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Ask HN: Which dedicated server provider do you currently use?

8 points by samsheen ↗ HN
I am looking at setting up a dedicated server, but am having a hard time figuring out which one.

Hetzner seems the best when it comes to bang for the buck, but should I be concerned about the DDOS issues?

Any recommendations for other providers from HN members? Any Gotchas that I should be careful about?

I'd be great if you could list down the provider you currently use or have used in the past (with price and specs if possible) along with your experience.

17 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 47.1 ms ] thread
czbond
So you're in Europe/Germany? I've used AWS, Softlayer, Firehost, etc - and my thoughts are: - If you have a small team, and will use the services, AWS can be great. It can become expensive. But many people don't realize the cost actually defers the need for some DevOps team members. Performance of EC2 hosts can be middle of the road at times compared to Softlayer, or pure metal. I love their HighAvailability, and many of their offerings, and security that comes "for free". - SoftLayer is fantastic. They don't have as many SaaS (eg: SQS, SNS, RDS) offerings - so you will build more of your own services and be responsible for uptime, etc. I love their performance. - FireHost is what you want if you're taking care of a very financially at-risk product. It is expensive, but you won't be hacked unless it's on your own stupidity.
samsheen
Thanks for the reply. I'm fine with any location for the server. Right now, just looking at keeping the costs down.
dataminer
Hetzner 4 years, no major issues yet, good support, reliable servers

Online.net 1 year, no major issues yet, reliable hardware, support a bit slow

samsheen
Thanks for your reply. I am definitely leaning towards Hetzner. Are you concerned about the DDoS issue? (related to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6577465)
dataminer
My suggestion would be to first launch your service and then worry about any other issues. Automate provisioning of your servers, so you can migrate to other providers if you have any issues. I would recommend Ansible or Chef for automation.
[deleted]
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eip
soyoustart.com
flippant
Is it supposed to be somewhere in between OVH and Kimsufi in terms of service?
BorisMelnik
been with Liquid Web for 5+ years. I've got several dedi's with them, never an issue and up time to the 9's.
Cort3z
Check out serverbear.com. They have a really nice overview over most (all?) server providers, their price, IOPS, UnixBench and more. Helped me a lot when choosing servers :) (There is a tab so you only see dedicated servers)
atmosx
I'm with TransIP but I'd jump to Digital Ocean if I didn't had a fairly complex FreeBSD setup.

NOTE: Sorry I kinda misread, wasn't talking about dedicated, was talking (personal) VPS.

alltakendamned
Hetzner for a long time. Experienced nothing out of the ordinary. I'm content.
tdobson
Hey Sam, I work for http://bytemark.co.uk

What are you trying to do? What's it for?

There's a whole bunch of pros and cons to dedicated servers, bang for buck, uptime, customer service, networking...

If you explain what you're planning on using it for, I might be able to tailor some suggestions as to what might suit you best - always happy to offer helpful suggestions - even if it's not about our products.