8 ms·

DO has really benefitted from Linode stalling over the past few years. I admire Linode for remaining a bootstrapped business but it feels as though the owners

by dotBen 11y ago

DO has really benefitted from Linode stalling over the past few years. I admire Linode for remaining a bootstrapped business but it feels as though the owners lost their fighting spirit and energy... Perhaps because the small pool of Linode owners felt they made enough money already. DOs announment talks about a storage product, which is strategically important and crucially something Linode has sorely needed for a long time. And yet the biggest development in recent years at Linode has been a proprietary stats and monitoring system built as an upsell, which doesn't really do anything distinctive that Nagios or another package couldn't provide. Instead Linode is now switching their entire platform from Xen to KVM, a curious move which will create risk and cost velocity that could have been spent on product development. I have been a huge supporter of Linode over the years, and the startup I co-founded is one of their biggest customers, but at this point DO seems like the winning horse to back.

astrodust 11y ago
For all the money Linode has on hand, and the size of their technical team, it's absolutely insulting they haven't made any tangible improvement to their management front-end in at least five years, if not more. The way it's behaving it's as if it was acquired and kept on life-support.
- seunosewa 11y ago
  Perhaps users don't have any complaints about their management interface? Do you? Perhaps users mostly want performance and value which have been greatly improved by their substantial infrastructure upgrades?
  - smackfu 11y ago
    Not doing regular improvements is how you end up being years behind your competitors, without even noticing it, and having to do a huge rewrite just to achieve parity.
  - kawsper 11y ago
    Yes. Their IP Failover is really badly documented and hard to work with. Their Nodebalancers are noticeably slow, the interface is alright, but you are better off setting up your own loadbalancer. I feel that static networking could be made easier, and more automatic when I am adding a new node. Their stackscripts should be able to receive parameters for when it is running, and the error-reporting should be better. I had issues where my scripts wouldn't run and I had no idea why. Other than that, I am a happy customer.
    - johnmaguire2013 11y ago
      I agree that networking is a pain point in terms of front-end interface. It's not horrid, but it could be improved. I'd love to see them offer a storage solution as other commenters have mentioned.
    - tomschlick 11y ago
      Regarding static networking: https://www.linode.com/docs/platform/network-helper https://www.linode.com/docs/platform/network-helper
      - kawsper 11y ago
        Oh that was hidden away, I have never seen that interface before, thanks!
    - daflip 11y ago
      When was the last time you added a node? New nodes default to 'automatic' networking now which configures /etc/network/interfaces automatically
      - kawsper 11y ago
        I scale up and down weekly. I didn't know about that, I will look into it, do I just need to add static networking to the node?
  - astrodust 11y ago
    Perhaps those complaints just get ignored. I know Digital Ocean's control panel has improved several times since their launch, and their ability to launch instances with a complete stack is extremely useful. Linode has done nothing here. They point to their badly documented StackScripts system and shrug. There's a hundred things Linode could do to make user's lives easier and they've done maybe two or three of them.
- Mahn 11y ago
  For what is worth, I've been a Linode customer for a few years and never really felt their management front-end was in urgent need of an update. It's solid and does the job for us. My only complains to be honest are 1) the lack of storage dedicated nodes, as OP points out, and 2) the price, it gets very expensive very fast as you scale and spin more nodes. We are currently considering moving to dedicated machines but only because of 2), otherwise we would happily be their customer for life.
  - threeseed 11y ago
    > never really felt their management front-end was in urgent need of an update Even when it was hacked multiple times and customer VPSs compromised e.g. http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/bitcoins-worth-228000-stolen-from-customers-of-hacked-webhost/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/bitcoins-worth-22800... Nothing is worse than spending weeks securing every aspect of your VPS only to have incidents like this appear. And worst of all ? To this day Linode never clearly said what happened or what they did to prevent it happening again.
    - mumphster 11y ago
      Not sure why this is being downvoted but the whole Linode hack incident was a huge factor for me to switch all my VPS's over to digital ocean.
      - brobinson 11y ago
        I went to Vultr. DO's interface is just as bad if not worse than Linode's. :(
        lugg 11y ago
        Its not that bad, it has been updated frequently though. Seems to be getting better. I do remember it being quite lacking back in the day.
        11y ago
- EugeneOZ 11y ago
