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DirectAdmin or cPanel
charlie_uk
Member
in Providers
Do customers prefer cPanel or are they happy with DirectAdmin?
Comments
Some customers prefer cPanel. Their preference doesn’t matter, use DirectAdmin.
All futures are unknown, but you don’t keep the dog that keeps biting your hand just because you don’t know if another might later.
I use both and can say by far that DirectAdmin is the best choice. cPanel limits me to buggy and useless CentOS and it's lame derivates while DirectAdmin runs perfectly fine on Debian and even FreeBSD. The dirty agreement between cPanel and Red Hat from over a decade ago when they dropped support for other distros made me hate it more and more each day so I'm glad there's good alternatives like DirectAdmin.
If you want to sell service to end users, use one that you are most comfortable with and know ins and out.
I recommend Directadmin @DA_Mark if you like the industry standard approach
I recommend APISCP @nem if you want to venture into unique and very different way of doing business.
Both are equally awesome and backed by solid folks.
Might as well go DA, so many companies are using their own panels these days, it doesn't make a difference...
The end is nigh on this one.
Customers on sites like this prefer DA because it is cheap, the majority use cPanel.
It depends a little bit on your target demographic, but the average shared hosting customer probably doesn't care about the specific control panel.
majority prefer cPanel. It's industry-standard.
few web-developers/tech-savvy prefer directadmin.
I've used both. But cPanel is smooth with all right features loaded.
I use directadmin for my VPS. But if I were a host, cPanel would be the preferred choice.
Depends on country. Germans prefer plesk if I rcall it correctly. Russian ispmanager. And of course there is a ton of in-house built solutions such as with giants like godaddy.
I recommend cPanel
I have been lurking here for a week or two, and I noticed the amount of circle jerking in here regarding directadmin and justifications of being cheap.
cPanel is just superior in every way, they update way more frequently (I mean just compare their changelogs), the interfere is way nicer on the root-end and consumer-end, more stable etc...
No person in his right mind would prefer directadmin over cPanel unless they are cheap.
This is the reason why so many here will never get big, if you can't afford their plan, then you probably won't be able to afford litespeed, cloudlinux and a very high quality server which will already put you behind, and make you stuck on a $2 per month hosting which will be closed in a few months.
Don't get me wrong, I think their pricing is hilarious compared to other software, but I think its a price worth paying if it means less tickets, less issues, and a better reputation overall, because it means more money in my pocket and less time to spend.
I could say that I just qualified for a CPanel educational license on one of the servers I manage... I will switch to it on that particular server because it's free and will prevent me from spending an extra $24 anually for the DA personal license. I prefer DirectAdmin though... APISCP is good too, just not as mainstream as the other two.
I'd choose DirectAdmin.
How long does an end-user spend in the control panel after initial setup? Create some email accounts, a database or two (or install something from Softaculous / Installatron / whatever), maybe a few other tasks and then for the most part, it would seem, they don't use the panel as much as they'll being to control their site through other means. (FTP, admin panel for whatever software they install, webmail or desktop client email, etc)
DA is pretty nice, and has pretty thorough and detailed documentation in my experience. The experience as an end user is similar enough to that of cPanel that they can hit the ground running. The admin backend is a bit wonky / strange, but you get used to it quick.
HA! I prefer DirectAdmin because it runs faster and doesn't require a primary domain for all other domains to live under in the file system. Lots of other reasons. The fact that its less expensive is just a bonus.
Cpanel is like cable TV. You have to pay for all the extra channels that you don't watch. Cpanel has a lot of features that nobody needs and actually ends up creating more tickets with customers asking "What does this do?"
That is your opinion. I actually use both and prefer DirectAdmin, installing RPMs from the control panel makes me feel... more incompetent... LOL. They intend to serve the same purpose. In the end, it all comes down to preference.
I think there is no need for a gui on admin side. It makes things painfully slow for even simple tasks. But, for end users, probably, CPanel still rules(compared to DA).
