Can someone tell me the difference between these 2 control panels...assuming they both use the sam PHP and MySQL? Thanks in advance.
I have used both, from experience cPanel has been the most stable and user friendly of the two, don't get me wrong both do the job, I just had a much better options and performance out of cPanel, and its cheaper more compatible with all others.
I'm running both, and also - using virts or freebsd jails you could demo these products. I could possibly help with this.
I wouldn't say that cPanel is "the best". It is probably the most used hosting control panel but Plesk is very good solution and it works very good on VPS hosting accounts powered by Virtuozzo.
From an administrative standpoint I enjoyed the features that Plesk gave me as an admin user, but cPanel was great when offering to clients. Plesk has a nicer looking interface, but I found clients had a hard time figuring out how to access their various functions due to the separate client and domain management interfaces. Depending on your needs, the both offer something similar, but in the end you'll decide what suits your situation better.
Plesk is a mess...it took me hours to understand the basic functions, when I first used it. I'd recommend cPanel..