cPanel is cheaper than DirectAdmin. Specifically in my case.

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kozmonaut

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Dec 26, 2021
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Hey guys,
I heard about DirectAdmin as an alternative to cPanel price increase, but I saw that it would be much more expensive for me than using cPanel.

I have an agency with 53 domains that I developed on WordPress and I personally monitor.

On cPanel solo I pay $15 for an account with unlimited domains. If I migrated now to DirectAdmin I would have to pay double ($29).

So in the case of several agencies that use one central account to manage their websites (my case), cPanel is cheaper than DirectAdmin.
 
Maybe for you personally, but you're not counting fairly. With that price of $15 you are limited to a cloud environment. What does that cloud cost you? You have to calculate that too. Lots of people don't even want cloud only prices.

Anyway if you prefer cPanel, what are you doing here? With 1 post? Just annoy people with something which is a personal choice and not even calculated correctly?
And I have a very hard time finding specifications for accounts, what one gets for solo or admin or pro or whatever. Doesn't really show on the website or is hard to find.
 
To avoid any confusion I mentioned in the title (and in the post) "specifically in my case"
I believe I made this clear.

I joined the forum precisely because I was leaving another panel, and I considered DirectAdmin (I had a horrible experience with another panel and read good things about DirectAdmin). So I consulted the prices, and as I didn't find something similar, I posted here about my specific case.

I calculated correctly, cPanel is cheaper in my case and at agencies that use a single-panel-centric model.
I don't prefer cPanel, I find it too heavy for my needs (that's why I had switched a few weeks ago to another panel).

I've been without a panel for 24 hours, so I'm looking for alternatives.
 
Hi @kozmonaut

Is that the cPanel solo license at $15/month? Our equivalent is the DirectAdmin Personal license at $2/month ($24/year) but it has a 10-domain limit. We really wanted to offer the security/stability of a commercial control panel at a price that's very reasonable, for those who aren't doing it as a business.

If you are content running dozens (or hundreds) of domains from a single account, then that's outside our intent for the Personal license, and I fully admit cPanel's solo license would make more sense to you. :)
 
Hi @DirectAdmin Sales

Yes, I understand your side, and honestly, I think DirectAdmin's pricing policy makes a lot of sense. It grows as the user grows. Furthermore, a user who has been loyal to DirectAdmin for $2, when he has multiple domains he will not go on an "adventure" on another panel.

cPanel initial plan ends up driving away new users ($15 in some cases is more than a small server monthly fee). Good for DirectAdmin 😁

My case is a specific case, I'm not selling the hosting, but the website service, there is no panel for my users besides WordPress admin.

29 dollars is nothing for those who host thousands of sites (which is not my case of course), and for those who need several panels, DirectAdmin pricing is much better.
 
@kozmonaut

Thanks for replying! I totally agree with you -- it comes down to specific case use. Your post here is welcome because it teaches that everyone should do what you are doing; shop around and do some homework. One size doesn't fit all. At $2/mo for true personal usage (a few websites, and maybe a few more for friends or family), I believe our Personal license is priced more fair than anyone else.

But at the same time... if you're someone who can get away with 1 account + a high number of domains, that's where the cPanel Solo license becomes more desirable.

Our philosophy here is that a control panel should never make someone dumber, so we appreciate your post and effort here. You seem like an intelligent person so it seemed obvious to me that your words were meant to be informative instead of argumentative. I hope the response from our side has made you feel the same about us.

:)
 
kozmonaut said:
To avoid any confusion I mentioned in the title (and in the post) "specifically in my case"
Click to expand...
Correct, I also stated that. So that is not my issue.

But I still have doubts if you calculated correctly because that is a "cloud environment" only account where on DA they are all free accounts (choose your own server/vps). So I still am curious as to what the cloud environment will cost you and if this would not make things a lot more expensive after all? Because that could be the case. Also for users in your specific case, that is what makes me wondering and keeps me suspicious about pricing.

And also where the specifications can be found between the different packages, because I find any that quickly. But there are various price ranges, so I'm curious as to where these pricing differences are coming from.
 
Not really related to the pricing, but there's a huge danger in running 53 wordpress installations in a single cPanel account. If one of those installations gets compromised, the whole cPanel account and all domains are at risk. I know this because I've seen it happen to many people, many times before.

If you're absolutely on the ball with keeping those wordpress installations up-to-date and locked down, then chances are you'll be fine - but even then you have to consider zero-day exploits that can crop up at any moment.

Personally speaking I'd want each wordpress installation under its own account (with the appropriate symlink protection in place of course).
 
@DirectAdmin Sales,
Thanks for the kind words. Surely as soon as I can I will test DirectAdmin on some project.

@Richard G I calculated correctly, I only use one cPanel Solo account (unlimited domains) for my entire agency in an VPS.

