Please help me find a suitable virtual private server provider.

January 2, 2007 10:13 PM

Please help me find a suitable VPS provider.

(For the purpose of this question, it's important that you understand that a slice is a Xen virtualization instance.)

I am currently a customer at Slicehost. In many ways, it's the perfect fit. For starters, they provide Xen based VPS on which I get root access within minutes of buying a slice. It's inexpensive - $20 a month for a 256slice. It's significantly more reliable than the shared hosting providers I've used while being much faster and much more flexible.

I had a pressing need for five small VPS like the 256slice a couple of weeks ago. Wouldn't you know it? Slicehost ran out of slices. So I wait listed myself. I got the invite to pick up my slices, but they had closed sign ups due to technical issues when I went to pick them up last week. Now my need is urgent. I want to stick it out with Slicehost, but I can't keep waiting.

For comparison, a 256slice is comprised of a Xen virtualization instance with 256 MB of RAM, 10 Gb of storage, 100 GB of bandwidth/month at $20 a month. There are no contracts and the bandwidth overage charge is $0.33/GB. I'd like something similar at a similar price, even if it's just temporary. At a bare minimum, Ubuntu Dapper Drake needs to be able to be installed for my immediate needs. Bonus points if the company you suggest offers DNS services, a la carte IP addresses, back up services, and the potential for managed solutions in the distant future.

posted by sequential to technology (10 comments total)

HostMySite offers really, really excellent VPS hosting with 24/7 customer support (phone, e-mail, and live chat) for around $25/month, I think. They can take care of your every need, and generally for free. I don't know if they offer a la carte IP addresses, but I believe you can add them when needed.

The only catch is that they do not use Ubuntu Linux, although they *do* offer a Linux-based VPS. I believe it's Fedora, although I'm not 100% sure.
posted by Deathalicious at 11:50 PM on January 2, 2007

You want rimuhosting.com

I use them for my sites, and they are very good - Ubuntu Dapper or Edgy available (among others), a full featured control panel that includes DNS and reboot/recycling your vps. Their service is pretty good, and they have tailored scripts for common tasks people want to do (ex: installing a ruby on rails stack).

I recently got a new 160 meg vps in addition to an older one and have been very happy with it. Installed apache 2.2.3 from source, gpt my domains setup correctly, etc.

Their prices are more then slicehost (I'm actually on their wait-list, too, just to check them out), but rimu has been in business a long time and they have accounts available now.

They have dedicated options as well - I don't know if they offer true "managed" support at that level. For awesome managed support I'd say go with contegix, but they don't offer VPS plans.
posted by rsanheim at 12:18 AM on January 3, 2007

rsanheim's got it.
posted by Coda at 1:07 AM on January 3, 2007

I hadn't considered rimuhosting.com because of the cost. Many Xen players are new(ish) to the market, so I've had a hard time finding reviews or getting recommendations from my peer group.

I've learned in the process of looking for a new provider that running out of space is a reasonably common thing for Xen providers, so having a couple of back ups is probably not a bad idea. Here's a list of providers with availability that I have been considering:

Server Axis
TekTonic

There were several others that I had been considering that are also currently out of space.
posted by sequential at 2:04 AM on January 3, 2007

You could consider Quantact.

The pricing is more like Rimu's than SliceHost but I've been using them for a year and been very satisfied. If you have any problems their service is fast and excellent.
posted by southof40 at 5:16 AM on January 3, 2007

Linode

All the other are amateur hour compared to linode. Yes they use UML and not Xen, they'll switch when Xen is proven stable.
posted by klaruz at 6:12 AM on January 3, 2007

sequential: I think a good reason all the newer xen providers are much cheaper is because they are unproven and don't have a large customer base to support. =)

Rimu and linode and others have been around awhile, where 256 megs will generally be $35/mo at least. It remains to be seen how well slicehost can scale while offering it for $20/mo.
posted by rsanheim at 7:22 AM on January 3, 2007

Seconding rsanheim - Rimu has been great for me for over a year (discovered them through another Askme thread).
I recommend avoiding Tektonic. After way too many outages and mysterious data corruption incidents, I moved to Rimu.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 9:35 AM on January 3, 2007

I've always heard good things about ServInt.
posted by drstein at 10:03 AM on January 3, 2007

Big fan of RimuHosting here, and basically seconding rsanheim on his second comment as well--I just don't think it's economically feasible to sell VPS resources at anything significantly cheaper than the price-points Rimu and Linode offer.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 11:26 AM on January 3, 2007