Comparison
Laranode vs cPanel
Updated September 2026. Written by the Laranode maintainer, so we're biased; we've tried to be fair about where the other panel is the better choice.
Choose Laranode if…
- ✓You host your own or your clients' websites on a VPS and don't want a monthly licence
- ✓Your email already lives elsewhere (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Fastmail and so on)
- ✓You want a different PHP version per site, one-click SSL, backups to S3 or SFTP, and a firewall UI
- ✓You're comfortable on Ubuntu and want code you can read and change (Laravel + React)
Choose cPanel if…
- ✓You need built-in email, webmail and spam filtering
- ✓You run a hosting business with resellers, WHM and billing integrations
- ✓You need DNS hosting, FTP, or AlmaLinux / CloudLinux
- ✓You want commercial support and a large ecosystem of plugins and tutorials
Feature comparison
| Laranode | cPanel & WHM | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, MIT licence | From $29.99/month (1 account), up to $69.99/month (100 accounts) + $0.49 per extra account |
| Source code | Open source (MIT) | Proprietary |
| Operating systems | Ubuntu 24.04+ | AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, CloudLinux, Ubuntu LTS |
| Web server | Apache + PHP-FPM (a pool per site) | Apache (LiteSpeed/NGINX options) |
| PHP versions | 7.4 to 8.5, chosen per site | Multiple versions per account (EasyApache / MultiPHP) |
| Databases | MySQL | MySQL / MariaDB, PostgreSQL |
| Free SSL | Let's Encrypt, one click | AutoSSL |
| Email & webmail | No | Yes |
| DNS server | No | Yes |
| File access | Web file manager + SFTP over SSH (per-account toggle) | File manager, FTP, SFTP |
| Firewall | UFW rules in the UI | Via plugins (e.g. CSF) / host firewall |
| Backups | Accounts, sites and databases; local, S3 or SFTP; scheduled with retention | Built-in backups with remote destinations |
| Multi-user | Admin and user roles; each account is a Linux user | WHM admin, resellers and cPanel users |
| Live server stats | Live CPU, memory, disk and load over websockets | Resource usage and server status pages |
| Built with | Laravel, React, Inertia.js | Perl, proprietary |
cPanel prices are monthly list prices from cpanel.net/pricing as of September 2026; annual billing is slightly cheaper. Check there for current pricing.
The real difference: cost versus coverage
cPanel's price scales with accounts. One site on cPanel Solo costs about $360 a year before server costs. Thirty sites on cPanel Pro cost about $650 a year. On Laranode, both cost $0 in licences. You pay only for the VPS.
What that money buys is coverage. cPanel handles email, DNS, resellers and a long list of edge cases that Laranode deliberately leaves out. If you're hosting websites and your email is already with a dedicated provider, much of that is software you'd be paying for and not using.
Laranode's focus is the day-to-day work: create an account, add a site, choose its PHP version, turn on SSL, create a database, open a firewall port, schedule backups off the server. It does these with a modern interface that's one command to install.
Moving from cPanel to Laranode
There's no automatic importer. For each site, recreate the account and website in Laranode, copy the files over SFTP, and import the database dump into a new MySQL database. Move email to a dedicated provider before you switch DNS, because Laranode won't receive mail for your domains.
Try the live demo first to see whether the workflow fits.
Frequently asked questions
Is Laranode a free cPanel alternative?
Can Laranode replace cPanel for email hosting?
Can I import cPanel backups into Laranode?
Does Laranode run on AlmaLinux or CloudLinux like cPanel?
Does Laranode support FTP?
Try Laranode
Click around the limited live demo (safe, simulated actions), or install it on a fresh Ubuntu 24.04+ server as root:
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crivion/laranode/refs/heads/main/laranode-scripts/bin/laranode-installer.sh | bash