@EthernetServers
I use a base of known and always up-to-date plugins. I know WordPress's biggest enemy is the lack of updates. I centralize everything on a single panel because I do a lot of clones, so the installs sort of talk to each other. My control panel is not open to any client (I am not a host company and my environment is strictly controlled) and I work using a kind of "production line" logic. Here backups are sacred, so I keep a base of at least 1 year of backups outside the main server. I understand your point, but the way I structured my agency I have a much more concise management (and aware of the security of my sites) centralizing all in a central dashboard.
 
kozmonaut said:
I calculated correctly, I only use one cPanel Solo account (unlimited domains) for my entire agency in an VPS.
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You already said that. But that still doesn't answer my questions regarding this, I would like to look for myself, but that's hard do to if the info can't be find or isn't told.
 
Richard G said:
You already said that. But that still doesn't answer my questions regarding this, I would like to look for myself, but that's hard do to if the info can't be find or isn't told.
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I didn't understand. What specifically do you want to know?
 
kozmonaut said:
What specifically do you want to know?
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I have mentioned that specifically in my post. ;)
But the link has the info I was searching. I'm just looking at which point the Solo license would really start to be cheaper in general, not only in your case.

So that is 15$ for one account with unlimited domains. However, you have to count the $15 for the cloud too. And that was what I was missing and was looking for.

That is $30 dollar a month for unlimited domains including hosting.

Calculating purely the Solo account that is $180 a year..
A DA personal license with 10 domains $24 a year.
180/24= 7,5 lets say 7. That is 70 domains, so you could pay 7 personal licenses from that.

But then you would need 7 VPS systems too. Which might cost more than $15 a month if you're not using C....o.

So said in general, depending on the price of a VPS, the Solo account would become cheaper starting as of probably 21 domains.
For 20 domains, it's 2 vps systems and then $ 48 for 2 DA personal licenses. Leaving around $26 month for 2 VPS systems.

Or starting at 51 domains, because when a good VPS can be found for $ 15, then starting at 51 accounts because the Lite would cost the same.

That's a more fair calculation I think. In general like I said.

Interesting indeed for people who only need whole lot of domains and no customers. That is correct.
One just has to take in mind the cost of a vps calculated against the cost of the cloud service.

I will just be wondering due to different price raises, when CP will start setting limits (disk space, band widht) to accounts. As long as they don't, the solo account can be interesting in some specific cases.
 
Richard G said:
I have mentioned that specifically in my post. ;)
But the link has the info I was searching. I'm just looking at which point the Solo license would really start to be cheaper in general, not only in your case.

So that is 15$ for one account with unlimited domains. However, you have to count the $15 for the cloud too. And that was what I was missing and was looking for.

That is $30 dollar a month for unlimited domains including hosting.

Calculating purely the Solo account that is $180 a year..
A DA personal license with 10 domains $24 a year.
180/24= 7,5 lets say 7. That is 70 domains, so you could pay 7 personal licenses from that.

But then you would need 7 VPS systems too. Which might cost more than $15 a month if you're not using C....o.

So said in general, depending on the price of a VPS, the Solo account would become cheaper starting as of probably 21 domains.
For 20 domains, it's 2 vps systems and then $ 48 for 2 DA personal licenses. Leaving around $26 month for 2 VPS systems.

Or starting at 51 domains, because when a good VPS can be found for $ 15, then starting at 51 accounts because the Lite would cost the same.

That's a more fair calculation I think. In general like I said.

Interesting indeed for people who only need whole lot of domains and no customers. That is correct.
One just has to take in mind the cost of a vps calculated against the cost of the cloud service.

I will just be wondering due to different price raises, when CP will start setting limits (disk space, band widht) to accounts. As long as they don't, the solo account can be interesting in some specific cases.
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Good thing the link answered your doubt. I didn't have quite understand.

What keeps me on cPanel is the unlimited domains, even though the solo license can get close to $30 (hope they never read that lol). After that, I would seriously consider DirectAdmin. Now if they removed the unlimited domains I would certainly switch to DirectAdmin's $29 plan even if they continued with cPanel Solo at $15.

I still don't see a consistent alternative to cPanel and DirectAdmin (Plesk and cPanel have the same owner now).
There is Webuzo that charges $2.50 a month for unlimited domains, but never, never ever think about putting your company on Webuzo. Lots of bugs and inconsistencies that can wreck your business, and support doesn't exist, you can spend weeks with your business down.
 
kozmonaut said:
I still don't see a consistent alternative to cPanel and DirectAdmin (Plesk and cPanel have the same owner now).
Click to expand...
Correct, the only difference might be in pricing or options. I understand (somebody told me here) that Plesk has an option to connect packages to domains instead of to useraccounts. So for example a domain can have a certain amount of disk space and mails and so on.

