6 ms·

Since you're dealing in absolutes, let me return the favor; you're being a little silly. Yes, Linode beats AWS when it comes to price. On the other hand, Linod

by nicobn 11y ago

Since you're dealing in absolutes, let me return the favor; you're being a little silly. Yes, Linode beats AWS when it comes to price. On the other hand, Linode's offer is incredibly basic and simplistic. AWS offers service after service that Linode simply doesn't and realistically cannot. Sure, you can emulate a subset of these services (and a subset of their features) using open-source software but at what price ? That's the major flaw in your reasoning. Getting to the point where your installations are as stable and reliable as AWS', given a large stress on the system, will cost you a lot of money and time. Directly comparing the cost of hardware access is ignoring other costs and headaches that are not very easy to estimate. There's a market for a service like Linode and there's a market for a service like AWS. You've simply never worked on a project/system that works better on AWS than on Linode. I know I couldn't run the systems that I currently operate on Linode without multiplying the workload that is needed to maintain them. Linode and AWS are competitors but there's space in the market for both; they simply fill different niches. Establishing one as absolutely superior to the other is silly and closed-minded. A lot of people chose AWS; go and ask them why (feel free to reach out to me at nick at nasx dot io - I'll be more than happy to talk to you).

neya 11y ago
Do you even understand his point? He is just nice enough to disclose his current employer. He's not recommending Linode. Really, all he's doing is just asking you to do some research and it needn't be Linode, there are plenty of alternatives out there. If we keep attacking the people for their honest disclosures, we're only discouraging them from expressing their conflict of interest in the future. Please. Don't.
Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
I'm really not trying to compare Linode to AWS here. I just felt that it was necessary to mention that I work for Linode because there _is_ some overlap. I'm really also not trying to sell anyone on Linode in particular. I'm pointing out that from my own personal experience, AWS is grossly overpriced and worse than the alternatives for a large number of use-cases.
- Naomarik 11y ago
  AWS is insanely overpriced. It's weird to me that everyone jumping on AWS and some of their customers never come close to attracting the internet traffic required to set up CloudFormation. I think if you're starting a webapp out of your own pocket and not millions of dollars of investors, it makes sense to save where you can. Using locust.io, I've seen that my current site on two $10/month Linodes can scale up to approximately 300k people/day and increasing that substantially just means I press a button and upgrade my app/database servers. If it came to a point where I was growing at a pace I didn't want to manage and money was flowing in, and I was out of ideas on software optimization, only then I would consider spending tens of thousands/month on AWS. I'm not denying the great benefits AWS gives, I honestly would love to use it now and just be done with most of my devop headaches, but the costs are prohibitive.
  - albertoleal 11y ago
    What are some alternatives to AWS? Are there realistic alternatives?
    - jasode 11y ago
      The "alternatives" depend on your situation. Picture a continuum between brain-dead simple websites and business-critical complex websites: simple: static website, WordPress blog moderate: small business CMS, etc complex: Netflix, AirBNB If you're running a simple WordPress blog, the AWS prices are absurdly overkill. For this use-case, there are a zillion alternatives. Linode, Digital Ocean, Rackspace bare metal, etc, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, you want to run a high-availability website with failover across multiple regions like Netflix. You need the value-added "services" of a comprehensive cloud provider (the "I" and "S" in "IaaS" as in "Infrastructure Services"). For that scenario, there are currently 4 big competitors: AWS, MS Azure, Google Compute Cloud, and IBM SoftLayer. However, many observers see that Google and IBM are not keeping pace with AWS and Azure on features so at the moment, it's more of a 2 horse race than a 4. Keep in mind that the vast majority of cost comparisons showing AWS to be overpriced are based on comparing Amazon's EC2 vs bare metal. The EC2 component is a small part of the complete AWS portfolio.[1] If you're doing more complicated websites, you have to include the costs of Linux admins + devops programmers to reinvent what AWS has out of the box. (The non-EC2 services.) Even if you use OpenStack as a baseline for a "homegrown AWS", you'll still need extensive staffing to configure and customize it for your needs. It may very well turn out that homegrown on Linode is cheaper but most articles on the web do not have quality cost analysis on the more complicated business scenarios. Anecdotes yes! But comprehensive unbiased spreadsheets with realistic cost comparisons?!? No. [1]https://aws.amazon.com/products/ https://aws.amazon.com/products/
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popmystack 11y ago
Your post basically picks the one thing he voluntarily disclosed and ignores the rest of his perfectly reasonable statements in some manic attempt to defend the one true stack. The only points you even remotely bring up are vague and wishy-washy and could easily be applied to any statement, even outside of programming.

