Alternatives for Legacy DA License Holders

[ptloma]

I have read all of the posts in the "What is the future for Legacy DirectAdmin License holders?" thread that is now closed. I am currently using a legacy lifetime license and several low cost Personal licenses to provide WordPress sites at no cost to nonprofits. I use WordPress plugins to route all mail through AES, Google or Office 365 hosted mail to avoid some of the mail delivery issues normally associated with WordPress.

Since I do not want to substantially increase my costs to maintain these sites on current (non EOL) secure software versions, I am exploring alternate solutions, including consolidating multiple VPS onto a single larger system licensed through DA and using open source control panels that will continue to support current secure software versions. Since the timeline on legacy/Personal DA licenses appears to be determined by MariaDB 10.6 EOL, I would like to make some decisions and implement any required changes by the end of 2025. I would be interested in hearing from others providing limited low cost services on what other solution platforms they are considering.

I have set up working test sites with the following software packages and would like to hear from others doing the same:
Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS / ISPConfig 3.2.12 / Apache 2.4.52 / MariaDB 10.6.18 / PHP 8.1.30 / WordPress 6.6.2
AlmaLinux 9.4 / CyberPanel / OpenLiteSpeed/ MariaDB 10.11.9 / PHP 8.3.10 / WordPress 6.6.2
Debian 12 / Virtualmin-Webmin / Apache 2.4.62 / MariaDB 10.11.6 / PHP 8.3.12 / WordPress 6.6.2

The ISPConfig installation is somewhat dated and I may not pursue it since there is no clear documentation on upgrading MariaDB for an existing ISPConfig installation and I am not sure if I have enough time to go through the testing. CyberPanel and Virtualmin-Webmin both appear to support MariaDB upgrades for existing installations. I do want to look at an option using nginx however.

Has anyone else done any testing using open source software and is there any information you would be willing to share?

 

[Zhenyapan]

consolidating multiple VPS onto a single larger system

I just done this way, moved 2-3 dual xeon v4 servers with CL7 to one new xeon gold nvme server with new CL8 (a lot of old clients still need php 5.2-5.3) with payed license. For cheap VPSs I still provide lifetime licenses but now they limited by ubuntu 22 (why???) and Alma9.
I will wait there too, maybe somebody will advice more alternatives.

 

[johannes]

I picked a few more modern from my list, but not tested them yet: CyberPanel (for Litespeed), Enhance, InterWorx, ISPmanager, Webuzo.
Virtuamin/Webmin should be fine too.

 

[exlhost]

Just stick with directadmin, honestly it works perfectly and it's not that expensive after all. there is more than 20 years of development work involved, an update every few weeks and fln and the rest of the team is still doing very well.

 

[Zhenyapan]

ISPmanager

its very bad russian product, lot of problems with stability, outdated versions of services, some sticked to OS - like on ubuntu 20 it will be maria 10.4 on alma9 it will be mysql 8.0 and you can't change/upgrade it, also nginx/apache will be fixed versions that was released with OS when it was launched. Support don't want to solve a lot of problems. We moved a lot of clients from it to DA..

 

[Richard G]

Some people like Vesta or for example Control Web Panel (former Centos Web Panel). Those are also free.
But free is never 100% honest comparible with payed.
If you compare the payed panels, then DA is still the cheapest and it's great.

 

[Ohm J]

if you have small server resource, HestiaCP or vestaCP is good enought for private project.

if you want more feature/GUI. CWP or Cyberpanel is good to go,

 

[zakazak]

What about froxlor, ISPConfig, Virtualadmin or Webmin?