Diretct Admin feedback

[rmcarv]

Hi people!

I have an ISP in Brazil and I am evaluating purchase DA.
I wanna to have a feedback from customers concerning the estability, quality,support of the product.

What are the "strong points" ?

What are the "week points" ?

How is the spam detection ? Is always on a good level?

On you company you have only DA or you are using other solutions to manage e-mails / domains ?

Regards,

Rodrigo Carvalhaes

 

[duncan]

Strong Points:
- Very easy to use
- Most visually appealing CP that I've ever used
- Stable
- Fast
- VERY affordable

Weak Points
- Not as many "bells and whistles" as other CPs
- Dare I say maybe not as active support/development?

- It uses SpamAssasin which works very well for me. No complaints. I would say it blocks at least 90-95% of spam.
The control panel also has built in user-controlled spam filters.

- I use 100% Direct Admin. I used to use a private mail service, but found DA to be just as good, and better at blocking spam.

If you're on the fence, I say go for it. I have been very pleased so far.

 

[jcws649]

Well, Im not an expert of DirectAdmin because I used cPanel/WHM my entire life. But recently I purchased a dedicated server with DirectAdmin and I can't believe host fast it runs. It is easy to use, Not confusing at all.

I would say go for it.

---------------------------------------------

Strong Points:

Easy to use.
Fast & Reliable.
Complete Features.
Full System Information Display.
Shows Disk & Bandwidth usage without changing page when you log into your administrator account.
Secure?

Weak Points:

Not as many features as other competitive companies.

About your email question:
I use domain/email with DirectAdmin, But I use Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 to check my emails, But you can use the clients inside DirectAdmin.

 

[nobaloney]

Weak Points
- Not as many "bells and whistles" as other CPs
- Dare I say maybe not as active support/development?

You can say what you want, but it would be nice if you could be specific. What is it you want?

Another string point not yet mentioned: DA is compiled C++ program; it doesn't depend on specific versions of any other hosting support daemon or program on your server, so you can install or upgrade what you need or want with virtually no problem with DA.

(Note that this doesn't mean DA can control everything else, only that it'll run.)

Jeff

 

[duncan]

Sure, I'll try to be specific. Of course keeping in mind that I definetly love and recommend Direct Admin

In regards to Cpanel, I should state that I do not used it very often, but..
- I like that the system updates also update apache, php, mysql, etc - and not just the CP. That of course is just personal preference.
- It apparently has a more robust backup system - or should I say, recovery. This is my one biggest wish list for DA - a recovery option.

In regards to development/support, it just seems a bit quiet here sometimes. Both on the forums (from Support), or in terms of system features.

Make any sense? It's almost 5am here and I really gotta get to bed, hope this is coherent tomorrow.

 

[streamservice]

Strong points:
- fast and reliable support (on the forums and if it is really urgent by email)
- multiple language is free (there are a lot off translations around)
- easy skin development

Weak points:
- you need a php versie running in cli-mode and not cgi or fast-cgi
- there is a new backup option in beta, but the normal backup option works fine on the reseller level (admin backups are not yet tested)

Spam protection:
- around 85-95% off all the spam is stopped (by spam assassin that has a nice howto on this forum if I'm not mistaken)
- on a user base spam protection (so not for the entire server)

I use DirectAdmin for 50-80%. Why I'm not using it for all things? Well I have a own ControlPanel for DNS and mail fallback (off course with an API for DirectAdmin). I'm also working on a ControlPanel for colocation and dedicated servers.

 

[nobaloney]

- I like that the system updates also update apache, php, mysql, etc - and not just the CP. That of course is just personal preference.

That's the price you pay for the DA flexibility; the ability to run your own versions of everything. It's a bit harder to automate updates that way.

That all said, would you like to see DA offer a customapache link in the control panel? Perhaps that could be doable; I don't know.

- It apparently has a more robust backup system - or should I say, recovery. This is my one biggest wish list for DA - a recovery option.

The recovery option for users and resellers is fairly robust, though in the past it's required we create the reseller first. It's only the sysbk backup that doesn't have a restore option, for reasons I've discussed on the forum before. Perhaps once the admin reseller/user level backups are thoroughly tested it'll be time to remove the sysbk system from DA.

In regards to development/support, it just seems a bit quiet here sometimes. Both on the forums (from Support), or in terms of system features.

DA staff checks these forums at least once a day. I generally check these forums at least once a day and read every posted message. If I see something on DA forums that needs staff attention I bring it to their attention immediately so even if they weren't going to log in for a while they have a heads up.

The best way to reach support is always via email to support. They're actually quite good at support.

Jeff

 

[ramprage]

Spam Protection depends upon your configuration. Any server that is left installed without properly applying configuration fixes and customizations is left wide open - DirectAdmin or cPanel.

Just because SpamAssassin is installed doesn't mean its running at its best. You should have someone that knows SA to help you setup a ruleset and things such as DCC and Razor and make sure of the system_filter that's in the exim.conf (also known as antivirus.exim on cPanel)


The more I dig into this product, the more I love it. It's lightweight and lets a savvy system admin customize to his hearts content without automaticaly reverting things the next morning like cPanel does.

 

[kke]

Benefit:
Good price.
Have all major features need
Fast & Stable.

Easy to customize (using custom template) eg. customize to use php in cgi mode instread of cli

DA is compiled C++ program; it doesn't depend on specific versions of any other hosting support daemon or program on your server, so you can install or upgrade what you need or want with virtually no problem with DA.

DA is run as service separately from apache/php then you can still access CP evenif Apache was down (but not da itself) then you can verify/edit sshd_conf and restart sshd service via da when you have trouble login via ssh.

Datataskq will check for all major service every minute, if any service is down then it will alert you via email and try to start that service.

Fast development, new version with new features and bug fix release monthly.

Low CPU load
If you have a huge traffic website you will see big difference of DA and VHCS
I have to disable traffic meter on my VHCS box due to VHCS's traffic meter script make server load more than 100 when apache log get big, however when disable traffic meter server load is very low (1.5)* compare to DA box with traffic calculation (10.0)*
* same website but on difference BOXes
DA on XEON 3.0 Raid1-SATA-150 FreeBSD 5.4 / VHCS on C2D E6300 NonRaid-SATA-300 Ubuntu 6.06

I would say "Go for it"

 

[duncan]

I generally check these forums at least once a day and read every posted message. If I see something on DA forums that needs staff attention I bring it to their attention immediately so even if they weren't going to log in for a while they have a heads up.[/B]

It's very true - you are phenomenally good about helping people out. I'm constantly amazed how dedicated your help is, and how knowledgeable you are about seemingly everything. I owe you a beer next time you're in the neighborhood.