I think that most of us here will agree that cPanel is an incredibly successful piece of off-the-shelf hosting software - many consumers have grown to know and love it, and it's pretty much become normal for a host to offer it with their hosting packages these days compared to other off-the-shelf alternatives.

I'm a cPanel host myself, but I've always been interested in trying out other software available on the market. From what I can see, DirectAdmin is very much a love/hate affair, but I have seen it being implemented with a few other well known hosts on this forum with great success....

Do you think that a control panel on offer is enough for a great number of prospective clients to turn away, or do you think that most people choose their host on the basis of reviews, features, price, uptime and other factors? Are clients so used to being offered cPanel that they have become used to accepting it?

I really appreciate your views!

We offer both. 75% of our clients choose cPanel in the beginning, because they are used to it. However, once they try DirectAdmin they are almost always a convert.

IMO, DA is superior to cPanel in every way. In fact, we're slowly phasing cPanel out all together and hope to have it completely removed from our offers within a year.

I've never had a client complain about DirectAdmin...

But... to answer your question, yes, just offering DirectAdmin scares some clients away. People are scared of change and want to stick with what they know.

We offer both. 75% of our clients choose cPanel in the beginning, because they are used to it. However, once they try DirectAdmin they are almost always a convert.

IMO, DA is superior to cPanel in every way. In fact, we're slowly phasing cPanel out all together and hope to have it completely removed from our offers within a year.

I've never had a client complain about DirectAdmin...

But... to answer your question, yes, just offering DirectAdmin scares some clients away. People are scared of change and want to stick with what they know.

Ahh wish I could say we have had the same experience. We tend to get the crowd who wants to "try Directadmin out" because its cheaper. They quickly figure out they have no idea what they are doing, and they come back to us soon after requesting us to reimage their machine/VPS with cPanel. Like I said, this is our personal experience, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

That being said, DirectAdmin is a very lightweight, feature rich control panel, and is a excellent alternative to cPanel if you have the time to learn to use it.

Ahh wish I could say we have had the same experience. We tend to get the crowd who wants to "try Directadmin out" because its cheaper. They quickly figure out they have no idea what they are doing, and they come back to us soon after requesting us to reimage their machine/VPS with cPanel. Like I said, this is our personal experience, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

That being said, DirectAdmin is a very lightweight, feature rich control panel, and is a excellent alternative to cPanel if you have the time to learn to use it.

I can honestly say we've never had a client ask to switch back to cPanel *knock on wood*. But that could just be our target market.

I've talked other companies who are trying to convince their clients to make the switch, namely Scott from PowerMonster. On several occasions he has offered incentives to his cPanel clients to try DA (like a three month credit I believe) and from what I understand they normally stay with DA as well.

All DA has to do is focus on a new interface that clients will be more comfortable using. Its a great control panel :)

All DA has to do is focus on a new interface that clients will be more comfortable using. Its a great control panel :)

true. I think the main reason people prefer cpanel if your not using shared hosting like a vps or better is because everything is easy to configure and install. What I have seen is people offering discounts for directadmin plans because it uses less resources and you are able to fix more clients on it. From what I heard it increased there customer rate by about 8% by offering both and gave them a 5% increase in yearly profits. That is not bad just for using a different panel.

I can honestly say we've never had a client ask to switch back to cPanel *knock on wood*. But that could just be our target market.

I've talked other companies who are trying to convince their clients to make the switch, namely Scott from PowerMonster. On several occasions he has offered incentives to his cPanel clients to try DA (like a three month credit I believe) and from what I understand they normally stay with DA as well.

Yes, we have been very successful in getting our cPanel clients to switch with our incentives. Each time we offer it, we get another 5-10 switchers and so far each and everyone has preferred DA to cPanel. We, too, are looking to phase out cPanel.

I find cPanel's whm very unintuitive to use. I hate having to log into a separate site to manage a user. DA's admin/reseller/user panels are all very-well integrated with each other. I also like the ease that I can assist a client from within DA. I don't need to know their password to access their user panel and use it FULLY as if I were them. With cPanel, unless you have their password, accessing their cpanel from the master whm is very restrictive and you really can't do much to assist them. Not to mention how easy DA is on system resources.

Most of my clients find the streamlined interface of DA to be a nice change from all of the options/icons available on cPanel and so far, there is NOTHING cPanel can do that DA can't do. It's all there, just in a different location or with a different name.

Firstly, thanks to everyone for contributing to this thread.

