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Seems like they've seeded a lot of market share to the other cloud providers, no? I used to hear of them a lot 2 or 3 years ago, but now it's mostly AWS/Azure/

Seems like they've seeded a lot of market share to the other cloud providers, no? I used to hear of them a lot 2 or 3 years ago, but now it's mostly AWS/Azure/Google/Oracle. This isn't a comment on capability, just mindshare.

drinchev 9y ago
Not sure about that, but last couple of projects, I only used S3. Everything else is run on DO. It is a lot faster to setup and easy to maintain, if you don't have a dedicated dev-ops person in the team.
grajaganDev 9y ago
According to Google Trends [1] searches are flat over the last 12 months. [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=%2Fm%2F0wyqzs4 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...
brianwawok 9y ago
I think they did good against the Linodes of the world. But a big business on AWS would have near 0% chance to rebuild their stack on a simple VPS provider like DO.
- tomovo 9y ago
  A big business on AWS is probably stuck on AWS until they rework their stack to be more portable. That's the downside of using anything but generic VPSs and maybe a S3 API compatible storage.. Now they end up paying the AWS bill even if it goes way up.
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    Truth (I build on kubernetes and do not use GCE specific features for this reason)
djloche 9y ago
Digital Ocean has the advantage of new hardware being cheaper. They can compete on price and force the margins down for amazon and friends. Right now Digital Ocean is incredibly attractive from a price standpoint and they continue to build out their software to add more features.
showerst 9y ago
DO is still a sweet spot for a lot of people when combining price, features, and usability. There are services with more features (the ones you mentioned), and cheaper services (OVH and Hetzner, anything on lowendbox...) and those are their big threats going forward. In my opinion nobody has really nailed the ease of use for spinning up quick server(s) + usability of DO's interface at anything near their price point right now. That said, OVH is coming into the US in force this year with aggressive pricing, so if they can improve their UX a little they'll be a big threat. Still, I'd bet on DO continuing to succeed.
- _up 9y ago
  Maybe you should look at Scaleway. They are as cheap as ovh and look very similar to DO.
- goatherders 9y ago
  I know the people in charge of OVH coming to the USA. I think "in force" is a DRASTIC overstatement.
- morganvachon 9y ago
  > In my opinion nobody has really nailed the ease of use for spinning up quick server(s) + usability of DO's interface at anything near their price point right now. Give Vultr a shot, I've found it to be easier to use and still just as feature filled and flexible as DO. My favorite feature is their phenomenal support; a while back I had someone take advantage of a lapse in DNS upkeep on my part to try to use one of my domains to serve a pornographic dating site. Within ten minutes of submitting a ticket it was fixed and the domain was pointed back to my instance.
- moh_maya 9y ago
  Absolutely agreed / my 2 cents. I'm a scientist turned pseudo-programmer, and need to manage a few servers for my team / start up. We are too small & early to be able to afford or justify a dedicated administrator, and our requirements are mostly WordPress based sites and a database server for internal use, etc. I've tried to use vultr, linode, AWS. But DO's interface and the wonderful, comprehensive support documents are a huge huge differentiator. We aren't using too many instances, (just 3, nothing complex, no webapps). And, with their interface and support docs, this is something I've managed to do on my own without any major issues. And I suspect I'm not the only one in such a situation.. I was ok with the older prices; with the new, lower rates, I'm not even going to consider moving, even if the competitors are at 1/2 the cost. It's not worth the little money I might save...
lilactown 9y ago
As I've begun building a new personal project, I wavered between using DO, AWS & Heroku. I started with Heroku, and immediately ran into annoyances - mainly that they treat git as the source of truth, and require anything else to be injected as environment variables (which I find annoying). AWS was tempting, since we use it at work, but the complexity of configuring what I needed was more than I wanted to deal with. So I went back to DO (who I already run a couple VPS' with) and cleared off a droplet that I wasn't using, setup a docker droplet and went on my merry way.
clintonb 9y ago
s/seeded/ceded
- jlgaddis 9y ago
  You're missing a trailing /
chrisper 9y ago
They (imho) fell a bit behind, because it took them quite a while to release the new plans. So they were on the more expensive side. However, they still are. As for me, I would not see any reason not to use hetzner.de.
closeparen 9y ago
DO's pricing is a lot friendlier to hobbyists, particularly if you want more than one VM and your free tier year has ended.