  If we talk about DO in comparison, then DO's interface is just ugly and almost unusable. Every time I use it, I want to leave their site as soon as possible.
  - astrodust 11y ago
    If you think Digital Ocean is ugly and almost unusable I have to wonder what you think is better. Their one page instance creator where you pick size, location, and distribution is extremely convenient. This is three separate steps with Linode that happens over the course of six screens, plus two more if you want to enable private networking. Eight steps vs. one. They also don't offer the ability to install a system with an SSH key pre-installed avoiding the need for password authentication when bootstrapping your system. Even on a technical level Linode is way behind here.
  - corford 11y ago
    I wouldn't call DO's interface ugly but I hugely prefer Linode's. Much better visual feedback and it feels like a solid management console rather than a pretty toy.
    - astrodust 11y ago
      Why does Linode look "serious" and Digital Ocean look "toy"? It's a phenomenon I see happening primarily in the tech industry where ugly trumps functional and clean. People like the complexity aesthetic, the rugged, rough edges.
      - corford 11y ago
        I suppose a lot of engineers prefer function over form rather than the other way around. If anything I'm suspicious when a tech/engineer focussed product prioritises aesthetics over function. Might be irrational but it's my first reaction.
      - EugeneOZ 11y ago
        Try to open this link https://cloud.digitalocean.com/droplets https://cloud.digitalocean.com/droplets and find current balance of your account. I can't understand why it's under "Settings". When I'm in the dashboard, I want to see as many controls as possible, not as minimal interface as possible.
- mpdehaan2 11y ago
  Linode is good and simple if you have a not too large amount of nodes or complex need for extra bits, and I appreciate them for that. I didn't really need anything shinier. Is it super-cloudy? Not so much, but also nice that you don't have to think about it.
  - astrodust 11y ago
    Why do people think "well designed" translates to superficial and pointless? Yes, sometimes this is the case, but when you have pride in your work you'll want to present it in the best possible light. Would you rather eat in a restaurant where all the chairs are creaky, where the tables are wobbly, and where the wait staff is doing their best to get by with broken equipment, or would you instead visit down the street to a place where everything may not be new but it's well maintained? If the food quality was the same, why would you insist on going to the place with crappy, broken stuff? Linode just doesn't seem to care about their site at all. If they did they'd listen to user feedback and improve things once in a while. You know, like at least once every six years.
    - mpdehaan2 11y ago
      I'm not sure if I am meant to be "people", but I certaintly don't think that design is superificial, but rather I think Linode is designed fine, and just works, and doesn't really need changes.
- riquito 11y ago
  I never felt the need of more polished interface. It just works.
petercooper 11y ago
I'm not saying you're wrong but I disagree from my own POV. It's a common play in the hosting business to grow big quickly then sell out to a more enterprisey company (as happened with EV1Servers, Softlayer, Heroku) and if DO is taking such large amounts of funding, something will have to happen (IPO, acquisition, etc) and some companies don't make the transition well (I'm not saying DO wouldn't, but you never know). Linode, on the other hand, can remain a company focused on just being a long term business forever. They might move a little more conservatively, but they have owners with skin in the game and customers to keep happy. I use both DO and Linode, but Linode for my most critical stuff simply because I "feel" they're more likely to remain basically the same in 5 years' time and I value that consistency as a business. I think DO is superb, I have great admiration for them and I recommend them a lot, but I also feel they're the riskier horse to back even if the potential upside is so much greater.
- bluedino 11y ago
  >> It's a common play in the hosting business to grow big quickly then sell out to a more enterprisey company (as happened with EV1Servers, Softlayer, Heroku) And that's exactly what Slicehost did, years ago. I wonder if Rackspace ever courted Linode. Slicehost always seemed to be the inferior one in price and performance.
  - ohashi 11y ago
    Customer opinion too. I have old data on SliceHost (http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/25/slicehost/ http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/25/slicehost/) versus Linode (http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/24/linode http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/24/linode). Linode seemed to have the better rep and then SliceHost got dismantled. Tables seemed turned a bit now though with Digital Ocean (http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/101/digitalocean http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/101/digitalocean) having a marginal lead over Linode. But DO's opinion has been slightly downward over the years and getting closer to Linode.
