Why Softaculous is better than Fantastico
In this article, I’ll be explaining the benefits of using Softaculous over Fantastico.
Softaculous
If you haven’t heard of it already, Softaculous is a ‘one-click’ auto-installation platform which integrates with various control panels such as cPanel and Plesk.
Rather than having to manually access the server via FTP, then upload the installation files for the script such as MySQL databases, auto-installers such as Softaculous allow you to simply browse through an online ‘catalogue’ of scripts and applications. Should you wish to install one of them, you simply click Install, then fill out a few textboxes with any required information (If you wanted to install WordPress for example, you would enter a username, password, database name etc.)
There are a wide variety of scripts which can be installed, ranging from project management tools to CMS platforms such as WordPress and Drupal.
Key features:
- Easy to use
- ‘One-click’ installation of programs
- Over 300 scripts (more being added on a regular basis), compared to the 50 or so that Fantastico has to offer
- Scripts are regularly updated (especially open-source scripts as there is a very active community for these)
- Good user interface which is friendly for beginners
- All installation settings can be edited through the user interface
- Backup & restore tool
- Demo scripts before installing them on your server
- Good technical support and community forums
The top 10 most downloaded scripts/apps listed on their website include WordPress, OpenCart, Drupal, SMF, Magento and of course WHMCS which is useful if you have a reseller account and are looking to setup a web hosting company.
Fantastico De Luxe
So let’s compare it to Fantastico.
Fantastico is a similar piece of server-side software which again allows you to install programs with a single click. However, the user interface is very plain compared to that of Softaculous.
As far as scripts go, there are only around 50 compared to the 310 for paid and 54 for the free version (at time of writing) that Softaculous has to offer. So even if you decided to go for the free version of Softaculous, you would have access to more scripts than you would paying a considerable amount for Fantastico.
Also, Fantastico doesn’t offer any technical support, so if you have any issues with the software you may not be able to find a resolution.
Overall:
This is why we recommend Softaculous, and offer it free as standard with our web hosting and reseller plans. If you have a VPS with us, we can offer Softaculous from as little a $2.00 extra per month, and if you have a dedicated server with us, we can offer Softaculous as an upgrade for just $4.00/month. In both cases, our technical team will install the software free of charge.
Furthermore, the majority (87%) of cPanel users would also recommend it (see the results of a forum poll below) over Fantastico:
Softaculous also have their own comparison page here: http://www.softaculous.com/softaculous/compare
If you’d like to try Softaculous for yourself, you can also try a free demo here: http://demo.softaculous.com/
Sources:
http://forums.cpanel.net/f34/softaculous-vs-fantastico-153405.html
Was this article helpful?