DirectAdmin

DirectAdmin is considered to be the user-friendly, lightweight control panel of the two. Its approach is to use one piece of software with different hierarchy restriction levels for Administrators, Resellers and the Users themselves. Each access level provides the end-user with the management tools relative to their tier. For example, the Administrator would be the route who has control of everything on the server basis, the Administrator level has access to all of the accounts, domains, users and configurations under their reseller account, and customers on the User level have access to their own domains, email management, Zones, software packages, and everything else they would need to manage their site.

DirectAdmin is very intuitive, user friendly and it boasts simple navigation. Although it appears to have fewer features to cPanel, this is far from the case – and provides all of the functionality that anyone who is looking to join web hosting would ever need. Simply put, DA is decluttered, providing users with the ‘relevant and important’ tools to allow them to manage their web hosting journey – it is refreshingly simple. 

cPanel

cPanel on the other hand provides users with two pieces of software. The first is WHM, the administrator level of the two. This piece of software provides both Admins and resellers to take control of the web hosting configuration, and the ability to manage the server and the clients under that reseller account. cPanel itself is the user level software, providing users with the ability to manage their domains, account, emails, websites, databases and much more. cPanel can seem a little overwhelming and intimidating, however those that want to put in the time (and the cost), then they will be rewarded with the ability to use one of the most advanced, documented and developed pieces of software within the industry.