Atleast in upcoming DirectAdmin Pro pack hope DA guys will have a better UI theme for end users.
Tell whatever you want, it seems like you have an interest to say this since you sell
webhosting with directadmin
before cPanel raised their prices this high, nobody has even considered other options then cPanel and rarely Plesk, and directadmin was looked as a cheap knock-off
if I had to guess this is what happened after the prices were raised that made people praise DA so much:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coping
and you talk about it like you are the only one who uses DA but rather then a prescriptive of a seller, majority of customers are familiar with cPanel, and prefer it just because of its familiarity alone, which is in itself not a subjective thing, you could argue that DA has a better interface, but I would say otherwise, majority of hosts still use cPanel for a good reason, and again, your own opinion shouldn't matter as a seller, but rather what customers think when you sell a product and want to make a profit
also security and combability with other programs is also a massive factor, cPanel has been around since the 90s and is probably far more tested and secured then DA, I mean just look at their changelog, in 15 days cPanel improves/fixes/adds more then DA does in half a year
and I am not sure about speed, I didn't notice too much difference in the panel itself, but I remember DA being very buggy and hard to use, but that was in 2019 so I am not sure how its not and it can be subjective
also I have used most of the categories on their panel if not all at least once, I wouldn't say its like a TV cable, its very customizable and gives you full access on the WWH side, and on the customer's side its also good
eejit!
I prefer bash.
For one thing, it has a much more visually attractive interface than cPanel.
Giant Godaddy uses cPanel.
DA is about 20 years old.
You mean UI similar to cPanel, have you tried their ICON GRID layout for default theme ?
I'm not price sensitive but I've always hated cpanel from the start.
The last time I used it end users couldn't make anything other than A/CNAME. Maybe AAAA added later.
Subdomains and addon domains lived INSIDE YOUR HTML FOLDER (so example.com/y -> y.example.com, example2.com -> example.com/example2), equally atrocious things like that.
No Postgres support ? Never liked cpanel.. .
Of course, there's another way to look at that...
Maybe cPanel pushes slapdash crappy code out more and DA tests more.
Plesk!
We are all happy with Directadmin.
I have used directadmin in late 2019 and early 2020 and it was very buggy and hard to configure, I don't think this is the case, remember that both are control panels made out of things that are not under the company's control, if something like mysql, php, ngnix or the OS updates then it can break a few things that previously worked fine, which requires constant tweaking and bug fixes
Well I used to sell web hosting with Cpanel as well. So I do have real world numbers not just theories. I am going to use whatever the customers want. I don't give a crap if its DirectAdmin or Cpanel or any other control panel. I am going to use whatever I can sell.
ICON GRID layout..? I use it everyday bro.
means more money in my pocket and less time to spend.
That is wrong Only technically ignorant people do not see what a mess is cPanel ...
cPanel when they update 1 component like Exim they do version change vs DirectAdmin there is one line change in one file and new Exim is compiled from source and they do not announce version change for that
cPanel regularly happens to run on obsolete versions of software
Example before version 94 in early 2021 all cPanel servers run on exim 4.93 where that software was declared obsolete on Exim.org in November (If cPanel is declared industry standard that alone mean that standard is to run 3 months obsolete)
In a lot of the time cPanel hosts run on obsolete software version reasons for that is that cPanel is a cash cow product for their new owners (see the bold)
Some companies prefer cause you put your business in incertainty position if they choose to work with panel treated...
cPanel got security updates slow that DA due to how it is build
cPanel got support for newer software versions slower (~2 years late support for Centos 8 / CL) vs DA
cPanel do till now do not support correctly (they started to make attempts to support it with 5 years delay for network manager ) winch is essential for cloud virtual machines setup ...
P.S. The only reason people allowed cPanel to do such things as running on obsolete software versions is cause it was cheap ... and you do not complaint that cheap products lack a bit in quality ... but when they ask premium price for the same cheap sh*t and plan to make it even cheaper in the future it become no go zone ...