VPS Optimized, Dedicated and CloudLinux Licensing
My name is Donna and it has been a privilege to be part of the cPanel Customer Service Team for over 4 years. One of the many jobs in Customer Service is making sure our customers have purchased the correct license for their hosting server. I absolutely love helping our cPanel customers and I would like to go over a frequently asked question, “Which license should I purchase?”. The type of license you will require will ultimately depend on what type of server you will be using for your hosting business. Before I start with the differences in cPanel licensing, I would like to point out that the cPanel & WHM features are exactly the same for both the Dedicated and VPS licenses.
Dedicated cPanel & WHM:
It is important to note that you will need to ensure you have purchased the appropriate license for the server you are using. The cPanel & WHM Dedicated license version is designed to be installed on a fully dedicated bare metal server in which 100% of the hardware is allocated to the operations of that machine.
During the automated cPanel & WHM installation process, the installation will automatically detect whether you are operating within a dedicated or a virtual environment and will install the necessary components appropriately. I would like to point out that if you try to activate a VPS license on a dedicated server the software will be disabled. You will not have access to the software until you purchase a Dedicated license.
VPS cPanel & WHM:
If you are new to hosting, you most likely will start off with a VPS or Cloud server since they are more cost-effective than a fully dedicated server. If you are using Amazon AWS, Virtuozzo, VMware or KVM just to name a few, you will want to purchase a cPanel & WHM VPS license.
During installation, cPanel & WHM VPS optimizes the initial configuration to make the best use of memory and processors in a virtualized environment. You can find the full list of the supported virtual environments at https://go.cpanel.net/virtualization.
CloudLinux OS:
cPanel supports the following Linux operating systems:
CentOS
Redhat
Amazon Linux
CloudLinux
Of the above systems, we offer CloudLinux in the cPanel Store as two different license packages shown below. I would like to make one thing clear. Neither of the CloudLinux licenses below include cPanel & WHM:
CloudLinux for cPanel Servers
CloudLinux for Non-cPanel Servers
The CloudLinux for cPanel Servers must be installed on a server that is using cPanel & WHM. That being said, if you do not already have cPanel & WHM, you will be required to make an additional purchase for a cPanel & WHM license.
The CloudLinux for Non-cPanel Servers is offered to customers that are using a 3rd party control panel that is not cPanel & WHM.
Now that you are better informed you can shop with confidence in our cPanel Store at https://store.cpanel.net. If you still have questions regarding cPanel & WHM licensing, feel free to contact cPanel Customer Service at cs@cpanel.net. You can also refer to our Installation Guide & System Requirements to ensure you have the proper system requirements and compatible software at https://go.cpanel.net/whmrequirments.
