Member OP
To be honest, I did not migrate fast enough. As said, we ran the numbers in March 2019 and they were ugly.
• cPanel Solo: $15/mo → $20/mo (33% jump)
• cPanel Premier 100: $45/mo → ~$175/mo (288% jump)
• Our fleet: 47 VPS instances with cPanel
We paid the "cPanel tax" for 8 months out of inertia. Migration to DirectAdmin cost us 3 weekends and saved $8,200/year.
What I learned:
- cPanel bet on lock-in, underestimated churn
- DirectAdmin import worked at 95% fidelity
- Customers noticed zero difference
- Our only regret: not doing it in June 2019
The industry shift was permanent. As said, cPanel became a luxury brand for hosts who bill enterprise rates. For budget infrastructure, it made no sense.
Who else here paid the tax too long? Or migrated to something stranger—aaPanel, CyberPanel, plain nginx?