  - catwell 11y ago
    Before it was sold, Slicehost tools and documentation were better, and their customer support was incredible. You would get answers in minutes, even if you only rented a $20 VPS.
austenallred 11y ago
When people ask, "Why does HN/the tech industry pay so much attention to the companies that are raising money?" I'll point them to this. There's absolutely nothing wrong with bootstrapping and making a good living, but the stuff that goes big and wants to scale quickly usually has to raise a bunch of money to get there.
- petercooper 11y ago
  That's true, but IMHO hosting is not a service that benefits significantly from economies of scale beyond a certain (though reasonably high) point. Would Linode be any better for me as a customer if it were immediately 3x the size? I'm not sure. As a customer, would I prefer a Linode that were 10x the size and having to head for an "exit" of some kind? No way.
  - austenallred 11y ago
    I'm not sure; Amazon putting data centers in glaciers or Google trying to float a ship out into the ocean to water cool it certainly seem like they could could provide either performance or prices an order of magnitude greater than what is currently available; the tricky part is building up enough steam that you can be trusted with enough cash to make that happen. If nothing else, we all benefit from the prices. AWS is so cheap I barely have to think about it.
  - brianwawok 11y ago
    I mean when I think of economies of scale, I would name datacenters pretty high up on the list! Thing of the googles and facebooks making their own servers instead of buying from off the shelf guys...
- hudj1jcnapru38 11y ago
  OTOH, taking money puts pressure on a bigger exit/revenue scaling plan. To me, that means more like GoDaddy and less like prgmr, which is not what I want from my service providers. The pressure to expand is a negative indicator when I'm a user of a service.
jordanlev 11y ago
Funny... I remember when Linode first became really popular, it was right around the time Slicehost got bought (and subsequently shut down by) Rackspace. A lot of people moved over to Linode because Slicehost was no more (or when the writing was on the wall that it would soon become no more). So perhaps you're correct that lack of funding is making Linode lazy now, but that doesn't mean that getting bought or accepting a bunch of money would solve the problem. Side note: the original slicehost founders grew to regret their decision of selling to Rackspace, see: http://37signals.com/founderstories/slicehost http://37signals.com/founderstories/slicehost
- damoncali 11y ago
  Also, look what happened to Slicehost after acquisition. Rackspace woke up, realized Slicehost customers are cheap, and drove them off by raising prices.
- neom 11y ago
  https://angel.co/digitalocean https://angel.co/digitalocean Jason sits on the board of DigitalOcean. :)
EugeneOZ 11y ago
I disagree, Linode is much superior than DO. I can trust to DO only fault-tolerant services when to Linode I can trust any kind of service to run.
- exacube 11y ago
  Why?
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    A reasonable question For me :- * Excellent reliability (no unscheduled downtime in 6 years from 3 to at one point more than a dozen nodes) * Excellent hardware - when I've benchmarked real production systems on Linode on a $/perf ratio beats DO hands down * Excellent support - tickets are generally answered in under 30 minutes and staff are knowledgeable * It just works(TM) * Straightforward interface and pricing * Rock solid network, like bulletproof * I trust them (after 6 years of the above they have earned it)
    - threeseed 11y ago
      For me: a) Average reliability - had numerous incidents at their London and Fremont DCs. And the complete inability to tell me what was happening in a timely manner was pretty unacceptable. b) Average support - they will answer the simple questions very quickly. But anything reasonably complex they will actually not bother responding at all.
      - jebblue 11y ago
        It's been sweet sailing for me for years, maybe you should try one of their other datacenters instead of complaining about Fremont. Edit: Their support is top of the line.
        Gigablah 11y ago
        "maybe you should try one of their other datacenters instead of complaining about Fremont" Wow, just wow.
gukov 11y ago
Xen to KVM was nothing but smooth and my node is now flying.
- jebblue 11y ago
  Same experience here, Linode did their homework and the transition was extremely smooth.
meesterdude 11y ago
fun fact about linode: if it says automatic backups are on in your control panel, they can still be off on linode's end. I went to go recover from a recent snapshot, only to find our latest backup was 11 months ago. That it would be "on" on our end, and be broken for 11 months for a service i'm not supposed to have to think about, that really blew me away. But, to their credit, DO does not offer the same level of backups.
jebblue 11y ago
>> Linode stalling over the past few years >> And yet the biggest development in recent years at Linode has been a proprietary stats and monitoring system >> Linode is now switching their entire platform from Xen to KVM, a curious move which will create risk >> I have been a huge supporter of Linode over the years Uh huh, right.