by nicobn 11y ago

neya 11y ago

Do you even understand his point? He is just nice enough to disclose his current employer. He's not recommending Linode. Really, all he's doing is just asking you to do some research and it needn't be Linode, there are plenty of alternatives out there. If we keep attacking the people for their honest disclosures, we're only discouraging them from expressing their conflict of interest in the future. Please. Don't.

Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago

I'm really not trying to compare Linode to AWS here. I just felt that it was necessary to mention that I work for Linode because there _is_ some overlap. I'm really also not trying to sell anyone on Linode in particular. I'm pointing out that from my own personal experience, AWS is grossly overpriced and worse than the alternatives for a large number of use-cases.

Naomarik 11y ago
AWS is insanely overpriced. It's weird to me that everyone jumping on AWS and some of their customers never come close to attracting the internet traffic required to set up CloudFormation. I think if you're starting a webapp out of your own pocket and not millions of dollars of investors, it makes sense to save where you can. Using locust.io, I've seen that my current site on two $10/month Linodes can scale up to approximately 300k people/day and increasing that substantially just means I press a button and upgrade my app/database servers. If it came to a point where I was growing at a pace I didn't want to manage and money was flowing in, and I was out of ideas on software optimization, only then I would consider spending tens of thousands/month on AWS. I'm not denying the great benefits AWS gives, I honestly would love to use it now and just be done with most of my devop headaches, but the costs are prohibitive.
- albertoleal 11y ago
  What are some alternatives to AWS? Are there realistic alternatives?
  - jasode 11y ago
    The "alternatives" depend on your situation. Picture a continuum between brain-dead simple websites and business-critical complex websites: simple: static website, WordPress blog moderate: small business CMS, etc complex: Netflix, AirBNB If you're running a simple WordPress blog, the AWS prices are absurdly overkill. For this use-case, there are a zillion alternatives. Linode, Digital Ocean, Rackspace bare metal, etc, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, you want to run a high-availability website with failover across multiple regions like Netflix. You need the value-added "services" of a comprehensive cloud provider (the "I" and "S" in "IaaS" as in "Infrastructure Services"). For that scenario, there are currently 4 big competitors: AWS, MS Azure, Google Compute Cloud, and IBM SoftLayer. However, many observers see that Google and IBM are not keeping pace with AWS and Azure on features so at the moment, it's more of a 2 horse race than a 4. Keep in mind that the vast majority of cost comparisons showing AWS to be overpriced are based on comparing Amazon's EC2 vs bare metal. The EC2 component is a small part of the complete AWS portfolio.[1] If you're doing more complicated websites, you have to include the costs of Linux admins + devops programmers to reinvent what AWS has out of the box. (The non-EC2 services.) Even if you use OpenStack as a baseline for a "homegrown AWS", you'll still need extensive staffing to configure and customize it for your needs. It may very well turn out that homegrown on Linode is cheaper but most articles on the web do not have quality cost analysis on the more complicated business scenarios. Anecdotes yes! But comprehensive unbiased spreadsheets with realistic cost comparisons?!? No. [1]https://aws.amazon.com/products/ https://aws.amazon.com/products/

deleted 11y ago

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popmystack 11y ago

Your post basically picks the one thing he voluntarily disclosed and ignores the rest of his perfectly reasonable statements in some manic attempt to defend the one true stack. The only points you even remotely bring up are vague and wishy-washy and could easily be applied to any statement, even outside of programming.