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Linode is fantastic. Their support and control panels are great. Anything not in their really cool guides, you can always jump into their IRC channel, which I'v

by thismat 17y ago

Linode is fantastic. Their support and control panels are great. Anything not in their really cool guides, you can always jump into their IRC channel, which I've had really great results with. I love my little VPS!

andrewtj 17y ago
I was remiss in not posting my experiences with Linode: * I got an unintuitive error using the Control Panel to do a simple operation (resizing a disk) so I emailed support and got a quick response. * Linode rolled out a security update for their control panel whereby one had to whitelist the IP's you could login from. This is a good thing except that I don't have a static IP at the best of times and when they rolled this out without notice I was cruising around the North Coast of NSW (Australia) with my sole connectivity being spotty GSM/3G. * I emailed support to try and gain access to the Control Panel again. They said I could either call them as they needed to verify my identity or they could reset my account and email me new credentials. I did the later for above mentioned connectivity reasons. Apparently my response got lost in the support-rep's inbox (reps words, not mine) as it took a while to get a response. I can't remember how long but I think it was about 24 hours. I'd have been well frustrated if it was urgent. * Guides/IRC are from my perspective not relevant to picking a host. What is, is the service itself — the VPS has been rock-solid and I like knowing that I can provision another VPS in ~15 minutes. I know prgmr can't do the later but hopefully they can do the former. * Price is the real reason I'm going to move away from Linode (at least in the short term). I'm topping out with my Linode 360 at the moment. I'd like to move up to a 720 so I have some head-room. I'd also like to have a redundant setup in place when I start charging users. That's ~$860 a year with Linode versus (with 1024 mb instances) $384 with prgmr. tl;dr: Linode are good but not exemplarily. You might be better off elsewhere depending on your needs.
- thismat 17y ago
  For what it's worth I've never had any of the problems you've mentioned. Otherwise I wouldn't be posting such a glowing review. I think documentation + instant communication with the community is a strong point for any company as well, honestly. But yes, as always, everyone has different needs and there is no one size fits all.
  - andrewtj 17y ago
    To be clear: * Guides/IRC are from my perspective not relevant to picking a host I'm not referring to documentation on the service itself here, but to the software install/setup guides which seem to be in vogue at the minute. Regarding community, with a service like a VPS it's a bit of an airy concept to me; somewhat akin to having a community around a petrol station. That said - I can see how both of these things would be nice to have for some people.
    - thismat 17y ago
      Understood, it's probably just the knowledge divide that makes certain things more valuable than others. I'm not a sysadmin, I know enough to get around and get things done and learn to do them properly, but the guides certainly help at times when I get stuck. IRC I'm not really a regular on, but I've been on Linodes a few times and the people are extremely nice and helpful, I feel if someone can relate directly to my situation (same host, same features) it's a lot easier to solve certain issues. You sound like you don't really have these needs for the most part, which probably makes the value of these services a lot less for you than for me. Although, this is the first time I've heard of prgrm(?), I'm going to need to look into it now, peaked my curiosity.
      - andrewtj 17y ago
        I've got a VPS with prgmr now and whilst it's too early in the piece for me to share any meaningful opinion, I will say that I think it's quite likely they represent genuine value for money. Feel free to email me (see profile) in a month or so if you'd like a more in depth review.

by thismat 17y ago

andrewtj 17y ago

I was remiss in not posting my experiences with Linode: * I got an unintuitive error using the Control Panel to do a simple operation (resizing a disk) so I emailed support and got a quick response. * Linode rolled out a security update for their control panel whereby one had to whitelist the IP's you could login from. This is a good thing except that I don't have a static IP at the best of times and when they rolled this out without notice I was cruising around the North Coast of NSW (Australia) with my sole connectivity being spotty GSM/3G. * I emailed support to try and gain access to the Control Panel again. They said I could either call them as they needed to verify my identity or they could reset my account and email me new credentials. I did the later for above mentioned connectivity reasons. Apparently my response got lost in the support-rep's inbox (reps words, not mine) as it took a while to get a response. I can't remember how long but I think it was about 24 hours. I'd have been well frustrated if it was urgent. * Guides/IRC are from my perspective not relevant to picking a host. What is, is the service itself — the VPS has been rock-solid and I like knowing that I can provision another VPS in ~15 minutes. I know prgmr can't do the later but hopefully they can do the former. * Price is the real reason I'm going to move away from Linode (at least in the short term). I'm topping out with my Linode 360 at the moment. I'd like to move up to a 720 so I have some head-room. I'd also like to have a redundant setup in place when I start charging users. That's ~$860 a year with Linode versus (with 1024 mb instances) $384 with prgmr. tl;dr: Linode are good but not exemplarily. You might be better off elsewhere depending on your needs.

thismat 17y ago
For what it's worth I've never had any of the problems you've mentioned. Otherwise I wouldn't be posting such a glowing review. I think documentation + instant communication with the community is a strong point for any company as well, honestly. But yes, as always, everyone has different needs and there is no one size fits all.
- andrewtj 17y ago
  To be clear: * Guides/IRC are from my perspective not relevant to picking a host I'm not referring to documentation on the service itself here, but to the software install/setup guides which seem to be in vogue at the minute. Regarding community, with a service like a VPS it's a bit of an airy concept to me; somewhat akin to having a community around a petrol station. That said - I can see how both of these things would be nice to have for some people.
  - thismat 17y ago
    Understood, it's probably just the knowledge divide that makes certain things more valuable than others. I'm not a sysadmin, I know enough to get around and get things done and learn to do them properly, but the guides certainly help at times when I get stuck. IRC I'm not really a regular on, but I've been on Linodes a few times and the people are extremely nice and helpful, I feel if someone can relate directly to my situation (same host, same features) it's a lot easier to solve certain issues. You sound like you don't really have these needs for the most part, which probably makes the value of these services a lot less for you than for me. Although, this is the first time I've heard of prgrm(?), I'm going to need to look into it now, peaked my curiosity.
    - andrewtj 17y ago
      I've got a VPS with prgmr now and whilst it's too early in the piece for me to share any meaningful opinion, I will say that I think it's quite likely they represent genuine value for money. Feel free to email me (see profile) in a month or so if you'd like a more in depth review.