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My experiences with Linode have been excellent as far as support is concerned. That's just anecdotal and YMMV. With that said, would you trust a $5/mo. VPS pro

My experiences with Linode have been excellent as far as support is concerned. That's just anecdotal and YMMV. With that said, would you trust a $5/mo. VPS provider like DigitalOcean with "mission critical stuff"?

okor 14y ago
That is the question. They are the new kids on the block. I plan on moving some less critical projects to DigitalOcean. I'll be monitoring uptime very closely.
- clone1018 14y ago
  We've been around for a year and hope to be around longer, if you notice any problems just let us know.
sudonim 14y ago
I'm actually experimenting with DigitalOcean for a side-project, but we've moved our main site on to dedicated hardware so no plans to try DigitalOcean for that.
tszming 14y ago
I am also one of the happy linode customers for more 3 years, but I also think we shouldn't judge by using the price tag only - constructive competition is always good for us. I still remember the old days when I switched from slicehost to linode, 30% (360MB vs 256MB instance) cheaper and later 50% (512MB vs 256MB)..
homosaur 14y ago
That's a BS argument, that's like saying Windows servers are better than Linux because they cost more. There's no reason to distrust them SOLELY because they are cheap. You're getting 1/4th the cores, that's why it's so cheap.
- orthecreedence 14y ago
  I disagree. Windows is a product, Linux is a project, so they're harder to compare when price is involved. When you're comparing two businesses, you can safely assume that given the free market, most products with similar features converge to a similar price range. If a product offered by a company appears to be similar in features to another established product but does it at 1/4 the cost, it is completely valid to wonder what costs are being cut to achieve that price. Is it their infrastructure? Their support? Do they pay their team less? These are all valid questions, whether you are able to answer them given the available information or not.
  - homosaur 14y ago
    This market is not established and is rapidly evolving. There's zero reason to assume pricing in the virtual computing market will stabilize anytime soon. Plus these services are not equal, he makes a pretty clear point that DO offers less in certain areas.
taligent 14y ago
>VPS provider like DigitalOcean with "mission critical stuff"? You do realise that in the past user VPSs were rooted, Bitcoins stolen and Linode users had to find out from Reddit that their VPS was potentially hacked. If you trust Linode (or any VPS really) with mission critical stuff then you are (being) an idiot. I am sorry but you are. Edit: The idiot is a reference to behaviour not anything personal.
- dustcoin 14y ago
  Did they ever publish a post-mortem of how their internal customer service portal was "hacked"? A quick search turns up nothing.
  - taligent 14y ago
    No. And frankly I can't understand how a VPS provider can act in this way and still have people acting like they have great support. As a customer I found out from Reddit before Linode. That's a pretty disgraceful effort.
- brandon272 14y ago
  Two things: 1) I don't think your comments labelling those who disagree with you as "idiots" is constructive or in keeping with the spirit of HN. 2) "Mission critical" to one person may mean something else to someone else. Depending on their requirements, those who consider something to be "mission critical" may be willing to accept varying levels and/or guarantees of uptime or security.
- niels_olson 14y ago
  We live in a complex society. Most of the things you trust with your life are totally out of your control.
  - taligent 14y ago
    Exactly. Which is why transparency and honesty is key. Look at Cloudflare's handling of their incident. Then look at Linode's.

okor 14y ago

That is the question. They are the new kids on the block. I plan on moving some less critical projects to DigitalOcean. I'll be monitoring uptime very closely.

clone1018 14y ago
We've been around for a year and hope to be around longer, if you notice any problems just let us know.

sudonim 14y ago

I'm actually experimenting with DigitalOcean for a side-project, but we've moved our main site on to dedicated hardware so no plans to try DigitalOcean for that.

tszming 14y ago

I am also one of the happy linode customers for more 3 years, but I also think we shouldn't judge by using the price tag only - constructive competition is always good for us. I still remember the old days when I switched from slicehost to linode, 30% (360MB vs 256MB instance) cheaper and later 50% (512MB vs 256MB)..

homosaur 14y ago

That's a BS argument, that's like saying Windows servers are better than Linux because they cost more. There's no reason to distrust them SOLELY because they are cheap. You're getting 1/4th the cores, that's why it's so cheap.

orthecreedence 14y ago
I disagree. Windows is a product, Linux is a project, so they're harder to compare when price is involved. When you're comparing two businesses, you can safely assume that given the free market, most products with similar features converge to a similar price range. If a product offered by a company appears to be similar in features to another established product but does it at 1/4 the cost, it is completely valid to wonder what costs are being cut to achieve that price. Is it their infrastructure? Their support? Do they pay their team less? These are all valid questions, whether you are able to answer them given the available information or not.
- homosaur 14y ago
  This market is not established and is rapidly evolving. There's zero reason to assume pricing in the virtual computing market will stabilize anytime soon. Plus these services are not equal, he makes a pretty clear point that DO offers less in certain areas.

taligent 14y ago

>VPS provider like DigitalOcean with "mission critical stuff"? You do realise that in the past user VPSs were rooted, Bitcoins stolen and Linode users had to find out from Reddit that their VPS was potentially hacked. If you trust Linode (or any VPS really) with mission critical stuff then you are (being) an idiot. I am sorry but you are. Edit: The idiot is a reference to behaviour not anything personal.

dustcoin 14y ago
Did they ever publish a post-mortem of how their internal customer service portal was "hacked"? A quick search turns up nothing.
- taligent 14y ago
  No. And frankly I can't understand how a VPS provider can act in this way and still have people acting like they have great support. As a customer I found out from Reddit before Linode. That's a pretty disgraceful effort.
brandon272 14y ago
Two things: 1) I don't think your comments labelling those who disagree with you as "idiots" is constructive or in keeping with the spirit of HN. 2) "Mission critical" to one person may mean something else to someone else. Depending on their requirements, those who consider something to be "mission critical" may be willing to accept varying levels and/or guarantees of uptime or security.
niels_olson 14y ago
We live in a complex society. Most of the things you trust with your life are totally out of your control.
- taligent 14y ago
  Exactly. Which is why transparency and honesty is key. Look at Cloudflare's handling of their incident. Then look at Linode's.