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90 day review of VULTR.com - the real Digital Ocean competition
VULTR.com is not very old, but I have been with them since they soft launched their service, and I have to say that they just get better and better for each week. I have now been with them for over 90 days, and here is my updated review of them. (See my complete review here...)
If you want to try out VULT, they still have their "double your money" offer up to $100.
If you like, you can use my aff link: http://www.vultr.com/?ref=6802732
Product/hardware/price
VULTR offer “fake” KVM cloud instances with SSD storage (like DigitalOcean), so you only get some cloud features like hourly billing, quick deployment, many locations etc. Since my last review they have added features such as, Custom ISO files, Multiple IPs (max two extra IPs per server) and snapshot feature.
VULTR similar plans like DigitalOcean, but they have increased their smallest plan from 512 MB RAM to 768 MB of RAM, a 50% increase for the same price as DO charge.
They also charge $3/mo less for the 1 GB plan, and $5/mo less for their 2 GB plan.
As you can see VULTR now has 11 of 12 locations online, thats three times more locations then DigtalOcean has.
VULTR guarantee more then 3 GHz CPUs on all their plans (except their storage plans in NY), so you get fast CPU power on all servers. They offer SSD storage as standard and you get speeds like 3-460 MB/s.
Their hardware seems solid, and using CentOS 6.5 and Virtualmin gives me a really good result. The servers (both France and Netherlands) works really fast.
You deploy new servers within minutes depending on what location you are deploying in. It’s really simple as you can see in the picture over, you only select locations, package, and OS, then your server is online.
Service/Support
Their service is still pretty good. And their support pretty fast.
Since I have been a BETA tester for several of the new features, I have had lots of contact with their support staff, and it’s seems like they have several support staff working for them, and they seems pretty knowledgeable.
Benchmark
Amsterdam, NL
France
London
Vultr has good speeds on their servers, except on their Netherlands node there they have reduced speed to just 100 mbit. They have promised to increase the speed again, but the time has come and gone, and no ETA on when they will increase it again.
Network/uptime
There was a network issue on my France server some days ago. I had 100% uptime last 80 days or so, but now the uptime is 99.941% on that server.
On my Netherlands node, that is around 90 days old, I have 100% uptime. And on my London server, I have 100% uptime.
Conclusion
If you need a host that can offers lots of locations, rapid deployment and hourly billing, take a look at VULTR.com. They have kept their promise to add lots more features and locations, and they still have more to come. Their servers and networks works really good, with fast servers, and high uptime.
Giving VULTR 8 of 10 points, since they are not offering all features and locations just now. Looking forward to seeing them getting better and better.
If you want to try out VULT, they still have their "double your money" offer up to $100.
If you like, you can use my aff link: http://www.vultr.com/?ref=6802732
Comments
Very detailed review!
I always like your reviews
Indeed, the review is fine.
Thank you for your kind words. Vultr is really a good host, so I hope more people see what a great host they are.
Noone thanks me for introducing them
Pretty sure I posted the first thing about them in that DO thread ;-).
Sorry for that Of course, I had not found Vultr if it was not for your thread.
I love their service too
vultr more stable than do, especially in network.
If these VPS stable for next few month, I'll move my main website there.
I also monitor CPU usage on my three test servers, and I have never seen any high CPU usage on any of my servers.
How do you do that?
It's only live monitoring, with Status2k (not recommended to use due to security issues).
Do they have a client API?
Thanks @Myhken ! We're going to work hard to reach 10/10 on your next review! 12 of 12 locations will be online by the end of this week. We are also building out a few more domestic locations (USA).
Client API?
And I hope you increase bandwidth alocation for Asia location
Looking forward to try out your Germany DC also. And also looking forward to you lift the 100mbit limit in the Netherlands.
There: https://www.vultr.com/api/
Good to see a review from a guy who understands difference between real & fake cloud!
How is it "fake" kvm? Weird, seeing you can use own isos.
Is ipv6 available? If so; all or selected locations?
I did not say that it was fake KVM, but "fake" (KVM) cloud, since they are not a real cloud provider, like etc: iwStack.com.
But they have lots of cloud features, so they can sell their product as a cloud service.
What you really get is just another KVM VPS on a normal node, and if that node goes down, your server also goes down. No HA or failover service. (or load balancing)
Still, VULTR is not alone selling a product like this as cloud service, so nothing wrong with that.
No.
Good detailed review.
How well does their upgrade/downgrade feature work in term of downtime?
Good question, I will test this out tomorrow. Never done a upgrade/downgrade. So I will test both.
@OnraHost I have tested the server upgrade function at Vultr, and the upgrade took only around one minute on a empty server. Maybe it take longer time on a server with lots of data. Maybe @DaveA can say something about that.
There is no downgrade option on Vultr. Only upgrade.
Great review. I've subscribing your blog :-)
Snapshots and I'm a customer
The've got snapshots released now although still in beta
We've now activated snapshots for all customers. It is still in "Beta" just in case any issues pop up that we didn't iron out in our initial beta test.