WebPros in an interview: WP Squared and WP Guardian

At CloudFest 2024 we had the opportunity to speak with Alexandra and Adam from WebPros. The company, known as the leading provider of web hosting control panels such as Plesk and cPanel, faces the challenges of modern SaaS platforms and is continuously developing new tools to improve the web hosting experience. Therefore, we talked in particular about the new developments WP Squared and WP Guardian.

ht: How many employees does WebPros have and how do you work together?
WebPros: WebPros employs 650 people. We operate in a decentralised way across different locations and work remotely. We are active daily on Slack and also hold regular quarterly meetings via Zoom. We meet in person several times a year, for example here at CloudFest.

ht: How many web hosting providers do you work with?
WebPros: Our network comprises more than 2,000 partners in total. On a daily basis we typically work with 20 to 30 partners.

ht: What are the biggest challenges for web hosting providers at the moment?
WebPros: Modern SaaS platforms such as Squarespace or Shopify currently pose the biggest challenge to traditional web hosting, and web hosts must work to avoid losing their customers to these user-friendly platforms.

ht: What is the market share of cPanel and Plesk?
WebPros: The market share is certainly significant. With regard to domains using one of WebPros' products, it's roughly one in three domains on the web, so around 33 per cent. Overall, we support over 7 million WordPress sites with our tools. That's even more than some of the well-known SaaS platforms.

ht: The two products WP Squared and WP Guardian are independent of your offered control panels — why?
WebPros: For a very long time, cPanel was a large toolbox offering many different tools for customers. However, as it grew in scope, the tool's operation became increasingly complicated. With both products the focus is therefore entirely on user-friendliness. Users should benefit from a better user experience and be able to focus on their own business.

ht: What are the advantages of WP Squared?
WebPros: cPanel has a long history, a huge user base and is used for a wide range of purposes. Therefore it is difficult to make changes to the software. We therefore keep the WP Squared base as simple as possible so that users can adapt it to their needs and enable the most user-friendly management. And because we focus exclusively on WordPress, we can optimise our software precisely for that and do not have to take into account legacy systems that are up to 20 years old, as is the case with cPanel.

ht: Is this an optional tool that web hosts can offer alongside cPanel and charge a monthly fee for?
WebPros: cPanel charges based on the number of user accounts. For every account that can log into the software there are costs. WP Squared, by contrast, bills on a per-domain basis. So when a WordPress instance is created, that instance incurs charges. We keep that WordPress instance secure and up-to-date at all times.

ht: What are the advantages of WP Guardian?
WebPros: The software was developed specifically for web hosting providers. Current security solutions for WordPress are all focused on a single WordPress installation. That makes it difficult to monitor a large number of WordPress installations across multiple servers from a security perspective. A single vulnerability, for example in a WordPress plugin on just one instance, can however jeopardise the entire infrastructure as a whole. WP Guardian offers a practical solution that enables web hosts to monitor their entire infrastructure for security risks from a single dashboard. WP Guardian automatically detects and inspects all WordPress installations on servers and webspace packages and continuously checks them against always up-to-date security parameters.

ht: So WP Guardian is used by the web host itself and the end user doesn't notice it?
WebPros: Yes, WP Guardian is integrated on the host side as a web server security solution and end users therefore notice no difference; they only benefit from the improved security. WP Guardian is not an end-user plugin but is integrated at the server level as a security solution. We offer the software only to our WordPress partners, starting with packages for monitoring at least 500 WordPress sites.

ht: Is WP Guardian offered only together with cPanel?
WebPros: No, WP Guardian is primarily aimed at web hosts who do not use cPanel or Plesk, because both of those control panels already include similar security solutions in the form of WP Toolkit.

ht: That brings us to WP Toolkit — what is it all about?
WebPros: WP Toolkit is a comprehensive management tool for WordPress websites that was first available for Plesk and later for cPanel. It offers a range of features to simplify the management, security and maintenance of WordPress installations via a single interface.

ht: So WP Guardian and WP Toolkit are very similar, except WP Guardian does not require cPanel or Plesk?
WebPros: Yes, WP Guardian contains a great deal of technology from WP Toolkit, but it is presented differently to the user. While WP Toolkit addresses the end user directly via Plesk or cPanel, WP Guardian is geared towards the web host or server operator.

ht: How long have you been working on WP Guardian?
WebPros: Last year we already presented a working MVP of WP Guardian at CloudFest. This year we are now fully live with the software. The same applies to WP Squared. We have already sold many licences this year as well.

ht: Great work from your team! How many developers were involved?
WebPros: For WP Square about seven or eight developers. In addition, several UX designers and UX developers were also involved. Overall around 10 to 12 people. We try to keep our teams at this size to be able to work quickly and efficiently.

Thank you for the interview!

The interview was conducted by Marco Keul with Alexandra Prokhorova and Adam Wien from WebPros, on 20 March 2024 at CloudFest in Rust, in English.

Further information:

WP Guardian screenshots etc.: https://webpros.com/partners/the-ultimate-wordpress-security-with-wp-guardian/

WP Squared screenshots etc.: https://webpros.com/partners/high-performance-wordpress-management-with-wp-squared/

Photos: WebPros