7 ms·

It looks like Linode are still leaving the "incredibly cheap tiny box" market to DO. Linode's cheapest option is $20/month, which makes it slightly less useful

• EC1 13y ago
  Shit, I should probably move to DO. I've been running a Linode for like two years, and have only ever used it once, yet I keep getting billed.
  • eli 13y ago
    Well, if you're truly not using it, you could delete the instance and not be billed, then redploy when you need it.
  • trumbitta2 13y ago
    They introduced hourly billing like a week ago :)
    • chc 13y ago
      As long as you have a Linode provisioned, you'll be charged for it even if you're not using it. The hourly billing is just a simplification of their old system, where they would charge a prorated amount when a server is created based on how far into the month you are and issue a credit when a server is deleted based on how far from the end of the month you are. The net financial impact for a given server setup is about the same (+/- a few hours' worth of usage). (Just to be clear, Digital Ocean works the same way. They're charging you for the resource allocation and associated maintenance. If you choose to not actually use the allocation you're paying for, that's your business.)
      • porker 13y ago
        Oh darn, Rackspace has the same problem. I hoped it would be like AWS, where you pay for storage on S3 when not using, and hourly running costs when it is.
• kylec 13y ago
  Yeah, my current Linode I've been running since it was a 512MB instance. I definitely don't need 2GB, I'd rather pay a bit less per month than get the upgrade. I don't think they need to go down to $5/month, but a $10/month plan similar to DO's would be very useful.
  • morganherlocker 13y ago
    I use a tiny VPS provider that is actually $20/yr. For sites that get a couple thousand hits per month it is perfect. Although I do not see it as a requirement in this price range, the uptime has been on par with the big names (I have known of one 5 hour outage in the 3 years I have been using it). Even DO's $5/mo now seems a bit steep now for the "I just had a random idea" type thing.
    • rschmitty 13y ago
      Care to share the provider you are using?
      • dewey 13y ago
        There are always great offers on http://lowendbox.com/ http://lowendbox.com/ - I'm very happy with the small KVM offers edis.at is offering.
        • highstep 13y ago
          Beware of super cheap VPS providers. A couple years ago I got burned by a provider called VBOX that was highly recommended on lowendbox.com. At first the service was ok, but a few months later my server and VBOX business were completely unresponsive. Sure you'll save some money, but you might also waste hours of your time setting up a server that could one day disappear into thin air.
          • jon-wood 13y ago
            So long as you have deployment automated, and frequent backups, that shouldn't be a huge issue. One of the many advantages of not having to manually deploy a new box is being able to rapidly get off a bad provider.
• TillE 13y ago
  > the "incredibly cheap tiny box" market How big is that market, really? I keep a small VPS around for whatever (I like Hetzner), and I'm sure lots of nerds are the same. But for any usage that's even a little bit serious, $20/month is peanuts.
  • bluedino 13y ago
    Probably pretty big - look at how popular tiny VPS providers are. A lot people don't need an entire server and just need a shell, some file space, and a small web/app server. Even just 10 years ago it was very expensive to get a non-shared hosting account. Go back a little further than that, and you were elite if you had a real server out there somewhere. Back then a low-spec co-located server was $300 a month. And let's not even talk about how expensive bandwidth was!
  • kylec 13y ago
    What if you want to have several tiny boxes? For example, if you want to host a mail server as a separate box for security, that's another $20/month. Or what if you need to use a different Linux distro for something? Another $20/month. A few examples like that add up fast.
    • mwcampbell 13y ago
      Containers, e.g. through Docker, are good for that kind of thing.
      • Karunamon 13y ago
        Not with the tiny amounts of memory offered at that price. 2GB is very easy to burn through in short order. Anything less than 8 feels really claustrophobic. I've always needed memory more than disk. Really wish I could pay some of these providers just for a one off increase of a few extra gigs of memory without tiering up which includes an entirely higher level of storage that I will not ever use.
        • 13y ago
• mcone 13y ago
  One reason Linode doesn't offer "tiny boxes" is that they, like other companies, are worried about running out of IPv4 addresses.
