I am a current user of H-Sphere. I have operated and maintained a multi-server H-Sphere cluster for three years, and while I am not the world's foremost expert, I know the system extremely well from three years of daily usage, 3 full server migrations, and dealing with all the quirks and unique issues every control panel has.
I am doing an in-depth analysis and comparison of DirectAdmin and H-Sphere, for the purposes of evaluating DA as a replacement of H-Sphere in my environment. I couldn't find anything on WHT, this forum, or anywhere else I looked that really gave specifics on WHY one control panel is better than the other. I read a lot of "I don't know why, but [my cp] ROCKS!" and "All cp's suck except [insert your cp here]". This was absolutely no help to me when trying to make an educated decision on just WHY this cp is better than that cp. So here's my legwork, maybe it'll help someone else.
I am focusing on what's important to ME PERSONALLY and my customers. The only reason I'm even sharing this is to save the next H-Sphere user who's thinking of switching some time when making his/her own decision, but this is not meant to be exhaustive, and your mileage may vary. Everything I say here is my opinion only, and remember that I'm a brand new user of DA so I may have missed some features, functionality, and/or am totally talking out of my ass.
Disclaimers aside, after spending the last 5 days poring over every page of docs and testing out every possible link in the demo, my impression of DA (from the point of view of an H-Sphere user) is that DA is much simpler and easier to use (with the notable exception of the DNS system, see below). One of the biggest issues with H-Sphere from a usability perspective is that it's complicated to use. Some would argue that complexity = flexibility, and that trumps simplicity, but my users don't know, and don't care. However based on my testing, I can't find much that H-Sphere CAN do but DA CANNOT. It seems that DA provides the best of both worlds (again, with a couple exceptions, noted below).
So, I find H-Sphere to be better in these ways (with my reasoning on why):
[User]
- File Manager is WAY better, full control over files (H-Sphere uses webshell, which is confusing to most users, but arguably more powerful. IMO simpler is better, in this case)
- Protect directory is much better/simpler, seems easier to manage from UI (I have so many tech support requests for this, and even for me it takes 5-10 minutes to protect a directory correctly, and it's easy to make a mistake)
- Backup is much, much better, ability to backup website, email, FTP, DB's (H-Sphere has no backup utility of any kind, except a system-wide backup which is flaky and unsupported, but there are third party non-free options that I could never get to work correctly)
- Managing MySQL DB's is much easier, better control (Again, I just found it faster in DA to do something I do all day long for my customers in H-Sphere, and every 5 minutes saved makes a huge difference)
- Download Outlook settings (if it works?) would be fantastic
- Easy to create mailing lists (but do they work? I have not yet tested this on my live system)
- Better catch-all options ("Ignore", "Fail" don't exist in H-Sphere)
- More powerful, easier to configure manual spam block settings (block by word, by domain, by email, minimum size, adult filter, multiple overlapping filters... NONE of this exists in H-Sphere)
- Vacation email messages are on a schedule (start at date/time, end at date/time... VERY USEFUL)
- Spamassasin setup is more flexible, BUT cannot be applied per email, only per account (from what I've read in the docs, in any case this isn't a problem for me in my environment)
- Edit error pages directly through the interface (except that... what if the user wants to code their own pages and upload them? This is on my list of things to experiment with)
- Redirects are much more powerful and customizable (any path, change redirect type code "302 - Temporary" for example, multiple redirects. H-Sphere doesn't have anything even closely resembling this.)
- Mime Types and Apache Handlers right from the interface, very useful in many cases
[Reseller]
- Ability to resend welcome email WITH automatically generating, resetting, and sending random user password
- Random password button (why doesn't every control panel have something this simple, yet SO USEFUL??? I actually keep a text file of 1000 random passwords that I regenerate from time to time, forcing me to alt-tab cut/paste and make mistakes... I can't believe how useful this little tiny enhancement is going to be for me.)
[Admin]
- "Service Monitor" - Manage/Check, Restart and Reload services from the GUI, saves a lot of time. Currently I have to SSH in to do this.
