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If cPanel hadn't changed its pricing structure, DirectAdmin would have become an unsuccessful history of control panel by now.
Pointless to have DA if some open source control panels do have the same features, example: hestiacp - impossible to change complex settings without SSH, exactly the same as in DA control panel.
Why you say that?
I tested and I like it...
CloudLinux is fully supported with his features... Like php selector, nodejs selector... etc.
https://webuzo.com/docs/installing-webuzo/install-cloudlinux-os/
Lol, bet your 5$ per year customers are happy asf.
Don't get too hard on them.
It was the same for DirectAdmin. Some providers in some communities recently started moving to Webuzo primarily because its UX is similar to cPanel, as some moved to DA after cPanel's price hike primarily because DA would cost $5 per server. Many of both parties are low cost providers.
Providers that charge more can afford cPanel or build their own panels. Very few people move to DA/Webuzo because they like them better than cPanel.
DirectAdmin had an advantage as there was no viable alternative to cPanel in the industry. Webuzo, on the other hand, faces steep competition. And its price is not as low as DA's at the time of cPanel's price hike.
Webuzo is backed by a team that has years of experience in developing industry leading server software. That's an advantage. Like DirectAdmin, Webuzo is heavily under development and releases new versions almost every month. It is natural that Webuzo will have issues.
If you were having any issues, what were the deal breakers?
I love the modern look of Directadmin and so do my clients. The api is fairly easy to understand as well. I do all my management via the api and even built a wordpress/woocommerce plugin in order to avoid paying for WHM. I've even hooked into namesilo and dynadot for domain sales and built my own DNS Manager.
directadmin is good, I use a directadmin reseller plan and so far I like the panel and so have my customers. Cpanel is good too but some people think its overrated and expensive.
didn't notice this was an old thread, my bad.
In last version (1.664) they started showing "This server is running DirectAdmin legacy codebase, which receives limited development" message on main default login screen.
I'm not even sure how to comment it...
The user interface is just embarrassing ... And technically, behind it, it's a gas factory ... Anyway, that's how I remember it, I sometimes use it with MxRoute, and every time I grumble ...
They were a very good option until they went crazy after the Cpanel price hike that apparently went up to their head.
Now they are nearly as expensive as Plesk and the trick they played to their legacy customers is really wrong. Every quarter now brings a new feature to bother lifetime licence holders.
First they disabled support for latest MariaDB (and it's not just not including it in the installer, it is also preventing you from installing it yourself, they put time and code to achieve this..)
Now they added a message to the login screen, without informing anyone.
(not that they ever really communicate about anything)
I guess the next crippling will be RHEL 9 or PHP 8.4, who knows.
If they do that to their oldest customers that supported them in the beginning, what are they capable of throwing to the whole customerbase next ?
More reading for those interested : https://forum.directadmin.com/threads/what-is-the-future-for-legacy-directadmin-license-holders.69159/
I used to recommend them to everyone, now I would advise caution.
Directadmin withdrew new datacenter licenses sometime ago and no one resells them anymore, OVH or Hetzner have only cPanel/Plesk so maybe DA now are trying to make up for it on old users somehow?
Few days ago cPanel announced to their datacenter customers that they will still support CentOS 7 for small additional fee and it's great idea. They really seem to care about customers and know they needs - updating a lot of servers is PITA and sometimes even not possible when people still using some old features.
Meanwhile, DirectAdmin will probably unplug custombuild and updates to their product almost immediately after CentOS 7 EOL just like they did with version 6 and instead adds annoying messages on login screen.
To remove it go to Customise>Login Page > Style and put
html.vue-app.root:login.mode:dark .LegacyLicense {
display: none;
}
html.vue-app.root:login.mode:light .LegacyLicense {
display: none;
}
I preferred cPanel before it was acquired and its price increased. But then I found that DirectAdmin can also meet the daily hosting requirements. For reseller hosting, DirectAdmin is undoubtedly the more affordable option, and you can assume that your users don't actually need as many of the advanced settings provided by cPanel
.
cpanel is more easy and poweful，but expensive
Folks, as much as I criticize DA, I also praise them where they deserve. They offered a viable alternative when cPanel hiked their prices to an unbearable level. Many folks would simply have to close shop or go bust if it was not for DA.
