Why move from Cpanel to Direct Admin

A

albatroz

Verified User
Joined
Mar 13, 2004
Messages
337
Location
Peru
I am new on DA, and has been offered a Cpanel -> DA migration.
I currently have RVSkins and Cpanel/WHM.

If you were to suggest me a change, why should I move to DA?
 
hi.....i am just a small fish in the pond but i moved from cPanel to DA for several reasons.
1. easier for the user to navigate. as an admin type, busy interfaces are often part of the daily grind...but for the basic user especially new to the internet, cPanel was proving to be super overwhelming for them.
2. bugs, bugs, bugs! I can't tell you how many times I had problems with accounts disappearing from my WHM for no reason. Of course, it could be the server admins but they swear it was not them.
The BIGGEST issue I had and still have is the inaccurate reading of disk usage per user. Almost daily, my server team has to run a script that will update my user control panels. What is worse is I have a few users that end up with the same result to correct the disk space use.....the root admin takes over the panel, changes themes and then sets the user back to a theme alternate to bluelagoon. cPanel forums and other can tell you that bluelagoon has its share of problems. I also had email problems quite often for no reason but it always stemmed from cPanel. I spent more time in the cPanel forums than i did on my own site. There is something wrong with that picture!

I will admit there are a few things i like about the WHM but i have to keep focused on the end user, not mine. This was the deciding factor to change to DirectAdmin and to rid my nightmare of bugs or problems.

Suggest you spend some time in the cPanel.net forums. I finally got tired of solutions that were too complex or out of my ability to achieve...ohhh, not to mention the forum members aren't always as nice.
The DA forum is the best forum I have read. One thing seems certain...this forum seems to have a good core of people that are willing to help us less knowledgable folks out. DA is not just a control panel in my opinion, it is also about people helping people. I am certain you will not find this environment in cPanel!
 
- bugs
- stability
- support
- price
- ease of administration
- quick but stable updates (not like cPanel's constant patching that I've heard of)
- DA has never had a major bug or security issue (that I have heard or seen)

Some people prefer cPanel because of the interface and they say cPanel has more features. It may have some features DA doesn't have, but DA is quickly catching up. Interface-wise, it's a matter of choice. I prefer DA :)

Hope that helps,
Matt :)
 
As I stated above multilingual support is a must for me and
perfomance/speed too.
I see that the Fantastico feature can be replaced by Installatron
but how could I replace the RVSkins product?
And well, the fact that you count only with one webmail, finally
is an advantage as it leaves you free for implementing whatever you may want.
 
RVSkin is a set of skins for Cpanel, that improve the native subsystem, allowing the change the customers to change
appearance and language without login again.
Even more RVsKin comes preloaded with translations in
more than 8 languages!

If someone could do something similar for DA, I guess he could make a lot of money
 
Last edited:
Whether or not anyone can make a lot of money developing a skin package system isn't readily apparent.

For example, we don't know if the RVSkin people are making money, we don't know how many CPanel licenses are out there compared to DA licenses, and we don't know how the CPanel client base compares to the DA client base in terms of willingness to buy addons.

All good subjects for a study, but as far as I know, the study hasn't been done yet.

Something else to consider is that it appears that in the past when people tried creating commercial skins for DA, two things happened:

1) Readers on this forum chastised them for not giving away their work.

2) They stopped supporting their skins because of lack of support for them.

My guess is that DA is currently adding new features to quickly for a small Skin company to be able to keep up.

Perhaps when DA development settles down to no more than one feature update yearly.

Jeff
 
Most cpanel hosts buy skins (some are cheap, some are expensive) because native ones are awful, and most cpanel hosts also buy kayako helpdesk and Fantastico, too.

If you DirectAdmin can convince Cpanel webbers to move and serve them better than cpanel does I guess they would stay long and as I stated above they use to buy third party stuff, not only for aesthetic and functional matters but also for gaining a competitive edge in a multilingual market.
 
When you move ssl certificates you must move both the private key file and the certificate file. You do not need, and do not need to create, a CSR (request) file.

With DA you can import both the key and the cert files in one "window" in the DA control panel. Since I've never used CPanel, I don't know how you'd get them out.

Jeff
 
It seems that DA guys are working fast closing the gaps setting them closer to cpanel features. Last 1.225 patch is nice.

We have finally decided to postpone our migration by the first weeks of Jan 2005, when we expect DA may have all the features we need and when nice designed skins will be also available.
 
jechilt said:
hi.....i am just a small fish in the pond but i moved from cPanel to DA for several reasons.
1. easier for the user to navigate. as an admin type, busy interfaces are often part of the daily grind...but for the basic user especially new to the internet, cPanel was proving to be super overwhelming for them.
2. bugs, bugs, bugs! I can't tell you how many times I had problems with accounts disappearing from my WHM for no reason. Of course, it could be the server admins but they swear it was not them.
The BIGGEST issue I had and still have is the inaccurate reading of disk usage per user. Almost daily, my server team has to run a script that will update my user control panels. What is worse is I have a few users that end up with the same result to correct the disk space use.....the root admin takes over the panel, changes themes and then sets the user back to a theme alternate to bluelagoon. cPanel forums and other can tell you that bluelagoon has its share of problems. I also had email problems quite often for no reason but it always stemmed from cPanel. I spent more time in the cPanel forums than i did on my own site. There is something wrong with that picture!

I will admit there are a few things i like about the WHM but i have to keep focused on the end user, not mine. This was the deciding factor to change to DirectAdmin and to rid my nightmare of bugs or problems.

Suggest you spend some time in the cPanel.net forums. I finally got tired of solutions that were too complex or out of my ability to achieve...ohhh, not to mention the forum members aren't always as nice.
The DA forum is the best forum I have read. One thing seems certain...this forum seems to have a good core of people that are willing to help us less knowledgable folks out. DA is not just a control panel in my opinion, it is also about people helping people. I am certain you will not find this environment in cPanel!
Click to expand...
Can you tell me if Directadmin has any thing like fantasico for easy customer installs say as mambo as most of my clients use it so it will be a pig to install scripts all the time for customers ?
Regards
Les
 
I purchased a reseller package off ebay for cpanel hosting (£10 per year) to send hosting time wasters to (kids that want $1 a month hosting) - when I logged into the WHM in Cpanel it brought back awful memories, the layout, the bugs

I can't even bear to login to cpanel again. I wasted a tenner!

I am now having daily flashbacks to a time gone by of Cpanel generated stress, bugs, poor service - user problems etc etc..

Hold on I'm going to have to login to my DA control panel to make myself feel better again..

Enough said?


Rob
 
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