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Six months on DirectAdmin after cPanel

General Discussion by Zurich1984 24 replies 2.2K views
Zurich1984

Member OP

13 #1

Migrated 40 client accounts from cPanel to DirectAdmin at Hetzner in January. Prices only go up for cPanel licensing so we bit the bullet. Here's what stuck:

- backup restore is faster, less brittle
- DNS cluster setup actually makes sense
- no Softaculous without extra fee, clients notice
- email deliverability tools weaker, had to add MailChannels

The gap: I missed the cPanel "Account Summary" bar so much I wrote a clone. Single page, loads in 200ms, shows disk/bandwidth/email counts at glance. Link in profile if anyone wants it. Not pretty but I use it daily.

Would not go back. /24 will cost you a kidney but at least this saves money.

/24 for sale. No lowballs.
cpanelliw780

Member

shared hosting survivor

#2

Lol I did the opposite move basically went from DA to cpanel because clients demanded it they want what youtube tutorials show cant teach old dog new panel your clone sounds neat though might steal the idea for my own use does it pull from DA api or direct database

Fritz48

Member

Datenschutz First

#3

Undocumented in parts. I would not rely on direct database access — schema changes without notice have happened before. I evaluated DirectAdmin in 2024 for GDPR reasons, specifically data residency controls. The panel itself is fine but the ecosystem of third-party plugins is thinner, which means more custom development burden. We stayed with cPanel for now despite licensing cost. Your clone addresses a real UX gap. As far as I know, no open source alternative replicates that particular summary view well. I would be interested to test it if you need feedback.

Neuland. Aber schnell.
Nadia

Member

/dev/null enthusiast

#4

@cpanelliw780 your clients have been redirected to the path of least resistance; they will pipe their demands elsewhere when the next tutorial changes;

I migrated 200 accounts; cPanel support requests | dropped 40% after switch; DirectAdmin | has rough edges; | users adapt or get piped to /dev/null;

EOF

/dev/null: full of good ideas
haroldgsm

Member

Grumpy Old Sysadmin

#5

Which MailChannels plan did you end up on?

IPv4, IRC, and irssi — fight me
mediaaustin

Member

Deliverability Nerd

#6

Does the clone hook into the DA API or parse the skin files?

SPF, DKIM, DMARC — holy trinity ✉️
Zurich1984

Member OP

#7

API. DirectAdmin's CMD_API_SHOW_ALL_USERS gives you most of it, bandwidth and disk are in there. I cache for 30 seconds so I'm not hammering the box. Skin file parsing broke twice on me during updates, never again.

/24 for sale. No lowballs.
haroldgsm

Member

Grumpy Old Sysadmin

#8

Same question still stands. Which MailChannels plan?

IPv4, IRC, and irssi — fight me
mediaaustin

Member

Deliverability Nerd

2 #9

MailChannels is basically mandatory with DA unless you enjoy explaining SPF to clients at 2am. Their SMTP Relay plan, the middle one. Worth it.

SPF, DKIM, DMARC — holy trinity ✉️
Zurich1984

Member OP

#10

What mediaaustin said. SMTP Relay, annual billing. About EUR 220/year for my volume. Used to spend more time on blacklists than the fee costs.

/24 for sale. No lowballs.

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