The services monitor is graceful in that it tries to start, restart, then contacts the admin but only once per hour... very nice (H-Sphere has no service checking at all... the only way I know to be notified is to get a call from an angry customer)
- Log Viewer from GUI, another time saver (H-Sphere has log viewers only for end-user logs (access, error), but no ability to view system logs. Again, admin would have to SSH in and tail, this just saves a bunch of time yet is such a simple little thing)
- Mail Queue Administration, File Editor, both "how did I ever live without that?" features
- Ability to set custom HTTPD configurations via GUI
- Plans are based on summary disk usage by default (H-Sphere allows for other methods)
So these are the main reasons I'm switching! Of course nothing's perfect, and I did find a few things that appear to be missing in DA that I will personally miss.
Things missing from DA that I will miss in H-Sphere:
- "Restore Default DNS Records" (in case users bork up their DNS, one click brings it all back)
- There is no way to purchase a certificate and have it automatically installed (only manual cert installs possible, no "one click" purchase+install, which saved a lot of time for me)
- H-Sphere has the best plan creation system that I've ever used or tested. It's very complicated, but in this case I think complicated is BETTER, since you only create plans seldomly, and once they're set up you use them a lot. H-Sphere allows me to limit ANY resource by number (even the obscure ones). While some might say "who cares?", I think I'll miss this feature, and it will force me to sell only a certain type of plan. In real life, this isn't that big a deal for me, but I'll probably miss it.
- H-Sphere has "hard limits" on resources, separate from the plan creation system, where you have an additional level of system resource limits (extremely useful when you want to put system limits on unlimited resources... everyone knows that in real life you don't want a user with 10,000 email accounts saturating the system. It's nice not to have to leave it up to "hope" that no one does this. Also if one were to offer "free" accounts, like designers for example that bundle hosting in with other services, this is very useful)
- Ability to change the percentage usage at which a user is notified ("75% for Resellers and 80% for Users" appears to be hard coded... at least there's no way in DA to change this in the UI, but in H-Sphere it's very easy to change this. Again, for me this isn't that big a deal.)
Woof... long post. Well anyway hopefully some other person thinking of switching from H-Sphere to DA will find this useful!
I am doing an in-depth analysis and comparison of DirectAdmin and H-Sphere, for the purposes of evaluating DA as a replacement of H-Sphere in my environment. I couldn't find anything on WHT, this forum, or anywhere else I looked that really gave specifics on WHY one control panel is better than the other. I read a lot of "I don't know why, but [my cp] ROCKS!" and "All cp's suck except [insert your cp here]". This was absolutely no help to me when trying to make an educated decision on just WHY this cp is better than that cp. So here's my legwork, maybe it'll help someone else.
I am focusing on what's important to ME PERSONALLY and my customers. The only reason I'm even sharing this is to save the next H-Sphere user who's thinking of switching some time when making his/her own decision, but this is not meant to be exhaustive, and your mileage may vary. Everything I say here is my opinion only, and remember that I'm a brand new user of DA so I may have missed some features, functionality, and/or am totally talking out of my ass.
Disclaimers aside, after spending the last 5 days poring over every page of docs and testing out every possible link in the demo, my impression of DA (from the point of view of an H-Sphere user) is that DA is much simpler and easier to use (with the notable exception of the DNS system, see below). One of the biggest issues with H-Sphere from a usability perspective is that it's complicated to use. Some would argue that complexity = flexibility, and that trumps simplicity, but my users don't know, and don't care. However based on my testing, I can't find much that H-Sphere CAN do but DA CANNOT. It seems that DA provides the best of both worlds (again, with a couple exceptions, noted below).
