Opinions on BitNinja, cPGuard, and Imunify360? Confused About "Servers"

jb007

First, I understand the importance of using multiple servers for different purposes such as:

Enhance panel
Applications
Database
Email
Backups
DNS

Unfortunately, I've always put "all my eggs in one basket." Moving forward, I plan to use multiple servers. However, I've noticed that BitNinja, cPGuard, and Imunify360 all charge per server, as well as by the number of users and/or server specifications.

From an investment standpoint, the minimum monthly cost for 5 servers (with DNS handled by Cloudflare) would be:

BitNinja: $30 to $60
cPGuard: $55
Imunify360: $125

Beyond the cost, each platform offers different features and performance. Theoretically, one could end up paying $500+ per month for 5 servers if the platform meets all requirements.

Given these options and the ease of integration with Enhance, what are everyone's opinions on these platforms? Are they worth it? Do they significantly improve malware protection and security, or would hardening the server with something like UFW firewall be sufficient to some extent?

Also, going back to the first point, one could just have one server with everything on it and then pay just a fraction. But is the risk worth it?

Shaijee

jb007

Applications and databases should be on the same server to avoid connection issues between two different servers. You don't need BitNinja, cPGuard, or Imunify360 for backup, DNS, and Enhanced Panel servers.

Freezia

I think it would make sense to have something "Good" for your Application server but the rest of them a standard CSF would work just fine - from a cost perspective I couldn't see the need for something like Imunify360 for a "backup" server.

jb007

Freezia This is also true.

Basically set firewall records for other server ip addresses then only install the platform on application server? Perhaps also the emails, if needed.

ivansalloum

I would only go with cPGuard for the App server. Otherwise, no need. I use the DNS role only for staging websites. Clients use CF for DNS. The backup role doesn’t need a protection as well, follow only best practices.

Shaijee

ivansalloum I would only go with cPGuard for the App server.

How is the performance? I heard that cPGuard is resource-hungry.

ivansalloum

Shaijee No, it‘s not. Only BitNinja.

Shaijee

ivansalloum Is cPGuard fully integrated with Enhance or does it require some manual work to achieve full integration?

In other words, does the default cPGuard installation work seamlessly with Enhance Cluster or does it require additional steps for integration?

ivansalloum

Shaijee Yes, it is fully integrated. Check this link: https://opsshield.com/help/cpguard/installation-on-enhance-control-panel/

josedieguez

on this forum, cpguard spoke about a special pricing for Enhance system, asked them about that trough ticket, and got a reply about checking their prices on their website lol.

prasad0889

josedieguez It was Bitninja, who i remember, who spoke about per user pricing.
cPguard is much better as compared to bitninja. Bitninja is very resource hungry and uses up all the RAM.

opsshield

ivansalloum

Sorry for the late response. We collect data in 2 specific areas

Our billing system :- We use Blesta for our billing, invoicing, and ticketing which is compatible with GDPR ( https://www.blesta.com/2018/05/25/gdpr-and-blesta/ ). You can contact our agent any time to get the data of your client accounts, invoices, tickets, etc and you can also request the data deletion upon your decision to close the account ( after closing all liabilities pending ). The data stored are not shared with any third parties and are strictly limited to our own access only.
App Portal :- Here we do not store your personal information but it is collected from our billing system through APIs on demand. We store very limited information about server stats in the App Portal database ( https://opsshield.com/help/cpguard/data-privacy-and-security/ ). This data is also will be deleted permanently as soon as you uninstall cPGuard from your server.

Also, we do not store any of the above data in India. We host all our major servers in US ( we were using EU servers for billing but had to switch to US recently due to connectivity issues from certain countries ) and all data is stored accordingly with internal security policies.

Please note that our TOS is based on other similar documents that we referred to before preparing it and we do not think that we stand out here. So I have nothing else to comment on here but you may refer to any of similar software usage policies and ask for clarification verses our policies.

That said, we do respect the privacy and security of our client data, servers, and their assets and we take necessary steps to protect them. But I still understand that the privacy and security laws may vary based on your country and you can try us if you think we fit to the respective policies. Feel free to reply here or contact us through the support desk if you need any further details.

josedieguez

Can you help to point the thread as I cannot remember it? Many of our customers already know that we are quite flexible in terms of pricing ( based on current licensing terms ) ...since we are fully owned private and have no annual target to meet, we are happy to make such possible adjustments.

jb007

ivansalloum My only issue is they are not GDPR compliant.

or if they also provide a data processing agreement (DPA).

Also, not sure how imunify360 is since they are owned by CloudLinux within the USA - just my opinion.

ivansalloum

jb007 I contacted them now. Will see what they say.

slimx

Ivan please keep us in the loop i am also considering cpguard - but the GDPR issues i feel like will slap me somewhere in the ftuure lol

ivansalloum

slimx I haven't heard back from them about my email. Also, their legal page isn't very clear about what data they collect and how they use it. They keep saying that if anything goes wrong, they're not responsible and you're on your own.

ivansalloum

@opsshield Anything to share with us? Do you have any idea?

ivansalloum

I got this from a GDPR expert about cPGuard:

In general, I would not recommend this provider. The transfer of personal data to India is difficult under data protection law and the fact that the provider offers no guarantees whatsoever, but nevertheless collects considerable support data in case of doubt, but does not guarantee its security (and above all confidentiality), does not really make it any better.

You always have to think about the worst-case scenario. The provider has a massive bug in the latest patch that paralyses all your servers or, even worse, has security vulnerabilities that cause extreme damage to your customers. In such a case, you have no way of taking action against the provider. And the fact that they themselves say that they don't guarantee the security of their own software doesn't seem reliable to me, and I wonder whether they attach so little importance to security that they want to free themselves from all liability in advance?

Incidentally, in Germany such licence conditions for proprietary software would very probably be invalid. It's a bit like selling a car and saying that if the thing falls apart, that's your problem.

AdamM

Bitnija is now offering a new pricing for Enhance

Accordingly, to user feedback, BitNinja's pricing represents excellent value for the services and security features provided. For Enhance users, BitNinja offers domain/website-based pricing at $0.10 per website/domain (with a minimum billing threshold of $5). To enjoy this favorable pricing as an Enhance user, all you need to do is notify us. The special pricing must be approved manually by our team. This is why you won't see this pricing on our website or the Console UI. If you contact our support team at info@bitninja.io, through the console chat, or directly reach out to our Product Manager Mark Bacsko at mark@bitninja.io, we will manually apply the Enhance pricing plan to your servers.

Andreas

I found BN to be very resource hungry though.

slimx

Andreas That's lal ive heard too. BitNinja clobbers up cpu and ram apparently. I'm a bit stuck.

Monarx reckons it doesn't but i can't find any case studies and i tried reaching out to them, they just went straight for onboarding me though.