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Imunify360 vs cPGuard: My Real-Life Experience with Malware Protection
I manage hundreds of blogs, many of which have been affected by malware. These blogs are hosted across multiple shared hosting providers. Most providers utilize Imunify360 for malware protection, while a few, such as Racknerd and AsuraHosting, rely on cPGuard.
Over the past few months, I’ve observed that cPGuard performs exceptionally well in terms of malware protection, defending against bot attacks, and providing real-time security. On the other hand, while Imunify360 is a decent security solution, I’ve noticed a concerning pattern: it often allows malware to insert files into the website and inject malicious code into existing files. Imunify360 attempts to mitigate this by turning the inserted files into 0KB and removing the malicious code, but it doesn’t always succeed. Sometimes, this process inadvertently removes essential code, which can break the site.
In contrast, my blogs protected by cPGuard have never experienced code injections or the creation of malware-generated PHP files. These sites remain stable and unaffected by malware, whereas the blogs secured with Imunify360 frequently face issues and downtime.
Given my experience, I’m curious why more hosting providers don’t adopt cPGuard over Imunify360, especially considering that cPGuard is also a cost-effective solution.
The attached screenshots demonstrate how Imunify360 permits the creation of multiple malicious PHP files and code injections, only to struggle with removing them effectively.
https://ibb.co/VW8NMvk
https://ibb.co/CmqKKYv
https://ibb.co/H2pjcBC
These are just my views and wish to hear from all of you.
Regards
Comments
Im using both of them. Cpguard and imunfy360 in my server.
My experience with them are really good, cpguard has many false positive but good at Malware detection and imunify are good and almost didnt have any false positive.
My server are kept clean because of them.
Did you reach out to Imunify360 about this?
My experience working with them on any sort of issues with the product has generally always been a good one.
i have had very good experience with both, but already migrated from IM360 to CPGUARD.
IMO cPguard is much better, but I have been with them from the start.
IM360 is pretty, but as noted above I find cPguard to better protect with quick support and less server resources used.
I don’t have a CloudLinux account, and since I’m on shared hosting rather than holding a direct license, I doubt they would support or address my request.
Have you noticed similar PHP file issues, as shown here: https://ibb.co/VW8NMvk, on your shared hosting? I see you’re using Imunify360.
Good to hear that I'm not the only one who thinks cPGuard is much better!
Since you believe both are good, what were the specific reasons that led you to switch from Imunify360 to cPGuard?
Better bot/crawler protection on my testing, wich in some cases with IM360, left some accounts using all assigned CPU with just 1000's requests of crawlers or indexers.
what about bitninja?
BitNinja is a comparable solution to cPGuard but falls short in some key aspects. While BitNinja excels in protecting against DoS attacks with its robust features, it lacks the dedicated cPanel or DirectAdmin plugin interface that cPGuard offers, making it less integrated and user-friendly for hosting environments.
I still believe cPGuard stands as the top choice for comprehensive server security. While BitNinja and Imunify360 are better suited as secondary options.
Good to know this, Thanks for sharing your feedback.
Hi @Webrob -- I agree with your findings! We did quite a bit of testing including trying out Imunify360, before choosing cpGuard, and I overall echo with your statements (our experience with Imunify360 was less than ideal). cpGuard did however tick every box for both our clients and us, and it has been an excellent addition to our shared/reseller hosting platform for several years now
cpGuard is lightweight in terms of resource utilization, yet extremely effective. It also does a great job at combatting Wordpress vulnerabilities in shared hosting environments. The WAF with their Malware.expert ModSecurity rules works extremely well too.
By the way, their team is great to work with. They're receptive to feedback, support is fast, and their owner is also involved in the day to day operations, which is a plus.
It's great to hear feedback from industry leaders. I would like to invite all hosting providers to share their thoughts and insights on this matter. Your input is highly valued.
@Francisco
@NameCrane
@speedypage
@xHosts
@AndreiPerju
@labze
@ShockHosting
@HostMedia
@clay_p
@MrRadic
@alexhost
@speedypage
@PureVoltage
@SGraf
@CarloTav
@host_c
We have been using imunify360 for several years and have had no problems, their support team is very responsive and helped us with any problems we had.
I am soon setting up a new cPanel server and I am interested in trying CPGuard. I've had my fair share of issues with Imunify. I had it randomly block all available ports and cause havoc with system resources increasing the load on the server significantly.
I also have some annoyances with the interface from the admin side.
@labze , do share your feedback once you setup new cPanel server with cPGuard.
We haven’t tested it but I’ve eyed it a few times after the issues imunify caused with PHP last month.
We are provisioning some new nodes in the next few days. Maybe I give it a go there.
Francisco
That's great, when are you planning to set-up new nodes?
We actually have been planning on running some tests of CPGuard on some new servers coming in to compare it to Imunify360 and if it is a good replacement or to work together on our cPanel & DirectAdmin servers.
We don't have ETAs on this but happy to post any findings when we do have them
It's great to hear that you're considering giving cPGuard a try! I recall Asura Hosting migrated all their nodes from Imunify360 to cPGuard about two months ago, and as one of their customers, I’ve noticed that my sites are now significantly safer with zero downtime.
I recommend SafeLine.https://github.com/chaitin/SafeLine
I am sorry but the discussion is about Imunify360 vs cPGuard.
Are there any free or opensrouce alternatives for smaller servers? I am currently using ClamAV, not sure if it qualifies.
I'm not aware of any free or open-source alternatives at the moment, but I can confidently say that ClamAV is one of the worst products for protecting against malware and viruses.
Thanks for that. I am new to this. Maybe time to invest in some paid AV if my projects going large scale.
Opting for a paid antivirus solution is the best approach. The top three leaders in the market are cPGuard, Imunify360, and BitNinja.
Yes please..
I've been with you guys since the BuyShared era. You're doing very well, but Immunify sometimes bothers me. It leaves 0kb files everywhere (as OP mentioned), which successfully mitigated, but it's kind of like garbage splattered everywhere.
I can echo the exact same findings as you. We've had many customers join us where they have moved from a host utilising Imunify360, and cPGuard has picked up malware within their WordPress sites as soon as the file was uploaded. The files weren't massively obscured either, I'm talking about a base64 encoded PHP files that clearly had malicious actions and call home features within it.
The customers have always been unaware and Imunify360 has never alerted them to this matter. 10/10 for cPGuard, their support team has been amazing throughout also.
From my perspective, cPGuard has been a game changer, offering reliable protection and keeping sites safe from harmful code injections.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! It’s great to hear you’ve had similar experiences.
I completely agree—the 0KB files from Imunify360 can be really annoying to deal with. It's like cleaning up after a storm.
From my side, cPGuard has been much tidier, handling malware without leaving those remnants behind.
Let’s keep the discussion going.