[JAY]

cPanel licence prices keep going up and I'm planning to move my sites to a free panel. For anyone who has done it: what's the smoothest way?

What has worked for most people:

1. Pick the target panel first, based on what you actually use (do you need email on the server? which PHP versions?). See the comparison thread in this forum.
   
2. Take full cPanel backups of each account (Backup Wizard), plus separate database dumps as a safety net.
   
3. Check for an importer. Some panels can import cPanel backups directly; CyberPanel and HestiaCP have tools for this. Test with one small account first.
   
4. For everything else, move manually: files with rsync, databases with mysqldump, then recreate email accounts and DNS records.
   
5. Lower DNS TTL beforehand, test each site on the new server through your hosts file, then switch DNS.
   
6. Email is the hardest part. Move mailboxes with an IMAP sync tool, and keep the old server running for a few days so nothing is lost while DNS updates.
   

Please share which panel you moved to and any problems you hit along the way.