From what I gather, some clients do tend to initially stick with what they know, and I'm never going to consider scrapping my existing cPanel hosting offerings. Nevertheless, you guys seem to feel that DA is a viable alternative, which is great news - I'm going to try to familiarise myself with it over the coming few weeks...

Some of you mentioned the DA UI being poor, so I was wondering if some clients would prefer a custom skinned version, or if they would object to that? I don't want people to become even less familiar with a lesser known hosting environment...

Thanks!

Having used cpanel since the beginning, the switch to DA was quite a pleasant surprise. Core functions to manage databases, addon domains, emails etc are handled much much better in DA.

What I like in DA, from a user's standpoint
1. DA loads wayyyyyyy faster than Cpanel
2. The functions are well organized and easily accessible unlike Cpanel's clutter
3. Multi domain implementation is just how it should be

What I dislike
1. The default theme has some really queer navigation placement
2. The file manager is pale in comparison with cpanel's ( cpanel has directory tree listing, easier copy move delete)
3. Lack of features ( poor implementation of stats, IP banning, etc)
4. Phpmyadmin requires you to manually login again

And finally my biggest gripe with DA is that, there's too few DA hosts around! Will be difficult to find a comparable DA host should anything happen to my current one. Its really hard to switch back to Cpanel after you've experienced the simplicity of DA.

Hopefully you won't have to switch providers any time soon! ;)

Yes indeed Scott! They've been excellent so far :)

Direct Admin is a very solid Control Panel with many features.
Its Fast, east to use, Priced very nice.
I give it 2 thumbs up.

If I had more thumbs, I would give it more thumbs up! :)

We have been offering DA servers since 2004, great software, responsive developers all at an awesome price.

We've always provided cPanel, I've looked in DA but it lacks quite a few features compared to cPanel. Also, the interface hasn't been updated in years, I think it really is time they get someone to work on a decent design/skin for it.

What features do you think DA lacks?

I actually like the elegant theme, but there are people working on other themes for DA.

The older theme (not set as default) is AWFUL, but the default install has the elegant theme set up. And I actually prefer a theme without a lot of pics because it loads more quickly and sometimes the icons can lead to confusion.

We also use and love Directadmin and think it's fantastic. I personally tried cPanel a few years back and hated it - very bloated. Disregarding that, what actual features does cPanel have over on Directadmin that make it so popular? (disregarding familiarity, more navigable theme (arguably) and that lots of people are just used to it).

I cannot find anything that cpanel can do that DA can't. On the WHM side of things, DA doesn't hold your hand with all of those easy scripts to configure your server, but the scripts DA has aren't that complicated. Other than that, I can't find any differences at all.

I was talking mainly from an admin point of view, in WHM there are many features that DA doesn't have. Also, and I may be wrong here, but I believe DA comes with Webalizer stats (which are completely useless), whereas cPanel includes Awstats as standard.

DA comes with both. Most of what WHM has over DA is still in DA, just not in the web interface. We also have easy scripts to do a lot of the configuring of the server.

The problem with the way cPanel handles is is that many a non-admin can feel confident that they can admin a server because of all the "wizards" whm has. The issue with that is that if whm were ever inaccessible, many wouldn't know what to do having rarely or never ventured into administering their server from the command line.

Also, WHM is a totally different product than cpanel. They don't even look like they've been created by the same developer. With DA, the user, reseller, and admin panels are tightly integrated with each other which makes for better, more cohesive and more intuitive administering.

I was talking mainly from an admin point of view, in WHM there are many features that DA doesn't have. Also, and I may be wrong here, but I believe DA comes with Webalizer stats (which are completely useless), whereas cPanel includes Awstats as standard.

DirectAdmin AND cPanel both come with only Webalizer enabled by default ;) You actually have to enable it under both, under WHM this is located within 'Tweak Settings' and in DirectAdmin you just do it with Custombuild which takes all of 2 seconds if you know what you are doing.


The problem with the way cPanel handles is is that many a non-admin can feel confident that they can admin a server because of all the "wizards" whm has. The issue with that is that if whm were ever inaccessible, many wouldn't know what to do having rarely or never ventured into administering their server from the command line.


Yep, cPanel makes everyone who shouldn't be administering a server think they can. I much prefer to take control of my environment.

In my opinion, however, the custombuild system within DirectAdmin surpasses anything cPanel has in a million years. It allows you to install/upgrade any of the core services when you want very quickly. It also allows you to take total control of your environment by allowing you to edit the various build configs of PHP and Apache.

