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Qualitative comparison of Linode, Digital Ocean and Vultr (Updated) - Page 2
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Qualitative comparison of Linode, Digital Ocean and Vultr (Updated)

2

Comments

  • breganasherbreganasher Member
    edited January 2015

    @sleddog said:
    Seems that some of your issues centred around 32bit vs 64bit. And to be fair there has been issues at Linode with this. With their new fleet deployment not all nodes support 32bit OS's. Some do, some don't. Linode seems to view 32bit as 'legacy'.

    Yes, 32-bit was an issue. But it was their support desk that exacerbated the problem by giving incorrect information. Admittedly, it was not the end of the world. Just irritating.

    As an aside, on the 32/64-bit issue Linode may have done me a favour. I have always used 32-bit Centos for small memory servers because conventional wisdom was that it was faster. But I discovered, not just on Linode, but on Vultr as well, that 64-bit Centos seemed much faster than its 32-bit cousin. It is possible, however, that it's not Centos per se that's faster. I run the Oracle JVM and I sometimes push it pretty hard. So it may actually be the 64-bit JVM that's more efficient. At this point I don't know for sure.

  • @breganasher said:
    Your experience has clearly been much better than mine (and some others). Would you elaborate on how long you've been with them,

    7 months.

    what size linode you use,

    The cheapest (1GB) one.

    and your good/bad experiences?

    So far the support has been fantastic. Uptime is also good, except maybe a week ago my box went down for ~20 minutes or so, but I was informed about that immediately when it happened, and when my box was up again, so again, points for the support.

    The other services they offer can also be included in good experiences I think, like Longview, Backups, etc...

    Also, can you comment on whether the service has deteriorated any over time?

    I've been customer for only 7 months so I can't say it has.

  • jrsmith said: since it has definitely gotten slower and more frustrating recently.

    Currently waiting around 2 hours for a response to a ticket that should take minutes.

    The whole IPv6 with them is very confusing. It seems infact you can't have a /56 routed to multiple VMs, the entire subnet is just routed to a single IPv6.

  • outimeoutime Member
    edited January 2015

    I've been a Linode customer for almost a year now (have 2 x 2GB instances), only used support twice and got great responses in <10 minutes. Uptime has been perfect, performance is superb - nothing to complain about. The backup system is nice as mentioned above and the panel is a bit old-style but has basically everything you might need.

    Vultr has been good as well - been using the high storage plans for a site with huge traffic and never failed. Support even gave away $5 to me for pointing out an error they had in the web interface.

    I got a DO instance just because I have this not small amount of free credit for being a student and I only run there a TS and few small things so can't say much about them.

    Thanked by 1breganasher
  • Great feedback. How long have you been with Vultr?

  • @breganasher said:
    I will also consider writing a review of ToggleBox.

    First time I came across this company! Pricing seems OK and they seem to be running a promo now. Can you further inform us on your experience with them please.

  • @outime said:
    I got a DO instance just because I have this not small amount of free credit for being a student
    and I only run there a TS and few small things so can't say much about them.

    Digital Ocean has worked well for me. You get a single, integrated control panel for everything. I haven't needed to use their support service because everything has worked first time, automatically.

  • @breganasher said:
    Great feedback. How long have you been with Vultr?

    Since July 2014.

    @bertan said:
    Digital Ocean has worked well for me. You get a single, integrated control panel for everything. I haven't needed to use their support service because everything has worked first time, automatically.

    That's what you get also w/ Linode & Vultr (and a good bunch of other providers as well).

  • linode should give free credits like others

  • breganasherbreganasher Member
    edited January 2015

    @kerouac said:
    First time I came across this company! Pricing seems OK and they seem to be running a promo now. Can you further inform us on your experience with them please.

    I really should create a proper review for Togglebox because I was with them for three years (until I left last month). But until I get a chance to do that ... here's a quick survey.

