In the world of hosting control panels, cPanel and Plesk are the heavy hitters. But there is an underdog challenger called DirectAdmin that persistently tries to carve its way into the mainstream. Can it compete? Do we recommend it?
DirectAdmin is generally considered the third place choice of panel behind Plesk and cPanel.
It’s a formidable competitor, with an emphasis on being a fairly light-weight panel.
It’s the simplest of the paid panels, having a good (though smaller) choice of features.
DirectAdmin needs less resources compared to cPanel or Plesk, allowing small (and therefore cheaper) VPS to run it. DirectAdmin also works well on Ubuntu, Debian, FreeBSD, CentOS, Red Hat (RHEL), and Fedora.
DirectAdmin is about 2/3rds the cost of cPanel (Dedicated License), and roughly the same cost of Plesk. Many budget-minded customers opt for DA over the others.
Having less feature can be a good thing, and DirectAdmin has a tidy interface as a result. And like cPanel/WHM, it keeps the complex server admin functionality away from website admin functionality.
DirectAdmin has an excellent choice for OS compatibility. However, that list excludes Windows.
cPanel has a vast selection of plugins available, to expand the abilities of that panel. Even Plesk has quite a few through its Application Vauult. But DirectAdmin has almost none.
DirectAdmin can handle basic server administration activities quite easily, but advanced functionalities such as clustering or staging support is missing.
Although EuroVPS doesn’t sell DirectAdmin, nor provided managed VPS that use it, we are familiar with it. And we find both cPanel and Plesk to be better payware solutions. If you’re considering DirectAdmin – don’t.
For almost the same investment, you can get a managed cPanel plan.
There’s a reason it’s the industry standard for Linux hosting! Contact us today about getting a managed VPS from EuroVPS.