There are some more panels indeed, but indeed mostly the issue is that unlike with professional panels like DA, CP and Plesk (the 3 biggest or most used ones), there are leaks and/or bugs and sometimes problems and with professional panels mostly they are fixed faster.
I've also looked at alternatives once a while when somebody mentioned something, and have seen some maybe promising ones, but it all comes down to pricing and support. And since I don't know people using them, changing would be a risk.
And I wouldn't leave DA anyway myself so I don't mind. :)
I work with both CP (maintenance for a friend's hosting company) and DA. And shortly tried Plesk for a friend on a hobby vps, but I don't like Plesk.

It's indeed comparing things, and take care your business don't get down and if it does, for as short as possible, that's very true!
 
I agree with @Richard G, cPanel is killing the small businesses even like plesk that follows cPanel but you came here to post about cPanel is cheaper, well, directAdmin solo license is $ 2, cPanel $ 16 now . I'm blind or what am I missing. I have a license for $ 29 a month to host my clients on it, I was a longtime cPanel user but due to the price increase problem, half of my clients were unable to renew their products due to the skyrocketing fees to be charged for my reseller customers, take an example like misterhost.net, they use cPanel/WHM and their asking for the cheapest package $ 12 per month, which is basically a reasonable price for cPanel/WHM as most are around that price, if you want unlimited customers, it will cost you $ 7 extra per month, then you're at $19 per month, not that alarming either, but if you go to the Alpha Reseller Hosting selection and then the cheapest then you are already with unlimited accounts $ 27 lost, for $ 2 extra you already have the largest DirectAdmin license package, I offered in the cPanel time with the first increase € 3.09 per month, since the switch to DirectAdmin I was able to drop the prices considerably to € 1 per month d which in itself is quite feasible.. Because if you want to compare it a bit. For DirectAdmin you pay $ 29 for the largest package as mentioned before, with cPanel you have to put down $ 54, and DirectAdmin is certainly not bad and there can indeed be some fixes with the Filemanager or the automatic logout for example, but DirectAdmin is for the A replacement for cPanel is definitely recommended. Because many features are also available for DirectAdmin as well as with cPanel. Why not take the $2 package for a solo account, it will save you a lot and you'll see what you get :)
 
Pacific Spirit said:
I'm blind or what am I missing.
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He was only talking about his specific case and then he is right. For more than 50 domains for 1 account, the CP license is cheaper. And he has 53 domains on 1 account.
If you want more accounts, it's a totally different ballgame. But he knows that. ;)
 
Pacific Spirit said:
I agree with @Richard G, cPanel is killing the small businesses even like plesk that follows cPanel but you came here to post about cPanel is cheaper, well, directAdmin solo license is $ 2, cPanel $ 16 now . I'm blind or what am I missing. I have a license for $ 29 a month to host my clients on it, I was a longtime cPanel user but due to the price increase problem, half of my clients were unable to renew their products due to the skyrocketing fees to be charged for my reseller customers, take an example like misterhost.net, they use cPanel/WHM and their asking for the cheapest package $ 12 per month, which is basically a reasonable price for cPanel/WHM as most are around that price, if you want unlimited customers, it will cost you $ 7 extra per month, then you're at $19 per month, not that alarming either, but if you go to the Alpha Reseller Hosting selection and then the cheapest then you are already with unlimited accounts $ 27 lost, for $ 2 extra you already have the largest DirectAdmin license package, I offered in the cPanel time with the first increase € 3.09 per month, since the switch to DirectAdmin I was able to drop the prices considerably to € 1 per month d which in itself is quite feasible.. Because if you want to compare it a bit. For DirectAdmin you pay $ 29 for the largest package as mentioned before, with cPanel you have to put down $ 54, and DirectAdmin is certainly not bad and there can indeed be some fixes with the Filemanager or the automatic logout for example, but DirectAdmin is for the A replacement for cPanel is definitely recommended. Because many features are also available for DirectAdmin as well as with cPanel. Why not take the $2 package for a solo account, it will save you a lot and you'll see what you get :)
Click to expand...
Personally for me its not about the $$ per say. Even though I am a rather small host on a tight budget. Cpanel use to be good, but about 2 years before they got bought out. The company was definitely changing for the worse. Updates would break more then they would fix. Then they were pushing out auto updates the were breaking things. I was already looking at alternatives. Then the sale out and price increase. Which was for me just the straw that broke the camels back. I find Direct Admin easier to use and more secure. It also runs faster on a server. My only complaint is they really need to get a better Backup system in. Ironically though unless cpanel fixed it the one on cpanel is even worse.
 
Gotta say, that’s a lot of risk with all those Wordpress plugins in 1 account.

If 1 site goes down you can kiss goodbye to the others.

I hope you use some good malware protection and WAF rules as well.

To be honest for an extra $15 you would do yourself a favour by moving to DA, separating out each of the sites, adding the resource limit to each one with Jailshell.

But it’s up to you.
 
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