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I'm a customer of both DigitalOcean as well as Linode. I use DigitalOcean for random experiments and side projects and Linode for production sites. I haven't d

by barik 13y ago

I'm a customer of both DigitalOcean as well as Linode. I use DigitalOcean for random experiments and side projects and Linode for production sites. I haven't directly observed any practical differences in ways that affect me in terms of VPS infrastructure itself, but I've found Linode's support to be significantly better and I'm willing to pay a premium for that on "sites that matter". I don't want to imply that DigitalOcean's support is bad -- it's not, but I feel they're average when compared with Linode responses. On the other hand, my impressions may be biased since I rarely have to contact support in the first place. I'd be interested in whether or not others have had the same experience in terms of customer support.

davidw 13y ago
I wrote this a while back: http://www.welton.it/articles/webhosting_market_lemons http://www.welton.it/articles/webhosting_market_lemons Part of the problem is that it's very easy to compare on price, but difficult to compare on service. I think my conclusions may not be quite as valid today, because news gets around so quickly, but I think the concept is a worthwhile one to think about. Anecdotally, I've been very happy with Linode's service: a few months ago, I had some kind of problem and things weren't booting. Panic! I sent in a support ticket, and went to their IRC channel right away. I started describing the problem, and one of the guys in the channel says "oh, I think I just answered that", and indeed, the support ticket had already been answered with real, helpful information. My interaction with them has usually been quite positive.
gingerlime 13y ago
I share pretty much the same experience. Although I have to say, DO support seemed to have improved in recent months and feels more solid. It's hard to put a finger on it, it's hardly scientific, but just a feeling. I'm at a point where some (smaller) production VPS are now hosted with DO, whilst the majority is still at Linode, just to "test the waters". One more important thing however, network stability in particular seems way better with Linode currently. I keep getting random cron errors resulting from name resolution issues on at least two data centres of DO. To counter my own last point, Linode recently had quite a lengthy network outage at Dallas, so no provider is totally immune. Bottom line: try to build an infrastructure where you can as quickly as possible migrate/recover onto a new droplet/linode/instance, ideally across different providers.

by barik 13y ago

davidw 13y ago

I wrote this a while back: http://www.welton.it/articles/webhosting_market_lemons http://www.welton.it/articles/webhosting_market_lemons Part of the problem is that it's very easy to compare on price, but difficult to compare on service. I think my conclusions may not be quite as valid today, because news gets around so quickly, but I think the concept is a worthwhile one to think about. Anecdotally, I've been very happy with Linode's service: a few months ago, I had some kind of problem and things weren't booting. Panic! I sent in a support ticket, and went to their IRC channel right away. I started describing the problem, and one of the guys in the channel says "oh, I think I just answered that", and indeed, the support ticket had already been answered with real, helpful information. My interaction with them has usually been quite positive.

gingerlime 13y ago

I share pretty much the same experience. Although I have to say, DO support seemed to have improved in recent months and feels more solid. It's hard to put a finger on it, it's hardly scientific, but just a feeling. I'm at a point where some (smaller) production VPS are now hosted with DO, whilst the majority is still at Linode, just to "test the waters". One more important thing however, network stability in particular seems way better with Linode currently. I keep getting random cron errors resulting from name resolution issues on at least two data centres of DO. To counter my own last point, Linode recently had quite a lengthy network outage at Dallas, so no provider is totally immune. Bottom line: try to build an infrastructure where you can as quickly as possible migrate/recover onto a new droplet/linode/instance, ideally across different providers.