So, I find H-Sphere to be better in these ways (with my reasoning on why):
[User]
- File Manager is WAY better, full control over files (H-Sphere uses webshell, which is confusing to most users, but arguably more powerful. IMO simpler is better, in this case)
- Protect directory is much better/simpler, seems easier to manage from UI (I have so many tech support requests for this, and even for me it takes 5-10 minutes to protect a directory correctly, and it's easy to make a mistake)
- Backup is much, much better, ability to backup website, email, FTP, DB's (H-Sphere has no backup utility of any kind, except a system-wide backup which is flaky and unsupported, but there are third party non-free options that I could never get to work correctly)
- Managing MySQL DB's is much easier, better control (Again, I just found it faster in DA to do something I do all day long for my customers in H-Sphere, and every 5 minutes saved makes a huge difference)
- Download Outlook settings (if it works?) would be fantastic
- Easy to create mailing lists (but do they work? I have not yet tested this on my live system)
- Better catch-all options ("Ignore", "Fail" don't exist in H-Sphere)
- More powerful, easier to configure manual spam block settings (block by word, by domain, by email, minimum size, adult filter, multiple overlapping filters... NONE of this exists in H-Sphere)
- Vacation email messages are on a schedule (start at date/time, end at date/time... VERY USEFUL)
- Spamassasin setup is more flexible, BUT cannot be applied per email, only per account (from what I've read in the docs, in any case this isn't a problem for me in my environment)
- Edit error pages directly through the interface (except that... what if the user wants to code their own pages and upload them? This is on my list of things to experiment with)
- Redirects are much more powerful and customizable (any path, change redirect type code "302 - Temporary" for example, multiple redirects. H-Sphere doesn't have anything even closely resembling this.)
- Mime Types and Apache Handlers right from the interface, very useful in many cases
[Reseller]
- Ability to resend welcome email WITH automatically generating, resetting, and sending random user password
- Random password button (why doesn't every control panel have something this simple, yet SO USEFUL??? I actually keep a text file of 1000 random passwords that I regenerate from time to time, forcing me to alt-tab cut/paste and make mistakes... I can't believe how useful this little tiny enhancement is going to be for me.)
[Admin]
- "Service Monitor" - Manage/Check, Restart and Reload services from the GUI, saves a lot of time. Currently I have to SSH in to do this.
The services monitor is graceful in that it tries to start, restart, then contacts the admin but only once per hour... very nice (H-Sphere has no service checking at all... the only way I know to be notified is to get a call from an angry customer)
- Log Viewer from GUI, another time saver (H-Sphere has log viewers only for end-user logs (access, error), but no ability to view system logs. Again, admin would have to SSH in and tail, this just saves a bunch of time yet is such a simple little thing)
- Mail Queue Administration, File Editor, both "how did I ever live without that?" features
- Ability to set custom HTTPD configurations via GUI
- Plans are based on summary disk usage by default (H-Sphere allows for other methods)
So these are the main reasons I'm switching! Of course nothing's perfect, and I did find a few things that appear to be missing in DA that I will personally miss.
Things missing from DA that I will miss in H-Sphere:
- "Restore Default DNS Records" (in case users bork up their DNS, one click brings it all back)
- There is no way to purchase a certificate and have it automatically installed (only manual cert installs possible, no "one click" purchase+install, which saved a lot of time for me)
- H-Sphere has the best plan creation system that I've ever used or tested. It's very complicated, but in this case I think complicated is BETTER, since you only create plans seldomly, and once they're set up you use them a lot. H-Sphere allows me to limit ANY resource by number (even the obscure ones). While some might say "who cares?", I think I'll miss this feature, and it will force me to sell only a certain type of plan. In real life, this isn't that big a deal for me, but I'll probably miss it.
- H-Sphere has "hard limits" on resources, separate from the plan creation system, where you have an additional level of system resource limits (extremely useful when you want to put system limits on unlimited resources... everyone knows that in real life you don't want a user with 10,000 email accounts saturating the system. It's nice not to have to leave it up to "hope" that no one does this. Also if one were to offer "free" accounts, like designers for example that bundle hosting in with other services, this is very useful)
- Ability to change the percentage usage at which a user is notified ("75% for Resellers and 80% for Users" appears to be hard coded... at least there's no way in DA to change this in the UI, but in H-Sphere it's very easy to change this. Again, for me this isn't that big a deal.)
Woof... long post. Well anyway hopefully some other person thinking of switching from H-Sphere to DA will find this useful!
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