Many hosting sites offer Softaculous or Fantastico. These two programs provide many different scripts for your use. Many free and some paid. Here is our view on Softaculous vs Fantastico
Most hosting companies offer one or the other. A few offer both. The number of scripts should not make a difference in the decision you make unless you need those extra scripts for your project. Look at what you need compared to what each offers before you make your final decision
Number of Scripts
When comparing Softaculous and Fantastico, the number of scripts can be over whelming
Fantastico offers over 650 scripts, Softaculous offers over 450. In our opinion the type of scripts are more important than just the numbers. Fantastico only provides PHP scripts, which makes the library a bit limited. Softaculous offers PHP, Pearl, JAVA and many other types of scripts. Some of the scripts with Softactulous include Ratings, Demos, Importing Apps from Auto-Installers and User Reviews
User Interface
As we look at both of these popular script installers, the user interface can be a time saver as well as a deciding factor. Softaculous is known for a better user interface than Fantastico, but they both provide very good options for the end user
Updates
With open source applications, you always get frequent updates because an entire community of users and developers constantly provide these updates. This helps to better secure your websites and helps you avoid spam. Softaculous provides frequent updates, whereas Fantastico updates the system, but not as often
Installation
Both Softaculous and Fantastico offer easy "one click" installations of their scripts. These are features many Hosting companies advertise because beginners like to be able to do things quick and easy. When looking at both, installation is about the same as they both provide fast installation of all scripts
Which One is Better?
The debate will no doubt continue forever and not everyone will say that one is better than the other, but most Hosting companies are slowly starting to migrate to Softaculous. Some of the benefits included with Softaculous you normally do not get with Fantastico include:
More than 450 scripts
New scripts added often
Open Source library
Easy to use Interface
Customizable Interface
Import scripts
JavaScript libraries
Backup apps
Demo versions of scripts
Fast Installation
And More
Conclusion
It is clear Softaculous has started to become more popular than Fantastico. Many hosting companies still use Fantastico and probably will. The Hosting Company you choose will make a difference and it is important to look at the features, including the script libraries. Make sure to compare all the features before choosing a Host and if you specifically need tools offered by Softaculous or Fantastico, make sure the right ones are included with your hosting account
We recommend Softaculous over Fantastico for the many features. In fact we offer it for free with all our web hosting packages
Softaculous maintains a comparison page at this website: Softaculous Compare. In addition, a majority of cPanel users (87%) also recommend Softaculous over Fantastico
Comments, questions or leave a reply
Kelly E
Thank you for sharing this information. I always thought Softaculous was a little bit better, and RSH Hosting prices is great
Hernando R
Very helpful and good information, we appreciate advise especially coming from professionals
Fab T
Thank you again and keep up the great work
Kelly Y
Very informative blog. Thank you for writing a clear article. Extremely helpful for new users, Thank you for sharing
Trina U
Very well explained post. Very informative and helpful
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