As a somewhat recent administrator for cPanel on CentOS and having watched web hosting providers post online about the latest price changes to cPanel licensing in 2019. I decided to find alternatives to cPanel that offered some of the basics of web server management without the high cost of licensing. I’m not going to argue, license fees are important for a for-profit company to keep releasing security updates and offering reasonable support. But once pricing goes out of reach of most hobbyists like myself for their personal sites, administrators will start to find alternates that are reasonable. I looked at Vesta (https://vestacp.com/) and CentOS Webpanel (http://centos-webpanel.com/). Both offer plenty of features to host most websites and combinations of accounts.
I decided to have DirectAdmin a try since their personal licensing is $2 a month for a single account server and the VPS provider I use includes a license at no cost when using their services. Which was a great move from DirectAdmin, help get their software into admin, who will then license their software in the enterprise when they find a fit for it!
Here’s some basic advice from a guy who administers cPanel by day and DirectAdmin at night and suggestions and links to other websites that helped me understand and feel comfortable using DirectAdmin:
The following article was a great help to me:
https://servermanager.guide/162/how-to-install-directadmin-control-panel-on-centos-7/#spf