July 2026 – Effectively the end of the DirectAdmin Legacy License

[Richard G]

- goodwill
- an end to all of these topics
- free marketing
- greater conversion rates if things DO keep working but in time you miss out on cool new things
- little to no chance of offering a big slice to a new player
- happier community
- little to no chance of offering a big slice to a new player

All these arguments you name here are invalid.
- goodwill (already since the beginning)
- an end to all these topics (it's 2 years now, it won't stop anyway)
- free marketing (already since the beginning)
- greater conversion rates (it's 2 years, I can't look inside DA but I highly doubt a lot of people converted yet, expecially since the licenses are still usable)
- little to no chance of offering a big slice to a new player (don't know what you mean by this one)
- happyer community (they are already happy except a few and some you never can keep happy except with free stuff which is not the intention
- little to no chance of offering a big slice to a new player (don't know what you mean by that one either)

But the most important of these things you mention is not a single counter argument of my argument. Revenue. It's 2 years now. If it would have been earning enough in those 2 years now, I'm sure there would be maybe a slight chance they might do something, maybe give us MariaDB 10.11, I don't kow. Maybe not.
Lifetime licenses are just not able to continue for a human lifetime (which some think it is), you wouldn't life long as a company.

But compare to other companty's. DA is the very only one ever doing it like this with lifetime licenses in this industry for such cheap lifetime license prises and being able to support the for so long.

And even if they stop now or have to stop now with the licenses or whatever reason, they still manage to price out the competition, not by a little bit but by a lot.
And not even that, they managed to get the big ones to their knees when they brought out (as I call it) the hobby licenses. Oke they had to remove one again (personal license) but still... after that the competition had to come with something too.
But all this development comes at a price.

@DrWizzle Please don't compare AWS or WHMCS with a hosting panel like the 3 commercial panels around, because they are not, so those prices are not comparable. They are addons. So apples and pears.
Otherwise I wills start comparing with other software which just declares their version end of life and your stuck with a static version, as at a certain point the DA lifeime licenses will be.
There are only 2 party's you can compare with.

@sysdev Anyway, we are repeating arguments. There is a very big thread about this from longer ago, might be 1,5 or 2 years. All is mentioned, it's logic people will want to keep using their lifetime licenses, which they can without support.

Let me quote yourself:

From a purely commercial standpoint, discontinuing legacy licenses is understandable. Recurring monthly revenue is generally more attractive than one-time payments, and in that sense the decision is rational.

This says it all. DA is also a commercial party and at some point decisions need to be made. I was very mad in the past too, but also came to this same understanding as you declare here. It was just my emotion. Once business sense took over, it was a logic decision which I even expected to happen earlier to be honest, or at least some kind of such change.

CP and Plesk are not raising their prices every years for no reason, which DA still hasn't done yet in all those years!!!
Development costs money and nothing against FLN, but what do you think a guy like that costs? And that's just one. Good employees are expensive. And DA needs to keep developping because so many things change every time.

 

[DrWizzle]

@DrWizzle Please don't compare AWS or WHMCS with a hosting panel like the 3 commercial panels around, because they are not, so those prices are not comparable. They are addons. So apples and pears.
Otherwise I wills start comparing with other software which just declares their version end of life and your stuck with a static version, as at a certain point the DA lifeime licenses will be.
There are only 2 party's you can compare with.

I wasn't comparing DA with WHMCS at all, and i've never used AWS nor quoted them. so not really apples or pears at all.

My point was they are ALL software vendors and as such have different licensing models. The main takeaway from my post was supposed to be if DA had an extended licensing model it could potentially benefit a lot of users.

I have the greatest of respect with everyone on this forum, as you've all got your own businesses, models, styles, overheads etc like the rest of us and you're free to run your setups as you please and I'd never suggest to anyone otherwise. As you say, nothing is going to make everyone happy on here, but a little extra choice never did anyone any harm. That was what I was trying to convey.

 

[DirectAdmin Sales]

@DrWizzle @Richard G WHMCS might not be a bad example. Didn't they recently get rid of Owned licenses? As in, you can't pay for updates even if you wanted to?

That license gave, as @DrWizzle put it, a little extra choice that never did anyone any harm, but for some reason they must of felt otherwise. Did anyone here hold a WHMCS owned license, and do you remember if they provided an explanation for terminating it?

 

[DrWizzle]

@DrWizzle @Richard G WHMCS might not be a bad example. Didn't they recently get rid of Owned licenses? As in, you can't pay for updates even if you wanted to?

That license gave, as @DrWizzle put it, a little extra choice that never did anyone any harm, but for some reason they must of felt otherwise. Did anyone here hold a WHMCS owned license, and do you remember if they provided an explanation for terminating it?

I can't remember if they did to be fair, I've only ever paid for a rolling monthly license from them. I do know that other billing companies like Blesta and WiseCP offer lifetime licenses as I have been looking to potentially make a switch because WHMCS are hiking prices again in Jan for no other reason other than it seems they can.

