Comparison
NovaPanel vs DirectAdmin
DirectAdmin is the hardest of these comparisons to write, because most of the usual arguments do not apply. It is not bloated, it is not expensive by cPanel standards, and it has been shipping since 2003 without drama. People who run it tend to like it.
So this page is narrower than the cPanel one. There are real reasons to prefer NovaPanel, there are real reasons to stay, and the honest answer depends more on the size of your fleet than on any feature list.
DirectAdmin prices are their published retail rates in USD, checked 30 August 2026: Personal PLUS $5/mo (2 accounts, 20 domains), Lite $15/mo (10 accounts, 50 domains), Standard $29/mo (unlimited). Bulk discounts apply from four licences. If these look out of date, theirs will be current and ours will not.
| NovaPanel | DirectAdmin | Edge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes — Community, never expires | No | NovaPanel |
| Cost for unlimited accounts | £4.99/mo Pro | $29/mo Standard | NovaPanel |
| Cost at the small end | Free, or £4.99/mo | $5/mo (2 accounts, 20 domains) | NovaPanel |
| Pricing model | Flat per server | Tiered by account + domain count | NovaPanel |
| Self-hosted (full control) | Yes | Yes | Tie |
| Resource footprint | Single Go binary | Light — its long-standing strength | Tie |
| Reseller / multi-customer | Yes (built in) | Yes (built in) | Tie |
| Auto-TLS | Caddy — every domain, instantly | Let's Encrypt via CustomBuild | NovaPanel |
| Web server choice per site | OLS / OpenResty / Apache (Pro) | Server-wide via CustomBuild | NovaPanel |
| PostgreSQL support | First-class | Available, MySQL-first | NovaPanel |
| DNSSEC | PowerDNS (toggle in admin) | Supported | Tie |
| WAF | Built-in (Pro) — Coraza + CRS | ModSecurity via CustomBuild | NovaPanel |
| S3 / Backblaze backups | Built-in (Pro) | FTP/SCP built in, S3 via plugin | NovaPanel |
| Migration tools (DirectAdmin → us) | Built in (Pro) — upload a backup, dry run, import | (N/A — origin) | NovaPanel |
| Track record | New — 2026 | Shipping since 2003, proven at scale | DirectAdmin (still) |
| Third-party ecosystem | Small — FOSSBilling, REST API | Plugin catalogue, WHMCS/Blesta modules | DirectAdmin (still) |
| Multi-server / clustering | Single server per licence | Multi-server DNS clustering | DirectAdmin (still) |
| Build-from-source control | No — we choose the stack | CustomBuild compiles what you want | DirectAdmin (still) |
Where NovaPanel wins
The shape of the pricing, more than the number. DirectAdmin is not expensive, but it is tiered: Personal PLUS caps you at 2 accounts and 20 domains, Lite at 10 and 50, and unlimited means Standard at $29/mo. Growth moves you up a tier. NovaPanel is flat — free on Community, £4.99/mo on Pro, with no account or domain ceiling at any tier. If you are on Standard today, that is roughly £220 a year per server back.
A free tier that is not a trial. DirectAdmin has no free option. NovaPanel's Community tier auto-issues at install, never expires, and runs real sites with databases, DNS, auto-TLS, file manager and backups. For a personal server or a first client, that difference is the whole decision.
Per-site web server choice.
DirectAdmin's stack is chosen server-wide through CustomBuild — powerful, but it is
one answer for every site on the box. NovaPanel runs Caddy in front and lets an
individual site sit on OpenLiteSpeed, Nginx/OpenResty or Apache, so a migrated site
that needs .htaccess can have it without changing anything for its
neighbours.
Things that are built in rather than built. WAF, virus scanning, S3/Backblaze offsite backups and per-site environment variables ship with Pro. On DirectAdmin most of that is CustomBuild, a plugin, or a script you maintain.
Where DirectAdmin still wins (honestly)
Two decades of running other people's servers. DirectAdmin has been in production since 2003. NovaPanel shipped this year. If your business depends on the panel and you are risk-averse about that, DirectAdmin is the defensible choice and no feature table changes it.
CustomBuild. Compiling your own PHP, web server and mail stack, with the versions you want, is a genuine capability we do not have and are not trying to have. NovaPanel picks a stack and maintains it. If you need to pin an exact build of something, that is DirectAdmin's answer and it is a good one.
Multi-server setups. DNS clustering across servers, and the tooling around fleets rather than boxes. A NovaPanel licence is one server, and the panel has no concept of its siblings.
The plugin and billing ecosystem. Twenty years produces WHMCS modules, Blesta modules, and a plugin catalogue. NovaPanel has a REST API, a FOSSBilling module and one-call account provisioning — enough to drive it from a billing system, but not a catalogue.
Moving a DirectAdmin account across
NovaPanel imports DirectAdmin accounts from a backup archive. Create a backup in DirectAdmin, upload it in the panel, and it recreates the account: sites and files, subdomains and domain pointers, databases with their data, mailboxes with their stored messages, forwarders, cron jobs, and each site's PHP version. It shows you what it found and runs a dry run before creating anything, and nothing that already exists is overwritten. The full walkthrough is in the import guide.
Two caveats worth knowing before you start, both of which the panel repeats at the time. DirectAdmin user backups contain no DNS records at all — that is the backup format rather than a limitation here — so if the account's email is hosted elsewhere, copy its MX records across before switching nameservers. And mailbox passwords are regenerated, because no panel can convert another's password hashes; those users update their mail clients once.
It reads one archive at a time and does not log in to your old server to fetch accounts itself. For a handful of accounts that is a few minutes each. For a fleet of hundreds it is still a fleet of hundreds, and pulling accounts directly is on the roadmap.
Realistic switch math
If you are on DirectAdmin Personal PLUS at $5/mo and two accounts is genuinely enough, the money is a wash and you should switch only if you want what NovaPanel does differently. If you are on Standard at $29/mo because you outgrew the tiers, NovaPanel Pro is £4.99/mo with no ceiling — roughly £220 a year per server, and more across a fleet.
The stronger argument is usually the free tier rather than the saving: a second server for staging, a personal box, or a first client costs nothing on Community and a full licence on DirectAdmin.