, you mention the WP Toolkit and I have a strong opinion about that.
The Smart Updates feature is not really valuable and does not add value in terms of efficiency and/or in terms of cost-to-value.
In that light, it is a good thing that we are not confronted with obligatory licenses for the WP Toolkit Plus / Deluxe thing.
My strong opinion about WP Toolkit is hence based upon specific shortcomings, such as the lack of a full commandline utility (of WP Toolkit) that supports the full set of commands that is already built into WordPress and/or into Woocommerce.
Sure, if we continue and are being very picky, then there is always something to groan and moan about.
And that is my entire point : we get distracted!
All Plesk users have simply been distracted by license fees, even though a cost-benefit analysis would justify these prices for most companies.
Obviously, price increases hurt, higher prices for Plesk licenses do feel "wrong" if there are more and more (minor or major) shortcomings of Plesk.
Nevertheless, there is an actual reality that we should never forget.
The actual reality is dual by nature :
1 - everything that Plesk does, can be done or structured or arranged by a well-seasoned sysadmin : no need for Plesk, to put it differently!
2 - everything that Plesk already does, will take away the necessity to spend time on it : a need for Plesk, to put it differently........
In my humble opinion, this topic thread should not be dealing endlessly with "price increases" - that is life.
It should also NOT focus on the paradox provided by every "I-promise-you-everything-solution" - again, it is life that sooner or later the promise cannot be made true and that sooner or later, there is more efficiency to be found to setup a lean-and-mean sytem on one server and copy that across many servers.
In my humble opinion, this (and other) topic threads should simply focus on
a) making clear that Plesk should have a different perception of "customers" : endusers are not the customers paying for the Plesk licenses,
b) making clear that sysadmins do need a lot of tools that are currently not present within Plesk,
c) making clear that growth and associated price increases are always acceptable and justifiable if Plesk becomes a scalable eco-system!
I do have humble opinions, so I do not want to impose my opinions - it is just some "thinking out loud".
And yes, some "frustration" is present : I CANNOT understand why there is no secure MySQL support in Plesk, even years after I proposed it!
And yes, there is some element of "being flabergasted" : I (and others too) can easily (or not so easily) create an eco-system of Plesk servers in a cluster that can run in the cloud or on-premise, without the necessity of using the one-license-per-server model ......... why did the Multiserver extension flop?!??
But again, the above is not a solid fundament for any discussion - objectivity is required at all time.
In all objectivity, I can only conclude that Plesk is fine, but can always be improved.
Obviously, that is normal.
I feel strongly that it is up to the Plesk community to guide Plesk and Plesk Team towards the right direction.
In essence, do not submit "bugs" only, also use this forum and Plesk Uservoice to propose improvements - or even do some minor development.
Kind regards.......
PS Never forget that is a cycle of "being the best amongst competitors" - however, price is not a good benchmark of the "best" or even the "worst".
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