I have been using VPS for quite a few years now. And I have tried all kinds from quite a few providers, even outside the eco-chamber of LET/LEB. Though I have really enjoyed some of the providers I have tried from here, the one that really hit the spot for me is DigitalOcean.
DO reminds me of Slicehost, I really really liked slicehost. I thought it was way ahead of its time, the only problem with it was that it wasn't reasonably priced. Which is why linode ate some of its business. Now I think history is repeating itself as I believe DO is eating Linode business, both by undercutting them, being better product and security problem with Linode itself.
I admit that DO is still seems "unpolished" in some ways, as they always seemed to be experimenting with features and some of their pricing model, like bandwidth, backup, snapshots, and deploying snapshots to all region are not clear or even non-existent. But even at its "unpolished" state, it seems quite ahead in terms features and simplicity and pricing model.
Last year I had a problem with making online payments from the country I am currently living in. So I asked LET community to sponsor a server. Alex_LiquidHost from Liquid Solutions was kind enough to sponsor my server for one year. Never had a problem in one year.
But now that I have sorted out the online payment issues (for good hopefully) I wanted to give something else a shot, and DO has really fit the bill and has exactly what I was looking for (auto-backup/snapshot/resize-vps). Is there any other LE providers out there who also has backup/snapshot/resize features with comparable price?
Some of things that makes DO standout from almost every VPS providers I have tried:
- Hourly billed.
- Reasonably priced.
- Auto-backup.
- Snapshots and deploy from said snapshots.
- Ability to add funds.
- Resize VPS at will.
- Custom kernel.
- Fast deploy at any available location. (assuming you deployed your snapshot to all location first, or it might take some time for obvious reasons.)
Some of the negatives I can think of:
- Though never experienced it myself, I have read of a few incidents of server failure with everything being wiped out. (thats why you backup guys).
- Always changing, adding new features, might be a good or a bad thing depends on the way you look at it.
- I still don't know what their transfer speed is. I couldn't find it mentioned clearly anywhere in their site, personal test on different DC showed speed between 50mbit/100mbit. Would be nice to know it clearly, surely.
[Disclaimer: I recently got $20 coupon for DO, but thats way after I started being a paid customer, it didn't affect my opinion on them. Liquid Solutions gave me a free vps for a year in exchange of ad placement.]