I cannot find anything that cpanel can do that DA can't. On the WHM side of things, DA doesn't hold your hand with all of those easy scripts to configure your server, but the scripts DA has aren't that complicated. Other than that, I can't find any differences at all.

Yeah, any true systems admin would much prefer to manage stuff from a command line than from a web interface. DirectAdmin does not seem to "cater" to the newbie "sysadmins" but seems to be more interested in developing a VERY powerful platform which does not bloat your server and require 512MB memory to create an email account ;)

I totally and 100% agree with Daniel! :D

Yes, direct admin may be more appleaing to admins, but sucks for 1 reason:

It doesn't have the end-user interface that cpanel does. At the end of the day it's about business and money. There aren't any large hosting shops selling direct admin. I'd say the majority of hosting companies don't even offer it.

Yes, direct admin may be more appleaing to admins, but sucks for 1 reason:

It doesn't have the end-user interface that cpanel does. At the end of the day it's about business and money. There aren't any large hosting shops selling direct admin. I'd say the majority of hosting companies don't even offer it.

Not one of my customers has complained about it thus far. Some submit tickets regarding issues that they cannot do which are easily doable via their control panel. We then ask them whether they'd like us to just do it for them or whether they'd like an explanation as to how to do it.

You're correct about the business and money side, which Directadmin wins again for being reasonably priced instead of extortionate. And for your information, OVH have just started selling and supporting Directadmin - which is great news for them and for the hosting industry as a whole.

cPanel's interface is bloated, slow-loading, and non-intuitive. Many of those icons have NOTHING to do with what they represent. A skin does not make or break a software especially when you can change them either on cpanel or on DA.

Most of my clients (layman or lower technical skilled users) prefer cPanel over DA, although I personally prefer DA.

I cannot find anything that cpanel can do that DA can't. On the WHM side of things, DA doesn't hold your hand with all of those easy scripts to configure your server, but the scripts DA has aren't that complicated. Other than that, I can't find any differences at all.

DA doesn't do per email account email forwarding.

cPanel's interface is bloated, slow-loading, and non-intuitive. Many of those icons have NOTHING to do with what they represent. A skin does not make or break a software especially when you can change them either on cpanel or on DA.

You do know there are "light" themes for cpanel that comes default right ?

DA is light and easy, cPanel has too many features sometimes you find yourself lost :P

Yes, I am aware it has light themes, but most stick with the default.

What do you mean you can't do per-email-account mail forwarding? Explain. :)

DA doesn't do per email account email forwarding.

E-Mail Management -> Forwarders

I thought that's what the person was talking about but couldn't believe that's what they were talking about. Yup! DA can do that!

As well as email piping, forwarding to a blackhole or a fail.

E-Mail Management -> Forwarders

I thought that's what the person was talking about but couldn't believe that's what they were talking about. Yup! DA can do that!

As well as email piping, forwarding to a blackhole or a fail.

Nop, that only works when you have the domain account's access.

Also, DA also doesn't do per account email filters that isn't webmail client specific.

If you are a DA user, why wouldn't you have the domain account's access?

When you are a user you get the access to the panel for your domain unless the person giving you access has turned it off. I don't get what you mean.

If you are a DA user, why wouldn't you have the domain account's access?

When you are a user you get the access to the panel for your domain unless the person giving you access has turned it off. I don't get what you mean.

Because you won't have access if you are a email user.

With cpanel, all email user have their own specific settings when they are logged in webmail. With DA, not possible.

Not sure if Cpanel has this feature embedded on webmail skins by default but this can probably be done by using their email API , CMD_EMAIL_FORWARDER if you're using DA.

Both have their place and both have their plus and minus sides, it comes down to preference. cPanel is MUCH more user friendly honestly than DA I believe both on an admin and end user level. We have used both for years and it is a toss up really as to what is truly better. A well tuned cPanel server runs just as fast as a DA server.

The IP management and Backup system of DA I have always found annoying. That has been my biggest complaint. I have never had a cPanel backup that didn't work and recently we had a whole DA server of backups that were junk, thank goodness for multiple backups. Their restore system is severely limited though and it needs a LOT more attention.

The biggest plus for cPanel is they have real support. DA is very lethargic on getting back with you and no real direct way to get them online. Posting on the forums is very hit or miss. On cPanel there seems to be a lot better community, especially with guys like Chirpy around. :)

Really it is all preference and what you as the host wants to support.

for cpanel,when the bandwith over 80%,it may sned the notify mail,
and suspend when the bandwidth is over.

does directadmin have the same feature ?


thanx

Yes, it does.