by dotBen 11y ago

astrodust 11y ago

For all the money Linode has on hand, and the size of their technical team, it's absolutely insulting they haven't made any tangible improvement to their management front-end in at least five years, if not more. The way it's behaving it's as if it was acquired and kept on life-support.

seunosewa 11y ago
Perhaps users don't have any complaints about their management interface? Do you? Perhaps users mostly want performance and value which have been greatly improved by their substantial infrastructure upgrades?
- smackfu 11y ago
  Not doing regular improvements is how you end up being years behind your competitors, without even noticing it, and having to do a huge rewrite just to achieve parity.
- kawsper 11y ago
  Yes. Their IP Failover is really badly documented and hard to work with. Their Nodebalancers are noticeably slow, the interface is alright, but you are better off setting up your own loadbalancer. I feel that static networking could be made easier, and more automatic when I am adding a new node. Their stackscripts should be able to receive parameters for when it is running, and the error-reporting should be better. I had issues where my scripts wouldn't run and I had no idea why. Other than that, I am a happy customer.
  - johnmaguire2013 11y ago
    I agree that networking is a pain point in terms of front-end interface. It's not horrid, but it could be improved. I'd love to see them offer a storage solution as other commenters have mentioned.
  - tomschlick 11y ago
    Regarding static networking: https://www.linode.com/docs/platform/network-helper https://www.linode.com/docs/platform/network-helper
    - kawsper 11y ago
      Oh that was hidden away, I have never seen that interface before, thanks!
  - daflip 11y ago
    When was the last time you added a node? New nodes default to 'automatic' networking now which configures /etc/network/interfaces automatically
    - kawsper 11y ago
      I scale up and down weekly. I didn't know about that, I will look into it, do I just need to add static networking to the node?
- astrodust 11y ago
  Perhaps those complaints just get ignored. I know Digital Ocean's control panel has improved several times since their launch, and their ability to launch instances with a complete stack is extremely useful. Linode has done nothing here. They point to their badly documented StackScripts system and shrug. There's a hundred things Linode could do to make user's lives easier and they've done maybe two or three of them.
Mahn 11y ago
For what is worth, I've been a Linode customer for a few years and never really felt their management front-end was in urgent need of an update. It's solid and does the job for us. My only complains to be honest are 1) the lack of storage dedicated nodes, as OP points out, and 2) the price, it gets very expensive very fast as you scale and spin more nodes. We are currently considering moving to dedicated machines but only because of 2), otherwise we would happily be their customer for life.
- threeseed 11y ago
  > never really felt their management front-end was in urgent need of an update Even when it was hacked multiple times and customer VPSs compromised e.g. http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/bitcoins-worth-228000-stolen-from-customers-of-hacked-webhost/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/bitcoins-worth-22800... Nothing is worse than spending weeks securing every aspect of your VPS only to have incidents like this appear. And worst of all ? To this day Linode never clearly said what happened or what they did to prevent it happening again.
  - mumphster 11y ago
    Not sure why this is being downvoted but the whole Linode hack incident was a huge factor for me to switch all my VPS's over to digital ocean.
    - brobinson 11y ago
      I went to Vultr. DO's interface is just as bad if not worse than Linode's. :(
      - lugg 11y ago
        Its not that bad, it has been updated frequently though. Seems to be getting better. I do remember it being quite lacking back in the day.
        11y ago
EugeneOZ 11y ago
If we talk about DO in comparison, then DO's interface is just ugly and almost unusable. Every time I use it, I want to leave their site as soon as possible.
- astrodust 11y ago
  If you think Digital Ocean is ugly and almost unusable I have to wonder what you think is better. Their one page instance creator where you pick size, location, and distribution is extremely convenient. This is three separate steps with Linode that happens over the course of six screens, plus two more if you want to enable private networking. Eight steps vs. one. They also don't offer the ability to install a system with an SSH key pre-installed avoiding the need for password authentication when bootstrapping your system. Even on a technical level Linode is way behind here.
- corford 11y ago
  I wouldn't call DO's interface ugly but I hugely prefer Linode's. Much better visual feedback and it feels like a solid management console rather than a pretty toy.
  - astrodust 11y ago
    Why does Linode look "serious" and Digital Ocean look "toy"? It's a phenomenon I see happening primarily in the tech industry where ugly trumps functional and clean. People like the complexity aesthetic, the rugged, rough edges.
    - corford 11y ago
      I suppose a lot of engineers prefer function over form rather than the other way around. If anything I'm suspicious when a tech/engineer focussed product prioritises aesthetics over function. Might be irrational but it's my first reaction.
    - EugeneOZ 11y ago
      Try to open this link https://cloud.digitalocean.com/droplets https://cloud.digitalocean.com/droplets and find current balance of your account. I can't understand why it's under "Settings". When I'm in the dashboard, I want to see as many controls as possible, not as minimal interface as possible.
mpdehaan2 11y ago
Linode is good and simple if you have a not too large amount of nodes or complex need for extra bits, and I appreciate them for that. I didn't really need anything shinier. Is it super-cloudy? Not so much, but also nice that you don't have to think about it.
- astrodust 11y ago
  Why do people think "well designed" translates to superficial and pointless? Yes, sometimes this is the case, but when you have pride in your work you'll want to present it in the best possible light. Would you rather eat in a restaurant where all the chairs are creaky, where the tables are wobbly, and where the wait staff is doing their best to get by with broken equipment, or would you instead visit down the street to a place where everything may not be new but it's well maintained? If the food quality was the same, why would you insist on going to the place with crappy, broken stuff? Linode just doesn't seem to care about their site at all. If they did they'd listen to user feedback and improve things once in a while. You know, like at least once every six years.
  - mpdehaan2 11y ago
    I'm not sure if I am meant to be "people", but I certaintly don't think that design is superificial, but rather I think Linode is designed fine, and just works, and doesn't really need changes.
riquito 11y ago
I never felt the need of more polished interface. It just works.

