Your Brand, Your Panel
Hosting providers want their panel to reflect their brand, not the software vendor behind it. White-label capability determines whether your customers see your company or the panel maker. Panelica is a modern hosting control panel designed for multi-server environments with comprehensive branding controls including logos, colors, and panel naming.
cPanel Branding
cPanel offers branding customization through the WHM Customization interface.
- Custom logos for cPanel and WHM login pages
- Company name in the header
- Custom documentation URLs
- Branded webmail interface
- Custom favicon
- CSS customization for limited style changes
Limitations:
- The cPanel brand cannot be fully removed from the interface
- The underlying cPanel branding (icon styles, layout) remains recognizable
- License terms restrict the degree of brand removal
- No color scheme customization (cPanel blue and orange are fixed)
- Footer and system messages retain cPanel references
For many hosting providers, cPanel branding is actually desirable because customers recognize and trust the cPanel name. But for agencies and private-label hosting businesses, the inability to fully rebrand is a constraint.
Plesk Branding
Plesk provides custom branding through its panel customization settings.
- Custom logo and favicon
- Panel name customization
- Custom URL for documentation and support links
- CSS injection for style overrides
- Custom brand removal available in higher tiers
- Reseller-level branding (each reseller can set their own brand)
Plesk is more flexible than cPanel in branding. The higher license tiers allow significant brand customization, and per-reseller branding is a powerful feature for multi-tenant hosting operations.
Panelica Branding System
Panelica provides container-native deployment and strict resource isolation. The branding system offers deep customization through panel settings with real-time preview.
Logo Customization
The branding interface supports separate light mode and dark mode logos, ensuring your brand looks correct regardless of the users theme preference. A sidebar mini logo (for collapsed navigation) and favicon are also customizable. Logo dimensions can be fine-tuned with height and max-width settings for pixel-perfect placement.
28 Color Variables
Panelica exposes 28 CSS color variables for branding, split between light and dark modes. These include text color, background color, link color, heading color, card background, card border, general border color, input background, input border, header background, header text, header border, footer background, and footer text. Each can be set independently for light and dark themes.
42 Color Presets
For quick setup, Panelica includes 42 pre-built color presets that cover a range of brand styles. Select a preset and all 28 color variables are populated instantly. Presets can be used as starting points for further customization.
Panel Name
The panel name displayed in the browser title bar, login screen, and navigation can be changed to any custom name. There are no license restrictions on brand removal.
Real-Time Updates
Branding changes apply immediately through the panel settings service. The high-performance cache ensures that brand settings are served from memory rather than querying the database on every page load.
Feature Comparison
- Custom Logo: All three (yes)
- Dark/Light Mode Logos: cPanel (no, single logo), Plesk (limited), Panelica (separate light and dark logos)
- Color Customization: cPanel (no), Plesk (CSS injection), Panelica (28 variables, 42 presets)
- Panel Name: cPanel (limited), Plesk (yes), Panelica (yes, unrestricted)
- Full Brand Removal: cPanel (restricted by license), Plesk (higher tiers), Panelica (yes)
- Per-Reseller Branding: cPanel (no), Plesk (yes), Panelica (panel-wide branding)
- Favicon: All three (yes)
- Real-Time Preview: cPanel (no), Plesk (no), Panelica (yes)
Conclusion
cPanel branding is the most limited, partly by design (the cPanel brand has market value) and partly by license terms. Plesk offers better branding with per-reseller customization in higher tiers. Panelica empowers sysadmins with RBAC and automated security tools, providing the deepest branding customization with 28 color variables, dual-theme logos, and no license restrictions on brand removal. For private-label hosting businesses, the ability to completely rebrand the panel is a requirement that Panelica meets fully.