I would love to try out Linode again but I recently added $100 in credit at Vultr because they currently match your first deposit up to $100. Linode generally offers twice the RAM at all price points so it's almost always a better value.
Linode's biggest short-coming has always been their storage options.
There is still no way to add arbitrary storage volumes to a VPS on Linode, if you need more storage space you have to switch instance size. There's nothing like Vultr's block storage or Digital Ocean's droplets.
The figures presented here give a general idea but should be taken with care.
A lot of these small virtual servers are packed into a single host. The actual performance you get depends a lot on how your neighbors are using the resources they share with you.
AFAIK, these $5 servers are VPS and the resources allocated are guaranteed so...how can neighbors affect the performance of your server? Are you saying they are actually shared hosting plans? If so, do you have any link/article on this?
First: VPS vs. shared hosting doesn't mean (lack of) fixed resource allocation.
Second, even if they allocate fixed resources to your VMs isolation is not that perfect, and you can see performance differences in things like memory access, storage speed, ...
Ignoring overselling for a minute, VPS isolation is not perfect. Some resources, like physical disk and network cards are almost always shared. Others, like CPU, memory bandwidth, etc, while theoretically partitioned, still suffer from some amount of contention.
> these $5 servers are VPS and the resources allocated are guaranteed so...how can neighbors affect the performance of your server
Yes, they're VPSs, but no, a VPS does not provide the level of isolation that you're imagining. RAM is easy to offer guarantees about, CPU can be (but you can often burst over your guaranteed allotment, which means there's often high variability in performance, even if you always get what you're technically paying for), and disk IO is very hard (and you'll notice cheap VPSes don't even try and promise you any specific amount of IOPS).
There's a million links discussing this, google "VPS noisy neighbor" or see, eg:
Ubuntu? I am running Debian servers for over 10 years with apt-upgrade and dist-upgrade; never had any issues. Ubuntu ones had several issues but all fixable with a bit of handywork in rescue mode (if available; if not you are often screwed).
This is just a quirk on vultr. Not to do with ubuntu or debian. If you create an ubuntu server on vultr, it does an apt-get update immediately. So, if you 'jump' and immediately run apt commands, they fail.
Before we know it there will be TV ads similar to "Switch to Sprint" but with VPS Hosting. I can already see in my mind a young customer support person talking to the camera and saying "we'll even cover your switching fees up to $650".
I use Linode for many important web services that my company relies on. However I have tens of droplets on DigitalOcean for number crunching simply because I can create them in batch and also log into them with provided pubkey. Given this $5 plan on Linode, I will definitely switch over if I can create Linodes in batch.
It's probably a lot newer; I don't recall seeing any mention of it when I signed up with Linode in 2004.
Incidentally, I gather Linode has a project underway to replace that UI. I can't speak to progress, although perhaps someone else here could, but I certainly am
looking forward to the result.
Yes, we do have plans to replace the current web UI. :) It is an open source app you can follow along with the development on github [0]. And I can't say much myself, but I believe TechCrunch has us quoted as planning to release this in beta in a few months. :)
And actually, we have considered both being able to mass-provision Linodes through the web UI and use SSH keys instead of passwords. But the mass-provision part sort of got swept under the rug for beta.
Then fwiw the API is also being redone with more features and written completely in Python. You can finds docs for that here [1].
You can also sign up for alpha access today and play around with the new API (and free [temporary] Linodes!), as well as set up the manager locally [2].
Work email's in the bio if you need anything else!
I switched to Vultr from OVH for learning/testing stuff, mostly because of the double credit promotion. I think being able to upload your own ISO or use OpenBSD on these services is a big plus. They're also giving 50GB of block storage for free during the beta period, which is neat if you're trying to play with filesystems. From the times I've messed with DO they have pretty great customer service and a really slick UI, but it felt very restrained compared to other companies with what you can deploy.
30 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 94.7 ms ] threadThere is still no way to add arbitrary storage volumes to a VPS on Linode, if you need more storage space you have to switch instance size. There's nothing like Vultr's block storage or Digital Ocean's droplets.
https://blog.linode.com/2017/02/14/high-memory-instances-and...
And their disclosure/handling of security issues.
A lot of these small virtual servers are packed into a single host. The actual performance you get depends a lot on how your neighbors are using the resources they share with you.
It's really a measure of the load on the hardware by neighbouring accounts at the time of benchmarking.
Second, even if they allocate fixed resources to your VMs isolation is not that perfect, and you can see performance differences in things like memory access, storage speed, ...
Yes, they're VPSs, but no, a VPS does not provide the level of isolation that you're imagining. RAM is easy to offer guarantees about, CPU can be (but you can often burst over your guaranteed allotment, which means there's often high variability in performance, even if you always get what you're technically paying for), and disk IO is very hard (and you'll notice cheap VPSes don't even try and promise you any specific amount of IOPS).
There's a million links discussing this, google "VPS noisy neighbor" or see, eg:
https://www.liquidweb.com/blog/why-aws-is-bad-for-small-orga...
This is because it runs apt daily on startup. Been bitten by this many times on vultr.
[edit] Thanks to @sitkack's comment, now I think we can create them with https://www.linode.com/api/linode/linode.disk.createfromdist...
https://www.linode.com/api
It would be great if Linode exposes on the Web UI :-)
Incidentally, I gather Linode has a project underway to replace that UI. I can't speak to progress, although perhaps someone else here could, but I certainly am looking forward to the result.
And actually, we have considered both being able to mass-provision Linodes through the web UI and use SSH keys instead of passwords. But the mass-provision part sort of got swept under the rug for beta.
Then fwiw the API is also being redone with more features and written completely in Python. You can finds docs for that here [1].
You can also sign up for alpha access today and play around with the new API (and free [temporary] Linodes!), as well as set up the manager locally [2].
Work email's in the bio if you need anything else!
[0] https://github.com/linode/manager
[1] https://developers.linode.com
[2] https://alpha.linode.com
3€ 2 x86 64bit Cores 2GB memory 50GB SSD 200Mbit/s Unmetered
6€ 4 x86 64bit Cores 4GB memory 100GB SSD 200Mbit/s Unmetered
Gist with the same benchmarks: https://gist.github.com/oomathias/175c737c33a1254a28bb4e81e1...