July 2026 – Effectively the end of the DirectAdmin Legacy License

[DirectAdmin Sales]

what about those personal plus licenses ? some people just need those.
i mean the limited support was fine, but i mean for example alma 8 is eol 2029 was atleast worth to provide this limited support until then.

Sorry for the confusion. It started off with just a discounted Standard license available as a special deal.

Now there is also discounted Personal Plus and Lite.

 

[Richard G]

what about those personal plus licenses ? some people just need those.

You mean Personal licenses as Personal Plus are already modern licenses.

 

[deanc]

Any legacy license can be converted to the special deal (discount on the modern pricing).

Even if you're holding that weird quarterly license we used to offer. If it's still active (you are paying for it to this very day), you can convert that too.

sry i meant what about people who have Personal ,legacy license?

 

[dxoa]

It seems that everything is moving in a positive direction.

 

[Active8]

alma 8 is eol 2029

AL 9 is still supported with legacy license, you can still upgrade

 

[Richard G]

sry i meant what about people who have Personal ,legacy license?

What don't you understand about the term "any"? So yes, discount now also goes for Personal licenses (which are indeed also legacy).

 

[Daku]

teraz mamy na przykład 100 małych serwerów (~100-200 GB, 10-20 USD/miesiąc), więc jeśli dokonamy migracji do nowego DA, będzie to kosztować około 1740 USD/miesiąc (29 USD/miesiąc/każdy serwer - 40%) więcej (cena DirectAdmin uderzy w cenę serwera ).

Wtedy powinniśmy przenieść się na większe serwery (np. 10 większych serwerów o pojemności ~500–1000 GB, 50–100 USD/miesiąc), ale spowoduje to zmniejszenie stabilności.

Powinno więc być więcej opcji płatności:

1. Bieżące miesięczne płatności (np. 29 USD/miesiąc bez ograniczeń).
2. Dożywotnia (np. 200 USD jednorazowo) + roczne aktualizacje (np. 49–99 USD/rok). Na przykład licencja Litespeed.
3. Oparte na użytkownikach. Na przykład, spośród 1000 użytkowników, możesz zainstalować nieograniczoną liczbę licencji DirectAdmin na nieograniczonej liczbie serwerów i zapłacić np. 0,10 USD miesięcznie za użytkownika (opłata zależy od liczby użytkowników na wszystkich serwerach).

Również bardzo przydatna będzie funkcja łatwego rozdzielania stron internetowych/baz danych (serwer z NVMe, Litespeed, najlepsza wydajność) i poczty e-mail (dysk SSD, najlepsza cena, stabilność, być może HA w dwóch różnych miejscach z funkcją failover/równoważenia obciążenia) na różne serwery DA.

To są moje oczekiwania wobec DA

I would like to add a few comments to your statement.

In my case, where I currently have 1,500 email addresses, about 60+ domain addresses (root domains), and I also create each subdomain as a new domain (more convenient management of the user's website (permanent isolation)), only the most expensive license meets my requirements, even though all domains are, for example, XYZ.domain.com.

In my case, useful features in panel - IMAP import and email management.
DNS and DNS backup i implemented with a slightly modified script from the forum.

I think DA has turned its back on Legacy license users.
As support said, he was surprised that so many people still use Centos 6, FreeBSD.
And here I would cite the IT principle: If it works, don't touch it.

I know several users of older systems who only override the output from check linux version uname A

just to mask the old OS.

For my part, I wouldn't mind paying, say, $100 per year for 12 months of Updates. However if i suspend payment, my license still is Lifetime, but my updatepack hang on latest payed Update pack

However, if I suspend my business – no need for updates, etc., I would like my license to remain Lifetime, but with the option to update it until the last purchased period.

Let's compare this to leasing.
DA used to offer a permanent purchase, with ongoing updates included in the price – a great solution, unfortunately disadvantageous for DA in many respects – compare it to buying a car for cash.

I bought it, I have updates for, say, 12 months, and the car is mine.
No payment, no worries, still can drive car. but car sometimes need maintenance like timing belt change etc.

Now DA has introduced a leasing model with a minimum term of 1 month, even if i order it to 1 year, the license isn't useable after that time.

It's like a bank model – yes, you can use it, as a user, but the panel isn't yours. Just like with a house on credit or renting an apartment.

Some people prefer to rent a house, I'd rather own a house.

I know that certain decisions were made at the very top, and as users, all we can do is complain.


I felt a little better, I didn't want to offend anyone, especially the creators of such a good panel

It'll be nice to see new upgrade path, for Legacy licences, maybe make them back to order with different prices, included upgrades for 12 months ?

Personally i want to order lifetime to my home lab, unfortunately i'm late ;/



Greetings,
Daku

 

[Magistar]

Do datacenter licences also fall under this discount promotion? (Meaning I submit the licence I receive from the datacenter for which I have been paying about 7 euro monthly)?

 

[Richard G]

Do datacenter licences also fall under this discount promotion?

Only if you are the datacenter, not if you have been paying for it monthley then the datacenter is the owner.

 

[pasamsin]

When you sold these licenses as lifetime licenses, they included all updates. Later, you changed this so that they would no longer receive new features. Now, you are not only withholding new features, but even preventing updates to the MariaDB version required for features that are already in use. Even if it cannot be done through CustomBuild, it should still be possible to upgrade MariaDB manually. But when MariaDB is upgraded manually, DirectAdmin stops working. This is honestly ridiculous. I think, just as we moved away from cPanel, it may now be time to move away from DirectAdmin as well.

 

[Richard G]

Or convert your license for half price.

 

[johannes]

this is the other point
"Even if it cannot be done through CustomBuild, it should still be possible to upgrade MariaDB manually. But when MariaDB is upgraded manually, DirectAdmin stops working."