Direct Admin is more simpler and has not all the features compared to cPanel.
but a person who wants to do basic tasks its equally good.
Its just that cPanels been around for so many years that its the standard like Windows for your computer compared to a Mac OSX.

But on the developer side DirectAdmin still needs to improve.

Actually, MacOS has been around longer than windows! :O

Hello,

We have been working on direct admin from last 5 yrs , nothing is changed with this control panel so I would suggest to go Cpanel instead of Direct admin

Thank you.

Haven't had any complaints from clients using DirectAdmin here. Certainly there are differences between cPanel and DA, but both are great control panels. My preference is DA.

from last 5 yrs , nothing is changed with this control panel.

So all of these (http://www.directadmin.com/versions.php?action=allversions) updates are a bunch of lies? :o Get a grip...

Well, to contribute to the typical fanboy arguments, here are my thoughts. ;)

cPanel is popular firstly because of the sheer number of features, and secondly because the original popularity continually re-contributes. The key feature with cPanel is that most anything can be done from the control panel side. This cuts out the need for specific knowledge on things like .htaccess directives and the time spent learning the information. To capture this concept, think of the hotlinking deny feature in cPanel. I think it's rather clear that cPanel benefited from this, especially initially.

As a second part, cPanel does an excellent job as projecting themselves as the established product. They at least give off the feeling that they are a team of workers behind the software moreso than DA. For example, when the major complaint about cPanel became speeds, they replied rather quickly with the optimized and VPS versions. They maintain a well-updated product, for the most part.

With DirectAdmin, I personally feel you have a product every bit as good as cPanel. DA seemed to get the concept of being a lightweight yet powerful panel from the get-go. The software actually feels more stable to me. Though it's difficult to provide reliable statistics, I feel like I work on more cPanel issues percentage-wise when it comes to the various tasks associated with administrating a server. As good as cPanel is with updates, DA feels more stable...if that makes sense.

It's just my theory here, but I think that cPanel so far has more razzle-dazzle than DirectAdmin. It benefits from having been at the top of the market (the actual numbers bear this out), and so more people use it. DA, though not necessarily a newcomer, is much more quiet of a product. I think this is where the false concept that DA is not changing comes from. It seems stagnant when compared with the ever-dynamic cPanel.

The reality is that these are both very good products for various reasons. IMHO, DirectAdmin is as good as cPanel.

I got tired of cPanel and moved all my clients to DA. Only one person complained and with one phone call it was sorted out.

I have to agree that DA has an absolutely pathetic backup system, but it's nothing that RSYNC can't fix ;)

I've got a DA server that has held steady without a hiccup for over 450 days. Once it's set it's good to go. cPanel, IMO, pushes too many updates out without thoroughly testing them. I remember a version they pushed out that completely crashed my server. That was exciting to fix...

I do admin that DA's support is horrendous, but you can find the answers through a Google search. It's sad they don't have at least 1 guy to handle support, but most questions are usually solvable with a little reading.

DA's interface is not easily themeable. Most people don't like their Enhanced theme, but it works. They recently contracted to have a new theme developed. There are previews in the DA forums. It looks nice, but not even close to what it could be.

Overall I'm happy with DA, and so are my clients. Heck, most of them don't even know there is an administration area, that's what they pay ME for :). Even with that said, I don't go into the control panel that often. I create an account, change MX records to GMAIL, setup a database, and log out. Done ;)

Direct Admin is a affordable control panel, we have a few servers setup with Direct Admin. One think I like about the interface is the Reseller/User links, its very easy to switch to different panels. Direct Admin also seem to load a bit faster than cPanel.

I have been thinking of buying a DirectAdmin Lifetime License to host Websites gratis for Temples and Charitable Institutions in India that languish for want of publicity and funds. I have been researching into DA's pros and cons vis-a-vis its competition. I thought this place would be the best to ask my question. Someone calls DA administered systems UNSECURE

Someone calls DA administered systems UNSECURE

I'd like to see whoever that is substantiate that claim.