 

[Ohm J]

Previously while DA offers lifetime License, there have option to pay per-year ($99) for extended update, but no one pay for that and leave their server security risk.

so DA decide to get rid this type of license is the best choice.

 

[sysdev]

All these arguments you name here are invalid.
- goodwill (already since the beginning)
- an end to all these topics (it's 2 years now, it won't stop anyway)
- free marketing (already since the beginning)
- greater conversion rates (it's 2 years, I can't look inside DA but I highly doubt a lot of people converted yet, expecially since the licenses are still usable)
- little to no chance of offering a big slice to a new player (don't know what you mean by this one)
- happyer community (they are already happy except a few and some you never can keep happy except with free stuff which is not the intention
- little to no chance of offering a big slice to a new player (don't know what you mean by that one either)

But the most important of these things you mention is not a single counter argument of my argument. Revenue. It's 2 years now. If it would have been earning enough in those 2 years now, I'm sure there would be maybe a slight chance they might do something, maybe give us MariaDB 10.11, I don't kow. Maybe not.
Lifetime licenses are just not able to continue for a human lifetime (which some think it is), you wouldn't life long as a company.

But compare to other companty's. DA is the very only one ever doing it like this with lifetime licenses in this industry for such cheap lifetime license prises and being able to support the for so long.

And even if they stop now or have to stop now with the licenses or whatever reason, they still manage to price out the competition, not by a little bit but by a lot.
And not even that, they managed to get the big ones to their knees when they brought out (as I call it) the hobby licenses. Oke they had to remove one again (personal license) but still... after that the competition had to come with something too.
But all this development comes at a price.

@DrWizzle Please don't compare AWS or WHMCS with a hosting panel like the 3 commercial panels around, because they are not, so those prices are not comparable. They are addons. So apples and pears.
Otherwise I wills start comparing with other software which just declares their version end of life and your stuck with a static version, as at a certain point the DA lifeime licenses will be.
There are only 2 party's you can compare with.

@sysdev Anyway, we are repeating arguments. There is a very big thread about this from longer ago, might be 1,5 or 2 years. All is mentioned, it's logic people will want to keep using their lifetime licenses, which they can without support.

Let me quote yourself:

This says it all. DA is also a commercial party and at some point decisions need to be made. I was very mad in the past too, but also came to this same understanding as you declare here. It was just my emotion. Once business sense took over, it was a logic decision which I even expected to happen earlier to be honest, or at least some kind of such change.

CP and Plesk are not raising their prices every years for no reason, which DA still hasn't done yet in all those years!!!
Development costs money and nothing against FLN, but what do you think a guy like that costs? And that's just one. Good employees are expensive. And DA needs to keep developping because so many things change every time.

Before you say everything is invalid, please try to understand what I say first.

 

[Richard G]

please try to understand what I say first.

Then maybe you should be more clear what exactly you're saying because to me this looks as if you're saying "these things are all good for DA" when keeping the lifetime licenses or unblock MariaDB.
It's not really specified what your point is and I'm not native English either but I might have misunderstood where the "this is worth something" was belonging too.

If it's about the "go test MariaDB without support", I already answered that one in #30. Nothing is keeping you from testing.
So if I missed something or misunderstood what you said, please enlighten me.

 

[sysdev]

Then maybe you should be more clear what exactly you're saying because to me this looks as if you're saying "these things are all good for DA" when keeping the lifetime licenses or unblock MariaDB.
It's not really specified what your point is and I'm not native English either but I might have misunderstood where the "this is worth something" was belonging too.

If it's about the "go test MariaDB without support", I already answered that one in #30. Nothing is keeping you from testing.
So if I missed something or misunderstood what you said, please enlighten me.

I'm not sure how to make this more clear.

I see things as a user, as a developer (because that is my community, hence the name), as a hoster, as a marketeer, as a businessman and whatever hat fits me best when needed. Things are seldom profitable from all views so I'm sorry if things are hard to understand.

I'm running a fulltime software company for over 40 years and two hostingcompanies for more than 25 by now, so I'm biassed as hell and sometimes my 'other hat' has a different view. Knowing I'm not pro or con any choice, might make it more understandable.

My marketing hat says 'keep old users, limit costs and simply try to sell them things in the future like a 15$ mysql update'.
My developer hat says 'if i want to compile mysql with a patch that came out ten seconds ago and go through hell, this should be possible, even unsupported'.
My admin hat says 'to hell with those old licenses, frustrate the hell out of them'

The fact I mention something or point something out, isn't always the way I look at it truly or want as an outcome. It's partly that devils advocate thing thats needed to address any concerns, because we love DA enough we tent to see different views as an attack. That is never my goal. Clarity is and I obviously failed at that

The cake thing: A legacy licence holder is worth way more than e.g. a webmin user. Because at least once, he already has payed for a license. This makes him 'worth' anything between 100 bucks and whatever 20 year younger us would pay for a license.

But selling controlpanels is not my business, not running other peoples business. Maybe I should just shut op

Have a nice weekend!