 

[Richard G]

But when MariaDB is upgraded manually, DirectAdmin stops working."

Not quite true. Directadmin will still be running, but DA -will- stop supporting things having to do with database. Like creating databases, users, passwords and everything else DA does. One has to do it manually.

 

[DavidK]

When you sold these licenses as lifetime licenses, they included all updates. Later, you changed this so that they would no longer receive new features. Now, you are not only withholding new features, but even preventing updates to the MariaDB version required for features that are already in use. Even if it cannot be done through CustomBuild, it should still be possible to upgrade MariaDB manually. But when MariaDB is upgraded manually, DirectAdmin stops working. This is honestly ridiculous. I think, just as we moved away from cPanel, it may now be time to move away from DirectAdmin as well.

I understand your angst - in fact I was very vocal of being pissed off about these things.. but the truth is the ship has sailed. It is what it is. You can convert your legacy license to the $15/month option and still being paying a lot less than other customers. Don't do what I did though, which was convert my license and then get pissed off again and stop paying it.. since than I lost the discount. But I also like another panel so it wasn't a big deal to me but it would have been smarter of me to keep that discounted price active even if I used other panels as well.

 

[pasamsin]

So apparently, we’re supposed to be able to keep our existing license by paying half the price There’s no guarantee that even this will still be the case tomorrow. That’s why we’re shaping our plans in a way that won’t leave us dependent on any particular control panel. In the age of AI, these panels simply don’t matter anymore.

 

[Richard G]

There’s no guarantee that even this will still be the case tomorrow.

That goes not only for any panel but for any piece of software or even anything in life.
If you want to trust on AI you got another thing coming with all mistakes they still provide.
If you want guarantee's, it's best to program your own software/script/panel or whatever.

 

[Ohm J]

So apparently, we’re supposed to be able to keep our existing license by paying half the price There’s no guarantee that even this will still be the case tomorrow. That’s why we’re shaping our plans in a way that won’t leave us dependent on any particular control panel. In the age of AI, these panels simply don’t matter anymore.

let's AI update all services in your server and accident data are removed

 

[Chrysalis]

I am going to be polite as I can, out of respect for what good DA has done for me and my positive interactions with the original 2 guys that started DA, mostly John.

So first out of those circa 70 FreeBSD servers, mine is two of them, no longer commercial hosting. Kept online for my personal domains, primarily email usage, and for an associate to host his domains, I make no money from it. Second one is testing, where updates would be done first to make sure no issues before carrying out on first server, this also hosted some slave dns/email for 2 domains

I finally after what is perhaps too long have started the process of migrating from that second FreeBSD server to a linux, this would be for the slave dns/email and email for an old friend. I would get familiar with using DA on top of Linux, and then migrate the main FreeBSD server I have. That was the plan.

Then when I ran apt update to start Trixie process, I got the message that DA wont support the platform on my license.

After that I came across this and another thread discussing the matter, none of these things were warned about to me in any kind of notification or even the DA gui itself.

A lot of the affected customers are the people who put trust in DA as a new and upcoming brand. As a customer I dont know about the internal finances of DA, whether this is needed for survival of the company, or all is rosy, and its just about maximising as much profit as possible. Its none of my business.

What is my business is if I feel DA are doing me right on the license I purchased, what do I think is a reasonable form of sunsetting, I am aware other software vendors have done their own things to entice people on to new licenses.

I have seen strategies such as.

Unlimited updates, X years of tech support. This is basically what we were sold.
Unlimited updates for the current major version, then buy again for next major version. (my proposal is kind of like this)
Unlimited updates including new major builds, but feature frozen, new features locked to new customers. This is what DA seemed to be doing originally with license changes (FreeBSD excluded).

What seems to be happening now, is a set of technical restrictions designed to force people to upgrade or quit. Imagine if someone e.g. did an update to their software package and made it so if you upgrade your Windows OS, it refuses to run until you pay them again. Even more so without warning you before hand.

We already know as DA proudly told us they now have one set of binaries for all linux distros. I already can see as well, I updated from Buster to Bookworm and it didnt need a new DA binary, so what happens on Trixie? is there something in the code that says "this is the wrong OS I refuse to run"?

There is a difference between locking new feature development, and putting in a kill switch.

I promise this will be the only post like this (aside from the earlier shorter post), so please dont delete it.

How about this as a compromise, feature locked, no inclusive technical support, unless bug reporting. Future OS versions of existing OS supported.
In return lifetime license holders pay their original purchase price again for each license for the next major OS.
So as an example I pay you my original purchase price for a Trixie DA, custombuild. Then again for Forky and so on. This is per license, not per customer.

I urge you to think this over John, and I hope you make the right decision, I think its a good and fair proposal. I cant see many lifetime license holders who dont use it commercially going to your new system, its a failed hope, but they "might" do my suggestion.

 

[pasamsin]

let's AI update all services in your server and accident data are removed

AI is putting an end to the manual labor of coding for developers, and if you are a good developer, you can read AI-generated code just as easily as you read a book. In that case, you can fork any free control panel you want and easily customize and develop it for your own needs. AI does not delete your data. Control panels simply allow you to manage the existing applications and services on an operating system; beyond that, they do not serve any fundamentally different purpose. MySQL and MariaDB are already independent software packages installed directly on the server. If you are a skilled Linux administrator, you can configure and optimize them very quickly and easily with the help of AI. AI allows us to compress what would normally take two years of development work into just one or two months.

 

[ARealRiley]

> AI does not delete your data.

Claude-powered AI agent’s confession after deleting a firm’s entire database: ‘I violated every principle I was given’

A startup was left scrambling after a rogue AI agent deleted swaths of code underpinning its business

www.theguardian.com