Hello all,
Due to the cPanel price hikes, we will be converting our server to DirectAdmin. We've been provided with a license courtesy of our host.
The server will be going down for an extended maintenance starting at 11:00 PM U.S Central time (GMT -5) on Friday, August 23rd, 2019.
During this time we will be reformatting the server, restoring our websites, installing software/dependencies, etc.
A summary of why we're doing this:
On August 20th, 2018, Oakley Capital (a private investment firm) decided to buyout cPanel. cPanel is a control panel software we use to manage accounts, perform automatic updates, backups, etc.
Since the firm that acquired them is only interested in their profits/returns, rather than customer experience and fair pricing, cPanel decided to convert to an account based pricing model. They started charging on a per-account basis above certain thresholds.
While we initially thought this wouldn't impact us due to having a dedicated/bare metal environment, we discovered the reseller pricing discounts/volume licensing was being discontinued too. Which effectively increased our licensing cost by 50%.
The bottom line is, while we can afford the new pricing, we refuse to support greedy capitalists that don't care about consumers. They simply think that they can get away and force everyone to pay these prices. They're wrong.
Not only is the entire price hike out of pure greed, cPanel itself should in reality have absolutely no right to price based on account usage. Let's go over some facts about cPanel.
Everything critical in the cPanel ecosystem is open-sourced software. Software they didn't help make, and software they rarely (if at all) contributed to.
- Apache - open source web server
- Linux/CentOS - all open source
- PHP/php-fpm - open source language/hypertext processor
- ProFTPD/PureFTPD - open source FTP daemon/software
- MySQL/MariaDB - open source database software
- Exim/Dovecot - open source mail server software
- Let's Encrypt certificates. They're completely free for everyone.
- iptables/CSF/ipset - open source firewall software/management
- BIND/NAMED - open source name server (DNS) software
- OpenSSH - open source SSH software
I can go on for years. The point is, they don't write or contribute to any of the code that would matter for scalability or performance. Yet, they believe they have the right to charge per account on YOUR hardware and YOUR network.
All of the critical software (like the kernel or apache) that would contribute to aiding scalability and performance isn't at all written or maintained by them.
So, in short, we refuse to support greedy decisions by investment firms. I firmly believe cPanel, which is essentially a collection of well-tested Perl scripts with a pretty UI, isn't at all worth it.
What does this mean for RC-RP? Basically the server will go down for a bit while we transition things over. There should be no noticeable difference for any of you.
If you've made it this far down, thanks for reading. On the off chance cPanel reads this post (doubtful): You've truly disappointed me, I've used cPanel for 10 years, and you betrayed the webhosting industry. All of you should be ashamed.
And if DirectAdmin reads this post: hey cutie, we're movin' in.
- fr0st
Due to the cPanel price hikes, we will be converting our server to DirectAdmin. We've been provided with a license courtesy of our host.
The server will be going down for an extended maintenance starting at 11:00 PM U.S Central time (GMT -5) on Friday, August 23rd, 2019.
During this time we will be reformatting the server, restoring our websites, installing software/dependencies, etc.
A summary of why we're doing this:
On August 20th, 2018, Oakley Capital (a private investment firm) decided to buyout cPanel. cPanel is a control panel software we use to manage accounts, perform automatic updates, backups, etc.
Since the firm that acquired them is only interested in their profits/returns, rather than customer experience and fair pricing, cPanel decided to convert to an account based pricing model. They started charging on a per-account basis above certain thresholds.
While we initially thought this wouldn't impact us due to having a dedicated/bare metal environment, we discovered the reseller pricing discounts/volume licensing was being discontinued too. Which effectively increased our licensing cost by 50%.
The bottom line is, while we can afford the new pricing, we refuse to support greedy capitalists that don't care about consumers. They simply think that they can get away and force everyone to pay these prices. They're wrong.
Not only is the entire price hike out of pure greed, cPanel itself should in reality have absolutely no right to price based on account usage. Let's go over some facts about cPanel.
Everything critical in the cPanel ecosystem is open-sourced software. Software they didn't help make, and software they rarely (if at all) contributed to.
- Apache - open source web server
- Linux/CentOS - all open source
- PHP/php-fpm - open source language/hypertext processor
- ProFTPD/PureFTPD - open source FTP daemon/software
- MySQL/MariaDB - open source database software
- Exim/Dovecot - open source mail server software
- Let's Encrypt certificates. They're completely free for everyone.
- iptables/CSF/ipset - open source firewall software/management
- BIND/NAMED - open source name server (DNS) software
- OpenSSH - open source SSH software
I can go on for years. The point is, they don't write or contribute to any of the code that would matter for scalability or performance. Yet, they believe they have the right to charge per account on YOUR hardware and YOUR network.
All of the critical software (like the kernel or apache) that would contribute to aiding scalability and performance isn't at all written or maintained by them.
So, in short, we refuse to support greedy decisions by investment firms. I firmly believe cPanel, which is essentially a collection of well-tested Perl scripts with a pretty UI, isn't at all worth it.
What does this mean for RC-RP? Basically the server will go down for a bit while we transition things over. There should be no noticeable difference for any of you.
If you've made it this far down, thanks for reading. On the off chance cPanel reads this post (doubtful): You've truly disappointed me, I've used cPanel for 10 years, and you betrayed the webhosting industry. All of you should be ashamed.
And if DirectAdmin reads this post: hey cutie, we're movin' in.
- fr0st