drinchev 9y ago

Not sure about that, but last couple of projects, I only used S3. Everything else is run on DO. It is a lot faster to setup and easy to maintain, if you don't have a dedicated dev-ops person in the team.

grajaganDev 9y ago

According to Google Trends [1] searches are flat over the last 12 months. [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=%2Fm%2F0wyqzs4 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...

brianwawok 9y ago

I think they did good against the Linodes of the world. But a big business on AWS would have near 0% chance to rebuild their stack on a simple VPS provider like DO.

tomovo 9y ago
A big business on AWS is probably stuck on AWS until they rework their stack to be more portable. That's the downside of using anything but generic VPSs and maybe a S3 API compatible storage.. Now they end up paying the AWS bill even if it goes way up.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  Truth (I build on kubernetes and do not use GCE specific features for this reason)

djloche 9y ago

Digital Ocean has the advantage of new hardware being cheaper. They can compete on price and force the margins down for amazon and friends. Right now Digital Ocean is incredibly attractive from a price standpoint and they continue to build out their software to add more features.

showerst 9y ago

DO is still a sweet spot for a lot of people when combining price, features, and usability. There are services with more features (the ones you mentioned), and cheaper services (OVH and Hetzner, anything on lowendbox...) and those are their big threats going forward. In my opinion nobody has really nailed the ease of use for spinning up quick server(s) + usability of DO's interface at anything near their price point right now. That said, OVH is coming into the US in force this year with aggressive pricing, so if they can improve their UX a little they'll be a big threat. Still, I'd bet on DO continuing to succeed.

_up 9y ago
Maybe you should look at Scaleway. They are as cheap as ovh and look very similar to DO.
goatherders 9y ago
I know the people in charge of OVH coming to the USA. I think "in force" is a DRASTIC overstatement.
morganvachon 9y ago
> In my opinion nobody has really nailed the ease of use for spinning up quick server(s) + usability of DO's interface at anything near their price point right now. Give Vultr a shot, I've found it to be easier to use and still just as feature filled and flexible as DO. My favorite feature is their phenomenal support; a while back I had someone take advantage of a lapse in DNS upkeep on my part to try to use one of my domains to serve a pornographic dating site. Within ten minutes of submitting a ticket it was fixed and the domain was pointed back to my instance.
moh_maya 9y ago
Absolutely agreed / my 2 cents. I'm a scientist turned pseudo-programmer, and need to manage a few servers for my team / start up. We are too small & early to be able to afford or justify a dedicated administrator, and our requirements are mostly WordPress based sites and a database server for internal use, etc. I've tried to use vultr, linode, AWS. But DO's interface and the wonderful, comprehensive support documents are a huge huge differentiator. We aren't using too many instances, (just 3, nothing complex, no webapps). And, with their interface and support docs, this is something I've managed to do on my own without any major issues. And I suspect I'm not the only one in such a situation.. I was ok with the older prices; with the new, lower rates, I'm not even going to consider moving, even if the competitors are at 1/2 the cost. It's not worth the little money I might save...

lilactown 9y ago

As I've begun building a new personal project, I wavered between using DO, AWS & Heroku. I started with Heroku, and immediately ran into annoyances - mainly that they treat git as the source of truth, and require anything else to be injected as environment variables (which I find annoying). AWS was tempting, since we use it at work, but the complexity of configuring what I needed was more than I wanted to deal with. So I went back to DO (who I already run a couple VPS' with) and cleared off a droplet that I wasn't using, setup a docker droplet and went on my merry way.

clintonb 9y ago

s/seeded/ceded

jlgaddis 9y ago
You're missing a trailing /

chrisper 9y ago

They (imho) fell a bit behind, because it took them quite a while to release the new plans. So they were on the more expensive side. However, they still are. As for me, I would not see any reason not to use hetzner.de.

closeparen 9y ago

DO's pricing is a lot friendlier to hobbyists, particularly if you want more than one VM and your free tier year has ended.