    • Togglebox uses OnApp for virtualization so I believe many of their issues can be attributed back to the OnApp framework.
    • Like all OnApp vendors, a Togglebox server can be highly customized. You can change how much cpu, disk, backup space, ip's you get, paying for each a la carte. For those who want additional ip's, the charge is a reasonable $1/month and they've never asked for justification.
    • Togglebox support tries hard, but their agents very widely in competence. Their senior people (whom I usually dealt with during US business hours) are very competent and try very hard. Their after hours staff, much less so. Sometimes bordering on useless. I often had to follow up during business hours to resolve an issue.
    • After three years as a customer, it is my opinion that the company that runs Togglebox, Tektonic, is a reputable company that does try to do a good job.
    • But, over my three years, Togglebox did have some problems. Cpu performance (or allotment) had not been consistent, but has improved over the last year or so. For $10/month, I found their cpu performance weak compared to Vultr, DO and Linode.
    • They us a SAN for storage, rather than local disks. Again, early on they had SAN issues but those seem to have been resolved. My biggest problem with their SAN is that it's slow, much slower than local SSD storage on the providers in my review.
    • They are the only provider with whom I have had issues updating Centos. They don't know why and neither do I. After an update the server wouldn't reboot but if I restored from a backup and then did the update it worked fine. Must be an OnApp bug, but we've never solved the issue.
    • I have had numerous problems with backups that, while minor over the last six months, finally gave me the impetus to leave. It got to the point that I had to watch the backups every day to make sure they occurred. Their support tried .. they always apologized and fixed the problem (often by going back to OnApp for a fix). But the lack of reliability was too much of a distraction for me.
    • It is ironic, though, that the Togglebox backup system is, in principle, much better than that offered by Vultr or DO. You can have a daily, weekly and monthly backups. You can also have on demand backups (which I supposed are snapshots in the current jargon). There is no charge for the backups per se, but you must purchase enough back space to hold them.
    • Except for the above issues, I had relatively little downtime with Togglebox. (In the beginning, there were more problems, but that's too long ago to consider relevant today.)

    Let me be clear: over the last year or so, except for backup issues, my server ran pretty well. And after three years, my comfort level with Togglebox was very high, much higher than any of the providers I switched to. But I was wasting too much time monitoring my server, something that I shouldn't have to do.

    In sum, I liked Togglebox as a provider, but I didn't like OnApp as a platform. I believe that the three providers in my review all provide better value, otherwise I wouldn't have switched. I think Togglebox's biggest advantage is it's a la carte offering, but I don't believe it's enough to justify their pricing. And they still have backup issues.

    So far I'm happy with my switch to Vultr and DO.

    I hope this helps.

    Thanked by 1kerouac
  • I wonder if Togglebox's CDN is any good? It's cheap!

  • @drazilox said:
    I wonder if Togglebox's CDN is any good? It's cheap!

    No idea. Never used it.

  • @Ryan22 said:
    linode should give free credits like others

    That would be a shrewd marketing move. A 7-day money-back guarantee is really too short for a good test. If I had had a month to play with I probably wouldn't have given up after a bad day with them. And a month is only a $10 credit after all.

  • LeeLee Veteran

    breganasher said: That would be a shrewd marketing move. A 7-day money-back guarantee is really too short for a good test. If I had had a month to play with I probably wouldn't have given up after a bad day with them. And a month is only a $10 credit after all.

    Linode used to offer a free trial, 3 days I think but as expected it got abused to hell and they stopped it.

  • breganasherbreganasher Member
    edited January 2015

    @W1V_Lee said:
    Linode used to offer a free trial, 3 days I think but as expected it got abused to hell and they stopped it.

    I think it's now the cost of doing business. Virtually all their competitors do it. Even IBM offers a 30 day trial through Softlayer.

  • @breganasher said:
    I think it's now the cost of doing business. Virtually all their competitors do it. Even IBM offers a 30 day trial through Softlayer.

    I should have given the link to the Softlayer offer: softlayer.com/info/free-cloud

  • SolveDNSSolveDNS Member
    edited January 2015

    I had a good experience with both DigitalOcean and Vultr. DO is pretty fast. Vultr is also pretty good. They gave me account credit when the server was slow for just a few days.