Sorry, I am a newbie, and didn't realise I couldn't include URLs earlier than 5 posts before it was too late. Please google for QUOTE UNSECURED SYSTEMS: DirectAdmin v1.33.6 XSS vuln. UNQUOTE to find the link. I am trying to include an anonymised version of the link here with the hope it goes through. pridels-team.blogspot.com slash 2009 slash 06 slash directadmin-v1336-xss-vuln.html. It is possible this vulnerability may have been addressed in version 1.33.7, but there is no comment from anyone including DA on this blog.

It's fixed. Directadmin's only real competitor is cPanel and you'll find plenty of vulnerabilities in cPanel's prior versions too.

Sorry, I am a newbie, and didn't realise I couldn't include URLs earlier than 5 posts before it was too late. Please google for QUOTE UNSECURED SYSTEMS: DirectAdmin v1.33.6 XSS vuln. UNQUOTE to find the link. I am trying to include an anonymised version of the link here with the hope it goes through. pridels-team.blogspot.com slash 2009 slash 06 slash directadmin-v1336-xss-vuln.html. It is possible this vulnerability may have been addressed in version 1.33.7, but there is no comment from anyone including DA on this blog.Every software in this world have bugs. It is only a matter of how the developers solve it. ;)

Well the latest DA update was almost 4 months ago, although they did fix reported bugs in their pre-release version. Still waiting for a theme update but I'm not holding any high hopes as most features seem to take forever to get implemented or simply ignored, from what I observe from their forum requests section.

Thank you all for the replies. I am not looking at cPanel or Pleask at all as they are too costly for the purpose in view. DirectAdmin appears to be the best from all angles. The latest DA update was on 26 June while the bug was reported on 19 June, but the version history on DA website does not refer to this bug. But then Exoware says it is fixed. What do I do, write to DA and ask? Thanks.

Having read this (and many other) threads regarding Direct Admin, one thing still surprises me.

That is the amount of people who post things like "Direct Admin can't do this.." or "Direct Admin is good but cpanel is better"

This is mainly personal choice, feature wise, I have never found anything I need to do but can't when using Direct Admin.

Once you learn Direct Admin it is far better than people think. Use the 'Marina (https://www.orestonehosting.com/images/cp/directadmin-large.gif)' skin and it is even better...

I used to rely on cpanel/whm then I learned how to do things properly.

The latest DA update was on 26 June while the bug was reported on 19 June, but the version history on DA website does not refer to this bug. But then Exoware says it is fixed. What do I do, write to DA and ask? Thanks.

I would post in the DA forums if you are worried, someone who knows what they are talking about will help..

That is the amount of people who post things like "Direct Admin can't do this.." or "Direct Admin is good but cpanel is better"


Anyone who claims such information does not have very good knowledge with the DirectAdmin platform.

With due respects to all who have responded to my apprehensive query, what I gather herefrom is that DA does suffer from laggard support but is the easiest panel to use and is better than cPanel. Around the same time in June, a security hole was discovered in cPanel and widely reported too. I did not delve deeper to find out what happened thereafter, because I decided the investment in cPanel was not warranted for my specific needs. I now have taken a DA VPS and am inclined to agree that DA is terrific value for money and does a tremendous job with a wonderfully simple interface, and I am almost ready to invest in a Lifetime License. But my question is restricted to the ascertainment of a straightforward fact -- is the bug that was reported for 1.33.6 and higher fixed or not? If it was, there is no mention in the version history for 1.33.7. Personal predilections apart, what worries me is that this security vulnerability is serious enough if it can allow cross site scripting attacks. It was a security flaw that killed HyperVM and sadly its developer also. So I have started looking at Hosting Controller. But before I decide in favour of the one and not the other, I will post my query on the DA forums too. Once again, I thank you all for the edification. No wonder so many people are WHT Addicts.

I will post my query on the DA forums too. Once again, I thank you all for the edification. No wonder so many people are WHT Addicts.

Thats the best way, or contact them through their website.

I have always had a quick/helpful reply when I have had to contact them.

I like DirectAdmin mainly because it uses relatively few server resources and it's a little more reasonably priced. It can sometimes be a struggle for an end-user to get their head around it if they've been using Cpanel for years but it does have a fairly intuitive interface. My biggest problem when learning it a long time ago was that features you had to delve into CPanel for were staring me right in the face in DirectAdmin and I wasn't seeing them :D

I do agree with what someone said earlier, though: DirectAdmin's file manager isn't quite as full-featured or customer-friendly as CPanel's.

DA is Good and Cpanel is Also Good :)

on our Budget Vps hosting 80% clients ask for Direct admin because it is cheap , Fast and use less memory