[tiwil]

I wonder whether this issue is totally a cpanel issue.  It's the exorbitant price hike in 2019 of cpanel that broke the proverbial Camel's Back.  I've got a free hosting account with afreecloud.com since 2016.  The owner is KuJoes (I think quite a number of VPS enthusiasts would know him from LowEndBox).  He tried to get an alternative for free cpanel hosting with VestaCP in 2016, and I still have my free VestaCP user account to this day.  I noticed that he now offers free DirectAdmin hosting instead, no doubt because of the latest issues with VestaCP.  But for me it's a free host trend worth watching.

I believe it's cPanel and its 3rd party apps that cost the most. No wonder 000webhost still alive with their own panel beside the fact they're supported by Hostinger. If 000webhost costs so much then Hostinger of course will close 000webhost very soon because Hostinger is company that searching for profit.

Probably free hosting can move to free panel and provide free softaculous only. If we really need a good hosting then ask them to get the paid one instead of free hosting. Nowadays it's hard to provide freemium stuff when everyone increasing their price + the pandemic.

[mzltest]

That's a sad thing.I hosted a Chinese blog with around 20 entries for a year.They do really offer great service and that's a good community.

WaZhanFou ,a Chinese hostibg blogger once started cpanel free hosting in 2018 but now he turned to DirectAdmin free hosting.

...最开始用的是Cpanel面板，后来Cpanel授权费涨得太离谱了，最后换到了DirectAdmin面板了。...

(We used cpanel panel first,but the license fee of cpanel raised THAT high,and then we made the change to DirectAdmin panel)

Directadmin can almost alter cPanel,but my first impression to DirectAdmin is bad because the default theme looks too "geeky".Well,Installing a good theme is needed,at least I think.

Well,the most popular hosting control panel solutions for free hosts in China are EasyPanel and modified BT(BaoTa,宝塔)panels.Both of them are free to use,and thus are widely used.Yeah,there are many bytehost resellers,too.

Finally,as far as I know,that heliohost (https://www.heliohost.org/signup/ )seems to still offer free cPanel hosting.Maybe a wider community and Non-Profit certification helps to control budget.

[deanhills]

Finally,as far as I know,that heliohost (https://www.heliohost.org/signup/ )seems to still offer free cPanel hosting.Maybe a wider community and Non-Profit certification helps to control budget.

That's really great to know @mzltest.  Heliohost comes well recommended by two of our Forum members @sohamb03 and @ikk157.  I'll check HelioHost out and maybe sign up to see what the cpanel is like.

Note: I've opened a separate discussion about my HelioHost sign-up experience.

Thanks for sharing your experiences with DirectAdmin and your panel of choice.  I agree.  When I was still with Frihost, we had DirectAdmin hosting there that was very intelligently configured by the owner of Frihost for ease of use. That was in 2016. I then signed up for a paid account with a Canadian Shared Host, Blue Bird Hosting, to learn more about DirectAdmin and I found the panel very clumsy.  In the beginning I had to submit many tickets as yes, the theme that came up was not good.  I then battled to get the classic theme.  Also the layout of the panel is not user friendly.  Easy to pick the wrong function.  After a long while however once I knew where everything was, I managed to use it OK.

Next I went for a paid VPS with DirectAdmin with a VPS Host to learn the Admin side of DirectAdmin, and that was a complete disaster.  I don't think it was DirectAdmin as much as not so good VPS hosting, but my VPS got DDossed even before I started to use it. I was totally unable to move in the Admin Panel. That was then also the end of my learning of the Admin Panel of DirectAdmin.

I'm curious however and am thinking of trying the Admin Panel out again. DirectAdmin does offer a free trial and I also have an option for a free license from Hostus.us where I have a paid VPS. Who knows, maybe the DirectAdmin panel has been upgraded and it may have become more user friendly since 2016 when I last used it.  What I did learn was DirectAdmin Developers are from Quebec in Canada, so you'll find it available in Canada and the US.  During 2016, when cPanel waa still affordable, I battled to find a DirectAdmin VPS and shared hosting host.  I could only find the odd one in Canada and the US.  But now it is a total different scenario, I'm sure due to cpanel pricing itself out of the market DirectAdmin is becoming popular again.

[xdude]

oh I miss the Frihost. I had used it for a very long time and didn't have many downtime. Also I think the owner had both cPnael and Directadmin servers and I was in DirectAdmin one. I liked DiractAdmin. It was simple to use if u only need basic options. No fancy stuff. Personally I think that was the best free hosting service I have ever used. It lasted long time without changing. Gigarocket is the second and Giga had very little posting requirement, nearly nothing.

[deanhills]

oh I miss the Frihost. I had used it for a very long time and didn't have many downtime. Also I think  the owner had both cPnael and Directadmin servers and I was in DirectAdmin one. I liked DiractAdmin. It was simple to use if u only need basic options. No fancy stuff. Personally I think that was the best free hosting service I have ever used. It lasted long time without changing. Gigarocket is the second and Giga had very little posting requirement, nearly nothing.

Wow @xdude we're on the same wavelength here.  I miss Frihost too. I got to think about Frihost particularly the last couple or more days as do you remember we had DirectAdmin User Accounts and how very simple but also very effective they were.  Like they had the bare minimum of functions.  It's only at the end of Frihost when I got paid hosting to check the workings of DirectAdmin that I discovered that Bondings must have configured the user accounts to be as simple as they were.  He was a master magician Admin of DirectAdmin.  As far as I remember cPanel came with freeftpspace (FFS) Forum that Bondings acquired in 2014 (not sure if that is the correct year but roundabouts).  Initially it got hacked, and then after it was fixed melted down, but for about 2 years after getting a brand new Hetzner VPS, we didn't have a single down day.  That was a magic cpanel for sure.

Do you remember how Bondings recreated phpBB Forum?  Like he basically forked phpBB first version - only drawback was when he lost interest, it could never be upgraded afterwards.  It started to implode from within and we had a melt down server by server starting with server 3, then 4, then finally server 2 (which had the Forum on it) and server 1 being the last one to go up in smoke.  Server 1 at the time it went down had all the remaining hosting accounts on it. While we were without the Forum I started Frihost Club and finally rolled it up a few months ago. I've been trying to temporarily reactivate it last night by way of a cpanel test only but am having issues with the database - being unable to import it as it comes up with errors. Maybe it's the Universe's message to me to allow Frihost to RIP.