  • Would love to see Wable thrown into this mix, or at least reviewed - they seem to be able to keep up with everyone else, at least at this point...

  • breganasherbreganasher Member
    edited January 2015

    @isaacl said:
    Would love to see Wable thrown into this mix, or at least reviewed - they seem to be able to keep up with everyone else, at least at this point...

    I knew about Wable when I reviewed Linode, Vultr and Digital Ocean. I found it to be an interesting contender but there are a number of reasons why I didn't find them fully equivalent to the others:

    • Unlike the other providers in the review (which use Xen or KVM for virtualization), Wable uses OpenVZ. I'm no expert in virtualization, but my understanding is that OpenVZ has issues and makes it very easy for the provider to oversell its services.

    • Limited SMTP support. Their smallest bundle blocks SMTP. For their other bundles they state that "SMTP is heavily throttled on the first IP and is completely disabled on additional IPs".

    • They do not provide reverse DNS for their smallest two bundles. Their third bundle is $16/month (but on sale right now for $8/month) so this is not necessarily a show-stopper.

    Wable offer an interesting proposition: a bundle of virtual cpus, RAM, disk, ip addresses and bandwidth that can be distributed across multiple virtual servers. So long there is no overselling, it is a compelling offer for developers. But, because of the limitations above, I'm not sure it's the best solution for any production servers. I haven't tried Wable, so I cannot really say more.

    Anyone else had some real experience?

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    breganasher said: OpenVZ has issues and makes it very easy for the provider to oversell its services.

    True, but that is not an issue, the others are oversold too, maybe not in the same proportion, though, but for me the problem of not being able to install and control the kernel as you like is the showstopper.

    Thanked by 1breganasher
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited January 2015

    @Maounique said:
    True, but that is not an issue, the others are oversold too, maybe not in the same proportion, though, but for me the problem of not being able to install and control the kernel as you like is the showstopper.

    This. Also on the subject of SMTP, Vultr blocks SMTP until you verify your identity with a ticket to request SMTP be opened. So SMTP not being wide open can't really be reasonable criteria for exclusion.

    Wable could definitely be a reasonable addition to this, with exception for the obvious differences between KVM and OpenVZ.

    Full disclosure, I'm totally biased in favor of Wable. Doesn't mean I would recommend a product that I wouldn't use myself though. I use it every day in production.

  • breganasherbreganasher Member
    edited January 2015

    @Maounique said:
    True, but that is not an issue, the others are oversold too, maybe not in the same proportion, though, but for me the problem of not being able to install and control the kernel as you like is the showstopper.

    I went searching for opinions on the the Xen/KVM/OpenVZ debate but there are as many opinions as stars in the sky. For example, here's a link to one discussion on LowEndTalk: http://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/32939/end-users-the-great-kvm-vs-xen-vs-openvz-debate

  • Wable is a fantastic value at the moment, unless you are running mail servers as mentioned above. There is a link on their Facebook page that gives you and additional 2 CPU, 4 GB RAM, and 30 GB disk on the #3 bundle and above. So for $8 you get: 5 CPU, 6 GB RAM, 80 GB disk. Everything I've deployed has been on Xeon E5s. I wouldn't run production servers on it either, but they are hosting several personal sites with no issues.

    Thanked by 1breganasher
  • @Jar said:
    Also on the subject of SMTP, Vultr blocks SMTP until you verify your identity with a ticket to request SMTP be opened. So SMTP not being wide open can't really be reasonable criteria for exclusion.

    Thanks for your comment @Jar ... I do understand your point about Vultr's SMTP policy. But my biggest concern was Wable's restriction that "SMTP is heavily throttled on the first IP and is completely disabled on additional IPs". I had no idea what "heavily throttled" meant, but it certainly sounded bad. Since you have experience with Wable (and clearly like it as a provider), what is your interpretation of that statement?