  • tszming 13y ago
    This is not true. Linode allow you to attach additional IPs to your Linode at $1/month, for example, I have one Linode which has 6 IPs attached for only $25/month. I still can't find a company has this kind of flexibility.
    • mcone 13y ago
      Right, but they provide additional IP addresses only if you can provide evidence that you need them (e.g., SSL certs).
      • 15characterlimi 13y ago
        Don't almost all web servers/browsers use SNI now? I don't see why you'd need multiple IPs for running multiple SSL sites nowadays. I have done multiple SSL sites on one IP for years.
        • plorkyeran 13y ago
          IE on XP and Android 2.x are the notable things that don't support SNI. Some people still care about these.
          • brubaker 13y ago
            No one should care about those. Maybe if people stopped supporting old crusty systems, the owners would realize they should upgrade.
    • notastartup 13y ago
      what are the range of ip addresses like? are they just like 23.23.23.24 23.23.23.25 23.23.23.26
• voidlogic 13y ago
  > Linode's cheapest option is $20/month, which makes it slightly less useful for the kind of "so cheap you don't even think about it" boxes that DO provide. Yes, this, the $10 plan is DO's most popular.
  • dotBen 13y ago
    How do you know DO's $10/m plan is most popular? (Please don't say it's because the pricing page highlights the $10 plan ass "most popular". You know that's just a classic up-sell trick, right?)
• meritt 13y ago
  I have a feeling it's a bit of customer service / risk mitigation. Obviously there are numerous exceptions but the sort of people that execute a lot of fraud, DDOS'ing, or simply amateurs playing around are also the sort of people that'll use DO before Linode. I imagine there's a heavy cost associated with hosting those users relative to ones happy to pay $20/mo instead.
• brandon272 13y ago
  As someone who has used both Linode and "low end box" services, both have their place. Two observations: 1) I feel like Linode offers a level of support that the others don't offer. There are lower end providers that do offer good support, but it's not as consistently good as Linode. Were they to start offering cheaper $5 or $10 a month plans, they would be challenged when it comes to continuing to offer that level of support. 2) Observationally, it seems to me that Linode customers on average tend to be more serious about their usage than those who are looking for a <$5/month VPS. Go to the IRC channels for each company and see who hangs out there. That said, this should only matter to you if you are concerned about who your neighbours may be on a VM host, if you plan on being part of the IRC community, or if you are concerned about how reputable your IP address looks given what block it belongs to.
  • filmgirlcw 13y ago
    I agree with this. I have a few DO accounts, a Linode and a few BuyVM accounts. The Linode is what I use for all of my "serious" production stuff, but I love the LEBs to play. That said, I do think the performance of DO is quite good. It reminds me of Slicehost back in the day. The BuyVM guys are just the best people ever, and I mostly maintain play boxes there just b/c I can get away with stuff there that might not fly at DO or Linode.
    • brandon272 13y ago
      There's also the aspect of customer expectations. At Linode's price point I feel like no matter the size of my VPS, I am allowed to have the expectation of a certain level of support. If they were to take too long to address a ticket or fix an issue I would be more inclined to make a stink about it versus a provider that is providing me with a VPS for what turns out to be $3.00 a month!
• filmgirlcw 13y ago
  And I would imagine that is very much by design. DO's model is to scale as much as possible -- they want to be all over the place and they have the funding to make those sorts of changes. As a more established provider, Linode has to decide if adding more customers would be worth the incremental support costs. Given Linode's reputation for support, adding a bunch of LEB customers who aren't likely to renew at the same rates as people who pay more money - and are also likely to have more support requests - competing with that market doesn't make a ton of sense. Plus, whether fair or not, having a minimum pricing point makes a service seem more premium -- more "ready for serious business." Now, obviously we've all been with expensive hosts that have terrible performance -- but you'd be surprised how many non-technical decision makers will choose a higher-priced offering over a lower-priced offering, on the supposition that "more expensive = better."
• the_ancient 13y ago
  The type of people that will be buying a $5 server are the type of people that will be sending in 10000000 help tickets on how to do X on that server
• davidgerard 13y ago
  There's a bit of getting what you pay for. That said, Rackspace are in the same sort of market tier as Linode, and in my experience of both Linode are just ridiculously better. I would heartily recommend Linode to anyone.