Many of you know that I criticized their decision of deprecating lifetime and data center licenses many times.
But if this is your only reason for abandoning DA, and you are otherwise happy with its features, I would suggest you to reconsider.
A business needs to maximize profit every way they can. Any alternative control panel you can find, will eventually do the same after they gain some significant market share.
Because for a business, maximizing profit is the primary goal. As much as I dislike it, it is nothing out of the ordinary. Happened many times before, in many industries, and will repeat again across the board.
@MechanicWeb There are lot ways to make profit other than limiting licenses of the users who funded business for them when they were just starting out.
Why does the competition have datacenter licenses and Directadmin stopped offering them?
I think being able to buy license directly from Hetzner or OVH would give them plenty of customers.
Why they don't allow to resell their licenses when all competitors do? cPanel have hundreds of partners. When it comes to DA when you search for cheap license in Google you will find a lot of sites which are selling shared licenses (which were supposedly going to be eliminated when they changed their licensing system and all they did was make life harder for regular users - I had to move many CentOS 6 32 bit hosts to 64 bit because they stopped working one day without real warning) instead of legit ones.
Why did they withdraw the cheap license for one user?
Why can't you buy yearly technical support for old licenses?
Etc etc...
In reality, I don't need fancy and buggy evolution skin, new way to administer databases or file manager on my lifetime license. What I need is to have basic functions working properly and security updates of all components.
Because DirectAdmin started to offer up to -40% for the licenses, and it prevents illegal use, is available for everyone and I'd say it'd more fair than having "special deals with just some DCs". If you have many licenses, and you aren't a DC - you get normal license for 10 domains for $5-40%=$3/mo, 50 domains license for $9/mo and unlimited license for $17.4/mo. These new types of licenses (10 domains and 50 domains) were also introduced just ~4 years ago or so. Every DC who spent something on licenses every month still has a way to get this pricing. Every person who has many licenses - get this pricing. No illegal reselling, no black market anymore, no unfair game for new hosting companies that cannot compete with the old ones. If you think this pricing is unfair and expensive - may you give some suggestions? I am unaware of Plesk/cPanel offering something like this or prices like that for dedicated servers.
@smtalk
I'm paying 11 Euro for Plesk Web Pro in OVH. Unlimited Web Host license cost around 20 EUR. So it's 40-50% cheaper than regular price on Plesk website. I have it on one invoice with server. Easy and pleasant.
CPanel is also available at a discounted price. DirectAdmin is not available at all - OVH stopped offering it after licensing changes.
I still have several DA legacy licences with VPS providers like BuyVM and this licenses are slowly becoming unusable without any real reason.
With Plesk and Cpanel I have clear EOL policy on their website. And EOL means no support for new functions, not disabling old ones.
DA? No way. I have to search the forums because even the official website often contains incorrect information. License errors, logs not rotated, backups not made when I skip updating in 2-3 months. And if I update there's constant suprises like message about legacy license on login screen and broken file manager now...
So you really think I should bother and buy new Directadmin license directly from their site without discount for 15 or 29$? Unfortunately, I am actively discouraged from doing so.
And as I mentioned there's still shared license around, even in google ads and that is real black market IMHO. Not that someone reselled paid datacenter license. The fight is not with those who need it.
I'm paying 11 Euro for Plesk Web Pro in OVH. Unlimited Web Host license cost around 20 EUR. So it's 40-50% cheaper than regular price on Plesk website.
Plesk public price for Web Host Edition (Dedicated) seems to be 57Eur/mo. If you pay 11Eur/mo for it, does it mean the discount is 80.80% ? DA unlimited without any special deals, with 8 standard licenses is $29-40%=$17.4, google says it's 16.11Eur. So, you're right, if we're really comparing 80.80% DC discounts?