    I was also disappointed with Vultr's initial SMTP block but, after doing some more reading, I began to think it might be good thing after all. Providers struggle with customers doing nasty things (like sending spam). Vultr's initial block seems to be an attempt to discourage spammers. If it works, it might help everyone else. Some spam blacklists will block an entire range of IPs once they identify a spammer, and that's not good for any of us. I had no issue getting Vultr's block removed. After a single request, it appears that the block is removed on the whole account, not just on a specific server.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited January 2015

    @breganasher said:
    Since you have experience with Wable (and clearly like it as a provider), what is your interpretation of that statement?

    Truthfully I'm not sure that I know what throttled means either in actual detail. Though I've honestly never asked Ryan and he'd probably be able to tell me. I ran my personal mail server there for a while with no issues. I also ran my WHMCS there for a bit and did send some burst emails of around 150 or so within a 10 minute period, didn't have any issues. I only moved whmcs from it as I needed DDOS protection on it.

    Thanked by 2breganasher ryanarp
  • breganasher said: They do not provide reverse DNS for their smallest two bundles. Their third bundle is $16/month (but on sale right now for $8/month) so this is not necessarily a show-stopper.

    This is a measure they take to "prevent abuse". It make more sense logically if they blocked SMTP on the smallest plan entirely and allow rDNS vs what they do now.

  • @evilghaleon said:
    Wable is a fantastic value at the moment, unless you are running mail servers as mentioned above. There is a link on their Facebook page that gives you and additional 2 CPU, 4 GB RAM, and 30 GB disk on the #3 bundle and above. So for $8 you get: 5 CPU, 6 GB RAM, 80 GB disk. Everything I've deployed has been on Xeon E5s. I wouldn't run production servers on it either, but they are hosting several personal sites with no issues.

    Thanks for the info on the promo ... after so much positive Wable feedback, I figured it was worth a try. I tried the promo link but, when it didn't seem to work, I contacted them. In order to use the promo you must sign up for Bundle #3 or higher and pay for it. Once the Bundle has been paid for, click on the Wable Facebook promo link (https://wable.com/?powerboost=1) and it will add an extra 2GB RAM and 2vCpus to the Bundle.

  • @Maounique said:

    You cannot do that with DO either. They give you several to choose from though.

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran
    edited January 2015

    sman said: You cannot do that with DO either. They give you several to choose from though.

    I know, that was another point of my comment, like I do not care OVZ can be oversold as long as it functions as expected, but i have a issue with kernels and both DO and OVZ from wable fail there, DO by choice, wable because that is the nature of the containerization.
    On the other hand, I was always a fan of the OVZ speed and somewhat scalability if the host is not so anal about any burst to lock you immediately, i.e. overselling is done with at least some sanity in it.
    Personally I think wable is a great product and performance for Incero is as usual stellar. We even had something like that in mind too, it is still in the cards, but until then we concentrate on polishing iwstack and making it a replacement for the rhev cloud for the enterprise we retired recently.
    On the other hand, again personally, I do not like Incero, I mean, the way they t(h)reat customers, if I am in the mood to be humiliated I would choose the french and poles at OVH, they show signs of improving lately.
    Again, that is my personal opinion, has nothing to do with the product or Prometeus.

  • evilghaleon said:

    Wable is a fantastic value at the moment

    I certainly appreciate the various recommendations for Wable, but my Wable experience today was horrendous.

    After spending a couple hours setting up the server, I opened a ticket to ask if there was a limit to how much cpu I could use. I did this before I ran a high-cpu process in order to remain within whatever restrictions they might have. Soon thereafter I received an automated email advising that my my initial payment had been refunded but the email provided no explanation whatsoever. I could no longer access the server nor could I log into the console. Since I couldn't use their ticket system, I sent them an email describing what had occurred and asked for help. It's been over an hour since that request, and yet I have still heard nothing.

    I cannot imagine what I had done to incur this reaction. I never ran the high-cpu process; most of my time was spent simply installing and configuring programs.

    I appreciate that some people have had good experiences at Wable, but this sort of unprofessional behaviour is a red flag for me. No matter what the explanation eventually is (if I even get one), there is no excuse for summarily shutting down a customer's account without cause and without communication.

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