petercooper 11y ago

I'm not saying you're wrong but I disagree from my own POV. It's a common play in the hosting business to grow big quickly then sell out to a more enterprisey company (as happened with EV1Servers, Softlayer, Heroku) and if DO is taking such large amounts of funding, something will have to happen (IPO, acquisition, etc) and some companies don't make the transition well (I'm not saying DO wouldn't, but you never know). Linode, on the other hand, can remain a company focused on just being a long term business forever. They might move a little more conservatively, but they have owners with skin in the game and customers to keep happy. I use both DO and Linode, but Linode for my most critical stuff simply because I "feel" they're more likely to remain basically the same in 5 years' time and I value that consistency as a business. I think DO is superb, I have great admiration for them and I recommend them a lot, but I also feel they're the riskier horse to back even if the potential upside is so much greater.

bluedino 11y ago
>> It's a common play in the hosting business to grow big quickly then sell out to a more enterprisey company (as happened with EV1Servers, Softlayer, Heroku) And that's exactly what Slicehost did, years ago. I wonder if Rackspace ever courted Linode. Slicehost always seemed to be the inferior one in price and performance.
- ohashi 11y ago
  Customer opinion too. I have old data on SliceHost (http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/25/slicehost/ http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/25/slicehost/) versus Linode (http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/24/linode http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/24/linode). Linode seemed to have the better rep and then SliceHost got dismantled. Tables seemed turned a bit now though with Digital Ocean (http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/101/digitalocean http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/101/digitalocean) having a marginal lead over Linode. But DO's opinion has been slightly downward over the years and getting closer to Linode.
- catwell 11y ago
  Before it was sold, Slicehost tools and documentation were better, and their customer support was incredible. You would get answers in minutes, even if you only rented a $20 VPS.

austenallred 11y ago

When people ask, "Why does HN/the tech industry pay so much attention to the companies that are raising money?" I'll point them to this. There's absolutely nothing wrong with bootstrapping and making a good living, but the stuff that goes big and wants to scale quickly usually has to raise a bunch of money to get there.

