The Battle Between Two Giants – DirectAdmin vs cPanel

Hosting is a vital part of your success and when it comes to your hosting account, you need to know the best choice between DirectAdmin vs. cPanel. Both of these are control panels used for hosting and provide the administrative options for managing all the parts of your hosting account. One is certainly better than the other, but before we get to that, it’s necessary to understand what both offers.

DirectAdmin

As a paid control panel, which requires a license, DirectAdmin is one of the best choices you will find. You need a paid control panel (most hosting companies provide one) because free control panels simply don’t give you the security and features necessary for most projects.

This is one of the easiest control panels to use and provides access to webmail, admin options, your file manager and so much more. When you login, you will notice, everything is laid out for you on one screen. This makes it easy to find what you’re looking for within the administrative area.

cPanel

The best control panel on the market is cPanel. Hands down, cPanel wins in the battle of DirectAdmin vs. cPanel. It’s another paid control panel and most of the best hosting companies provide cPanel with your account. The features and ease of use make this one of the best choices on the internet for beginners and advanced users.

Beginners will find cPanel easy to navigate and unlike DirectAdmin, cPanel splits the features into categories, which makes them easier to find. CPanel also provides more features and plugins than DirectAdmin does.

The Major Differences Between DirectAdmin and cPanel

DirectAdmin and cPanel are very similar, yet very different. They both provide a server configuration framework and UI, but DirectAdmin leaves quite a bit of the work to be done in the root shell. CPanel, on the other hand, provides nearly all the configuration and functionality within the UI. This makes it far easier to use and a better fit for just about all user levels.

Why is cPanel Free with Your Hosting Account?

When you sign up for a hosting account, you will most likely get cPanel as your control panel option. This is given to you as a feature of your package because the best hosting companies understand how powerful cPanel is compared to DirectAdmin and the other control panel options. DirectAdmin may fit with a small percentage of users, whereas cPanel fits with just about every type of user.

The popularity of cPanel drives it with the major hosting companies and it’s very inexpensive. The reputation cPanel has gained helps keep their marketing budget down, making it a very good choice for the budget conscious user.

Along with all the features and the low cost, cPanel provides plenty of online tutorials, how-to guides, forum discussions and more. Since it’s such a popular choice, helpful resources are found all over the internet whenever you have questions.

Expandability of DirectAdmin vs. cPanel

DirectAdmin is expandable, but the cost of adding additional functionality is very high. With cPanel, you can add plugins and modules very easily without much or any added cost. Along with the expandability through modules and plugins, advanced users can custom code options directly into the system.

Access and Overall Usability of Both

DirectAdmin gives you multiple menu options and it’s less overwhelming than cPanel, when you first login. However, cPanel makes it easier to find the things you need and you gain a massive amount of direct access when you login. It may seem overwhelming to a new users, but everything is split into categories, including:

• Mail
• Logs
• Files
• Domains
• Security
• Preferences
• And More!

All the categories are collapsible and expandable, making it easy to customize the look of your front page. Along with the categories, you can use the search function to help you find an option within cPanel.  On the other hand, DirectAdmin only uses three main sections, which are: Email Management, Advanced Features and Your Account.  This may seem like it’s easier, at first, but it becomes difficult if you don’t know what you’re looking for within the admin area.

The Final Verdict – DirectAdmin vs cPanel

When looking at DirectAdmin vs. cPanel, there’s a clear winner: cPanel. This battle is one many have discussed and while both cPanel and DirectAdmin are great choices, cPanel is better for beginners and provides more customization for advanced users.

cPanel has dropped a bombshell on its customers with a price hike for its services that has left some running for the door marked exit.

The company, which specialises in interfaces aimed at simplifying website and server management, announced the increases without warning, with licences purchased or renewed from now hit immediately, with monthly licences sticking with the old structure until 1 September.Annual licences are also for the chop, and will be converted to monthly billing as they come up for renewal.The gang previously had three tiers for users to enjoy – cPanel Solo, at $15/month, cPanel and WHM VPS at $20/month (or $200/year), or a dedicated version aimed at larger web hosts for $45/month or $425/year.The tiers have now been renamed to Admin, Pro and Premier (at $20, $30 and $45/month respectively) but – and this is what has really enraged customers -an account limit has been applied. The top level, Premier, is limited to 100 accounts. Additional accounts will require an extra $0.20/month each.The company explained the change in its updated licensing guide, saying that: “Historically, cPanel has based its services and pricing around a VPS or Dedicated license with unlimited cPanel Accounts” but improvements in hardware means it needs to change its pricing structure.

Er, right.

While the company claims benefits for “customers with a lower cPanel account density”, those with a higher density are in for sticker shock.And goodness, how those customers have been shrieking. One hosting provider, SonicFast, complained that the change meant an 800 per cent increase in the amount it would be charged.Other customers simply published the bare figures showing the impact of the hike in cold, hard cash. It is all a bit eyewatering.Passing the price rises onto downstream customers will take a bit of bravery in the competitive hosting market. For some, it will be easier to simply look elsewhere. One UK-based hosting provider simply slammed the brakes on issuing any more licences until the whole sorry situation could be sorted out.
The company, founded in 1997 and snapped up by Oakley Capital last year (a group that also owns Plesk and SolusVM), currently enjoys the slogan “Champions for our customers, the industry, and our employees”. It has yet to add “and our investors”. It probably can’t get its website to work – it has, unsurprisingly, come under relentless DDoS attacks since the price changes were announced.

cPanel lays claim to over 70 million domains launched on servers using cPanel and WHM over more than 73 countries. It also refers to its employees as “cpeeps”.Its customers might have a different name for them in light of recent events.We have contacted cPanel to get its reasons for the hike but have yet to hear back. ®

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