Gridpane vs RunCloud. Which is the best WordPress control panel? If this is what you are looking for, we have some good news for you. Over the past 3 weeks, we had been testing both Gridpane and RunCloud extensively to answer all the dying questions about both of these awesome hosting control panels.
In the next few moments, we are going to dive deep into both Gridpane and RunCloud, and we certainly hope you will be able to find some true answers here!
One of the biggest misconception about hosting control panels is hosting control panels offer hosting services. A hosting control panel is a tool that allows you to manage all aspects of a hosting service. It allows you to do most of the complex system management in hosting as well as simple ones such as creating email accounts, adding domains and checking the bandwidth usage.
cPanel and Plesk are two great examples for general hosting control panels and while these are great tools, you might find them rather limitating especially when you would require more control.
When it comes to custom WordPress hosting control panel, both Gridpane and RunCloud are household names for website owners, WordPress agencies and freelancers alike.
RunCloud is a PHP Cloud Server Management Panel that integrates perfectly well with various frameworks including WordPress, Laravel, Joomla and Yii Framework.
Apart from that, it is also important to note that RunCloud is a Malaysian based company that had made to the limelight.
Gridpane is a WordPress control panel and when they launched, they were the first of its kind. The advanced hosting control panel makes deploying, optimizing and hardening any WordPress site a breeze.
If you are looking for a dedicated hosting control panel for WordPress CMS, Gridpane is a solid choice that you can't go wrong with.
This Gridpane review is rather similar to the one we published recently, Gridpane vs RunCloud vs Closte vs Kinsta which we recommend you to check it out.
On the surface, Gridpane is not really made for website owners. It is a hosting control panel that you can use to manage hundreds if not thousands of WordPress sites under one roof and instead of paying through your nose through 3rd party WordPress hosting solutions.
Let's take a look at Gridpane's backend system.
Let's be honest here. There is no such thing as a perfect product and Gridpane has its weakness too. Based on our team's experience, the biggest disadvantage of using Gridpane is the customer support.
Now, make no mistake. We are decently happy with their customer support level but there are things they could certainly do better.
For example, some customer support teams are very fast in pointing you to the articles in the knowledge base. Sure, these articles could be well-written but at times, having human touches such as helping out instantly goes a long way in making one's day and even building a strong satisfaction level. This is a known challenges that Gridpane faces and you can also see more users are more keen to post for help on their Facebook Group (for community support) instead of going through the support live chat.
Aside from that, Gridpane pricing is also rather steep, especially for their range. This is because while the entry level (Pro plan) is nicely capped at $30 per month, the developer plan is $100 per month which is a huge jump for many. You would most likely benefit much from the developer plan because it is comes with additional features including server security which is crucial.
We were rather hardcore Gridpane fans until we use RunCloud ourselves. To be honest, we know that there are many features of RunCloud but RunCloud can be rather complicated for beginners. For starters, RunCloud is great when you can write command codes. If you can't, the support team is there to assist (minus the communication time in between).
On the surface, RunCloud is very geared towards usability (the backend dashboard is beautifully crafted and the UI/UX is very pleasing). Under the hood, RunCloud offers one of the largest and most complex hosting control panel known to mankind.
Let's take a look at RunCloud backend system.
We are not going to lie to you. We feel in love (again) right after using RunCloud. But this RunCloud review is all about honesty and real comparison, so here goes.
For starters, RunCloud can be fairly complicated especially for beginners. Their dashboard is well-arranged with beautiful UI/UX. However, there are many options and can be rather challenging especially for first-time users.
Apart from the complex settings, it is important to understand that RunCloud is not a completely dedicated hosting control panel for WordPress. In other words, the development for RunCloud may not be entirely focused on WordPress.
There is no denial that both Gridpane and RunCloud are great hosting control panel tools. If you need some powerful comparisons, we hope you find this information useful.
| Gridpane | RunCloud |
|---|---|
| Hosting control panel dedicated for WordPress | Hosting control panel not dedicated for WordPress |
| Bundles feature helps to speed up WordPress installation | WordPress Canvas helps to speed up WordPress installation |
| Limited number of team members for developer plans and above (10 slots per Developer plan), and additional charges apply | Unlimited number of team members at no extra cost |
| Single VPS provider API per account | Multiple VPS provider APIs per account |
| Developer plan starts at $100 per month with white labeling starts from $1,000 per month. | Highest tier starts at $37.5 per month and custom tier is available (by contacting support) |
| Priority support via live chat and non essential support via email | Support via emails only |
| Gridpane offers 14 days free trial | RunCloud offers 5 days free trial |
| No yearly plan discounts for Gridpane | RunCloud offers annual discounts |
Last but not least, speed is something that we are fairly sensitive about.
So, is Gridpane faster than RunCloud?
The answer is "They are both on par." Take a look at the speed tests we did to compare both Gridpane and RunCloud.
On the left, it is Gridpane's score while the right is RunCloud's. Gridpane scored 473 ms and RunCloud scored 615 ms, both with full Redis cache turned on.
If you want to count on math, Gridpane loads around 30% faster (142 ms). We decided not to conclude that Gridpane is faster than RunCloud based on numbers since both of them are loading well below the 1 second mark.
Both Gridpane and RunCloud are excellent choices and you can't go wrong with either one of them. If we have to choose, we decided that RunCloud is the best option for us simply because they have better customer support, easier pricing structures and offers tons of different application frameworks that we could use at the same time.
There is no doubt that Gridpane is easier to use (beginner friendly) but RunCloud offers power, performance, customer support and excellent pricing that beats Gridpane anytime of the day.