petercooper 11y ago
That's true, but IMHO hosting is not a service that benefits significantly from economies of scale beyond a certain (though reasonably high) point. Would Linode be any better for me as a customer if it were immediately 3x the size? I'm not sure. As a customer, would I prefer a Linode that were 10x the size and having to head for an "exit" of some kind? No way.
- austenallred 11y ago
  I'm not sure; Amazon putting data centers in glaciers or Google trying to float a ship out into the ocean to water cool it certainly seem like they could could provide either performance or prices an order of magnitude greater than what is currently available; the tricky part is building up enough steam that you can be trusted with enough cash to make that happen. If nothing else, we all benefit from the prices. AWS is so cheap I barely have to think about it.
- brianwawok 11y ago
  I mean when I think of economies of scale, I would name datacenters pretty high up on the list! Thing of the googles and facebooks making their own servers instead of buying from off the shelf guys...
hudj1jcnapru38 11y ago
OTOH, taking money puts pressure on a bigger exit/revenue scaling plan. To me, that means more like GoDaddy and less like prgmr, which is not what I want from my service providers. The pressure to expand is a negative indicator when I'm a user of a service.

jordanlev 11y ago

Funny... I remember when Linode first became really popular, it was right around the time Slicehost got bought (and subsequently shut down by) Rackspace. A lot of people moved over to Linode because Slicehost was no more (or when the writing was on the wall that it would soon become no more). So perhaps you're correct that lack of funding is making Linode lazy now, but that doesn't mean that getting bought or accepting a bunch of money would solve the problem. Side note: the original slicehost founders grew to regret their decision of selling to Rackspace, see: http://37signals.com/founderstories/slicehost http://37signals.com/founderstories/slicehost

damoncali 11y ago
Also, look what happened to Slicehost after acquisition. Rackspace woke up, realized Slicehost customers are cheap, and drove them off by raising prices.
neom 11y ago
https://angel.co/digitalocean https://angel.co/digitalocean Jason sits on the board of DigitalOcean. :)

EugeneOZ 11y ago

I disagree, Linode is much superior than DO. I can trust to DO only fault-tolerant services when to Linode I can trust any kind of service to run.

exacube 11y ago
Why?
- noir_lord 11y ago
  A reasonable question For me :- * Excellent reliability (no unscheduled downtime in 6 years from 3 to at one point more than a dozen nodes) * Excellent hardware - when I've benchmarked real production systems on Linode on a $/perf ratio beats DO hands down * Excellent support - tickets are generally answered in under 30 minutes and staff are knowledgeable * It just works(TM) * Straightforward interface and pricing * Rock solid network, like bulletproof * I trust them (after 6 years of the above they have earned it)
  - threeseed 11y ago
    For me: a) Average reliability - had numerous incidents at their London and Fremont DCs. And the complete inability to tell me what was happening in a timely manner was pretty unacceptable. b) Average support - they will answer the simple questions very quickly. But anything reasonably complex they will actually not bother responding at all.
    - jebblue 11y ago
      It's been sweet sailing for me for years, maybe you should try one of their other datacenters instead of complaining about Fremont. Edit: Their support is top of the line.
      - Gigablah 11y ago
        "maybe you should try one of their other datacenters instead of complaining about Fremont" Wow, just wow.

gukov 11y ago

Xen to KVM was nothing but smooth and my node is now flying.

jebblue 11y ago
Same experience here, Linode did their homework and the transition was extremely smooth.

meesterdude 11y ago

fun fact about linode: if it says automatic backups are on in your control panel, they can still be off on linode's end. I went to go recover from a recent snapshot, only to find our latest backup was 11 months ago. That it would be "on" on our end, and be broken for 11 months for a service i'm not supposed to have to think about, that really blew me away. But, to their credit, DO does not offer the same level of backups.

jebblue 11y ago

>> Linode stalling over the past few years >> And yet the biggest development in recent years at Linode has been a proprietary stats and monitoring system >> Linode is now switching their entire platform from Xen to KVM, a curious move which will create risk >> I have been a huge supporter of Linode over the years Uh huh, right.