
Ask HN: Dreamhost VPS - Concours
Hi Hackers, does anyone around has experience with the dreamhost VPS offer? I have concern about the reliability, and it seems like i could bring it with amazon S3 services together, any info will be very helpfull. thanks
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mahmud

      [mahmud@sitename:~]$ uptime
       00:58:33 up 1 day,  1:55,  3 users,  load average: 0.81, 0.84, 0.97
    

For the longest time, my idle dreamhost box has never gotten more than 5 days
of uptime, and I've never rebooted it. And, btw, it's a dedicated server. If I
was paying for this POS it would have been gone ages ago.

Don't use VPS products by "shared host" companies like DreamHost, BlueHost,
HostMonster, HostGator, GoDaddy and other shitty, bottom-feeding slime-balls.

Personally, I have been very happy with Linode, tech.coop, Prgmr, and VPSFarm.

~~~
DanHulton
I've honestly never considered Dreamhost a "shitty, bottom-feeding slime-
ball."

In fact, they're one of the companies I admire most. They're up-front, honest,
and transparent about everything they do. EVERYTHING.

Downtimes? Reported accurately and constantly. Mail server problems? Same.
Accidentally over-charge your customers millions of dollars collectively? They
told us about that too, even though similar incidents at other companies were
covered up as well as possible.

Seriously, they air their dirty laundry almost faster than they hand out their
press releases. It's refreshing.

Now, I wouldn't buy a DreamhostPS from them, no. I've heard about all the
downtimes they keep having with them. But even still, they're one of the few
companies I KNOW that about - pretty much everone else, I had to guess.

(I'm still with them for my personal website and main email. Their control
panel is the best in the business and their customer support is absolutely
astonishingly good.)

~~~
Concours
They are trully honest, but that doesn't really help your site stay up,
pingdom is almost spamming my email box with alert from dreamhost downtimes,
at least twice a day, I was expecting to have a better service with the VPS,
but as I've just learned: very very bad idea.

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daveungerer
If you're going VPS, use a company that built its business around VPS, not a
company that built a business on seeing how much it can oversell its shared
hosting.

I use Linode personally, and it's rock solid.

~~~
scootklein
rock solid with a recent multiple-hour outage in the middle of the day?

<http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4765>

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daveungerer
Reliability isn't measured by the recency of an incident, but in incidences
per period of time. Reading the link above should be evidence enough that
Linode's customers are generally happy with the reliability over the long-
term.

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shedd
I used a DreamHost private server for a while. The first thing to be aware of
is that it's not as easy to configure from the group up as a true VPS. Their
private server systems give you the ability to customize the setup, but not as
extensively as as SliceHost or Linode. Also, DreamHost's private server
offerings are not any cheaper than SliceHost or Linode. You need a standard
account + a private server package (starts at $15) and probably a private
server MySQL package (another $15).

That said, I think that DreamHost has a good offering - nice big quotas,
pretty good support - but for someone who needs a very customizable
environment for something like Rails or Django, you're better off with a true
VPS.

~~~
shedd
Also -- also take a look at the RaceSpace Cloud Servers offering. A similar
VPS offering to SliceHost that may be a little cheaper, depending on how much
bandwidth you end up using (SliceHost packages in 100 GB of bandwidth, you pay
per use with RaceSpace Cloud Servers). Other than that, very comparable
packages.

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mikeyur
Dreamhost can burn in hell.

Rackspace/Slicehost, EC2, VPS.net, Linode.

~~~
Concours
Thanks Mikeyur, that's a great list to start with, and thanks to all the
valuable answers, the main trend is: Stay away from dreamhost VPS, so I will
be checking the list above and probably pick one of the Host.

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ahlatimer
I have a buddy who's on Dreamhost, and he seems to be mostly happy with it.
I'd still go with Linode, Slicehost, et. al if you know a thing or two about
sys admin.

I'm on Linode, and I haven't had any issues with it that weren't my fault.
Pingdom has yet to report the server down in the six or so months that I've
been with Linode, save for a few times I messed with some config files and
made the site unreachable. I'd suggest them, but I've also heard very good
things about Slicehost. I went with Linode just because it was cheaper, but
I'd imagine the snazzy interface and integrated backups are pretty nice.

~~~
midnightmonster
I have active accounts with both, and I like the Linode interface better.
Integrated backups are nice, but checkout
[http://blog.linode.com/2009/04/03/backup-service-enters-
beta...](http://blog.linode.com/2009/04/03/backup-service-enters-beta/) if
you're concerned about not having them.

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trevorturk
If you're doing Python, do consider Google App Engine. If you're doing Ruby,
Heroku is a great option. Otherwise, I'd probably recommend using Slicehost.
They have a great "articles" area on their site that has lots of information
about setting up your own server. Plus, you can add backups for $5 a month,
which is a good safety net in case something goes wrong.

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whalesalad
I was with Slicehost for a long time and really like them quite a lot.
SchoolRack.com runs on a small 5-node setup at Slicehost, and it's nice having
the internal ip's (one machine up front doing load balancing and static
content, some db/app servers behind it which are inaccessible to the outside
world). We've rarely suffered downtime in the past few years (we were with
layeredtech previously, which was a disaster)

I'm running Linode for my own personal site (whalesalad.com) and have been
happy with that as well. The control panel is definitely more advanced, and
they're cheaper. I'm broke without and unemployed, so the cheaper price is
what has me on linode right now. Help a guy out if you choose Linode -
<http://j.mp/linodesalad> (referral code)

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pmichaud
I use dreamhost VPS for around a dozen sites, and it's pretty damn good. The
control panel is really useful, and there has only been one stretch of a few
hours in which the server was slow because of a network problem on their end,
but it's never gone down.

It's not the kind of thing I'd trust for something really critical, but the
price is great, the support is reasonable, and the product is fine.

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ngsayjoe
Initially i was on shared hosting, then upgrade to VPS, within less than 3
months, and then upgraded to Slicehost. It's been more than 1 year, never been
happier.

Dreamhost VPS isn't really a true VPS. First you don't have root access, hence
can't install anything other than pre-configured modules.

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matthall28
Blatant Self Promotion: I'm one of the founders of SuperBytes.net we are
obviously much smaller then Linode and Slicehost etc. but we strive to have a
high level of customer service. Would be happy to give some HN peeps a
discount, just shoot me an email matt@kerplunc.com

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beagle3
Dude, I'm in the market for a UK based VPN, but your IPHouse speed test is not
responding.

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nreece
Go Slicehost.

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patio11
I can't recommend Slicehost enough. They're not cheap, but my sleep is
_expensive_ , and I can't remember the last time I lost any as a result of
hosting with them.

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ggreg
Nobody's talked about Gandi Hosting <http://www.gandi.net/hosting/> ? :)

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sirrocco
Anyone here uses Windows by any chance ? :)

Any recommendations ?

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omarchowdhury
www.rackforce.com has good windows VPSs

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simo2409
qubovps.com