Bugs happen everywhere, of course it'd be the best to have as little as possible of them. Changelog entries of plesk also show that they happen there, don't they? Quote from changelog:
Thank you for your input!
@smtalk I have Plesk cloud license in OVH, Directadmin AFAIR sells only one type of licenses. It's another strange choice on their part. Of course Plesk and every software has bugs but mostly minor ones which I don't even noticed. What is happening with DA recently reminds me cPanel in the early 2000s - too much updates broke something or require actions on user part.
@rdes sorry I misread your initial post. Web Pro has a limit of 30 domains, DA Lite has a limit of 50 domains. https://www.plesk.com/pricing/ shows 20Eur/mo price externally, and DC gets a discount so that they could sell for 11Eur/mo.
So, if we're comparing this type, it's 13.89Eur ($15) on DA site without any discounts, and you may get up to -40% if you purchase more licenses, it means you can get it for 8.33Eur ($9). So, DA doesn't seem to be more expensive? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
@smtalk The main problem is I need only few, not 35 licenses so I won't get 40% discount
. And I don't know company that offers VPS or dedicated servers with not-legacy DirectAdmin licenses at discounted prices.
There used to be a lot of them, but since DA phased out old licensing scheme I really don't see any.
@smtalk you seem to be incredibly focused on arguing about hypothetical pricing. Why don’t you focus on answering some of the questions to your ‘legacy licence’ holders as per the linked forum post or even post here. No real replies on there, other than from someone called fin who seems confrontational which says more about the DA teams future focus towards existing license holders
For just a few there is -15%. $15-15%=$12.75, which is 11.79Eur. So, a similar to DC price, without a DC? Of course, you had other arguments, and I understand that price is just a piece of a puzzle.
No, I was focused on actual pricing, not hypothetical, as I was interested into that. I'm not sure why someone would expect a nice talk and answers, when confrontation starts from the first sentence?
Do you mean there was no input from me there?
As I remember making answers there. I also remember asking @rdes "may you give some suggestions?" just a few posts above.
I really had interest to talk with @rdes, and it seems he had the interest as well. Everyone has a right to have their own belief what is true.
DirectAdmin is a budget-friendly option compared to cPanel, offering similar features but with a different user interface. Deciding between DirectAdmin and cPanel for reseller hosting ultimately comes down to your individual requirements and preferences. As time goes on, the control panel model is becoming increasingly decentralized.
You are correct on many points. But a business will make use of all the ways when it is seeking to maximize profit. A friend can be a savior. A business is a business. That's how I see it.
You can talk about many other, but the UX is what many users didn't like. And as you can see from the response from a DA staff, they have always been defensive about it. Perhaps they don't see that replying in that manner doesn't help.
Which brings to where we are now. Even though DA is a good control panel, many are not happy with it, and are seeking alternatives.
i get why people with old lifetime licenses are mad, i see that too on directadmin forums. and there may be cases with 1 license, 10 liceneses or 100s licenses, for sure.
but hosts, can still use 1 DA License for what? $25? and host 1.000 accounts. while with cpanel that cost is like $220 lol
I think with cPanel efficiency and features i could easily justify that cost increase, if it saves me time (money). It’s not a true like for like.
That is correct.
Even after consecutive price hikes every year, cPanel dominates the shared hosting market. From big providers to small, from seasoned sysadmins to beginners, many of them prefer cPanel because of less management headache, streamlined workflow and UX.
cPanel has now launched WPSquared, which costs more than cPanel. The way they are doing it, WPSquared is set to have more users in the next year or so than the entire userbase DA accumulated over the past years.
People aren't afraid to pay the price if done right. That's what DA needs to change.
nah, for my case, i'm pretty small, with just 5k customers, i can't justify that, waste of money $200USD extra per server, lol