About Softaculous

Softaculous is a commercial script library that automates the installation of commercial and open source web applications to a website. Softaculous scripts are executed from the administration area of a website control panel, typically via an interface tool such as cPanel, Plesk, H-Sphere, DirectAdmin and InterWorx. Softaculous applications typically create tables in a database, install software, adjust permissions, and modify web server configuration files.

Softaculous targets open-source software and is available in Free and Premium license versions. The free version supports 46 scripts. The Premium version has 436 scripts and 1115 PHP Classes. The premium license version costs $1.5/month for virtual servers and $2.5/month for dedicated server. Discounted prices are available from web hosts.

For some users, installing software on a server with the command line can seem intimidating.  Softaculous provides a graphical interface with trusted scripts to make installation easier.  As a web host, with just a few clicks, you can empower your web hosting customers to manage their own software and trust that it will be kept up to date.

Including Softaculous as part of your hosting packages can enhance your services without adding significant cost. Their free plan includes 59 popular scripts, and their paid plans include over 200, making it easy for your users to install the software packages they desire most on their own cPanel & WHM servers.

If you have your own server that doesn’t include Softaculous, you can also install it yourself to provide quality-of-life improvements for your own server administration. Softaculous provides step-by-step documentation for installing Softaculous on the command line.

How to Install Softaculous on Your cPanel

Installing Softaculous from scratch requires root access via SSH to your server, if it isn’t preinstalled by your hosting provider. Softaculous provides an installation guide with specific instructions. Once you have connected via SSH, execute the following commands:

  1. wget -N http://files.softaculous.com/install.sh
  2. chmod 755 install.sh
  3. ./install.sh

You should now be able to access the Softaculous interface on your server.

Using Softaculous to Install WordPress

If you log in to WHM, you can specify which scripts are available to your users, but you cannot install any software. You will need to log in to cPanel (not WHM) to install WordPress using Softaculous. In cPanel, Softaculous Apps Installer can be found under “software” or by searching for Softaculous.

Softaculous is very easy to use.  It has multiple layers of settings you can customize to suit your needs, and it allows you to install hundreds of software titles with just a click and a few simple steps. If you hover over the software you wish to install, in this case WordPress, it will display information about the application and an install button.  Click the install button.

Once you’ve clicked Install, it will walk you though the options for your WordPress site.  You can choose to hit the “quick install” button to use some generic presets that can be changed later, or you can specify the options on the screen, including site name and base theme, before clicking Install at the bottom.

With a few easy clicks, you will have your site up and running.

Softaculous is a Powerful Addition for your cPanel

Throughout this process, we’ve shown that using Softaculous can be advantageous for both independent server owners and web hosting providers alike. They are known to provide quality, timely support, and keep their products up-to-date. It’s a robust tool that offers excellent improvements to make server management easier with automatic updates and one-click installations.  If you’d like to join the discussion about this blog or any others, we can be reached on Discord, Reddit, and our cPanel Forums, as well as on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.