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DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M From Andreessen Horowitz to Take on AWS

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Re: DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M From Andreessen Horowitz to Take on AWS

#11

Post by hiphopyo »

Kudos wrote: post #5
spindritf wrote: post #3

First, it’s cheap. Second, it's integrated. Which, to me at least, feels much more natural than AWS where you rent a virtual server, and then a database separately, persistent storage separately... Because it's integrated, it's also simple. And they have a datacentre* in Amsterdam. Even two of them, right in the heart of the European Internet. That means latency to their servers is not noticeable in much of the EU. *…

What is integrated about it? They're just a VPS provider, which is a strict subset of what you can do on AWS.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't they a cloud provider? Ie. a bunch of machines connected into a distributed network, acting like a single virtual machine but with unlimited speed, memory and bandwidth, with the possibility of downtime completely eliminated, and where one only has to pay for the speed, memory and bandwidth one uses.

Re: DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M From Andreessen Horowitz to Take on AWS

#12

Post by miken123 »

jmngomes wrote: post #4

"The company is also working on IPv6, load balancing and eventually storage." Looking at the feedback from their user base, and even rom my own experience, different storage options would be way more useful than IPv6 or even load balancing.

How can storage be more important than being reachable?

Please be aware that some internet users only have native IPv6 connectivity, and that IPv4 addresses are becoming increasingly scarce, especially if you are setting up thousands if not millions of virtual machines, like DO.

Re: DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M From Andreessen Horowitz to Take on AWS

#13

Post by [deleted] »

hiphopyo wrote: post #11
Kudos wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is integrated about it? They're just a VPS provider, which is a strict subset of what you can do on AWS.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't they a cloud provider? Ie. a bunch of machines connected into a distributed network, acting like a single virtual machine but with unlimited speed, memory and bandwidth, with the possibility of downtime completely eliminated, and where one only has to pay for the speed, memory and bandwidth one uses.

[deleted]

Re: DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M From Andreessen Horowitz to Take on AWS

#14

Post by bananas »

Adding to the commentary on here with something not so gushing:

* kernels lag terribly behind the distributions meaning you're wide open sometimes.

* can't resize or add storage

* no freebsd support or custom kernels

* VM availability problems. If you want to have another box, you aren't guaranteed to get one.

* no IPv6

* somewhat shonky security reputation.

* cant deliver to yahoo mail from their AMS2 IPs I've been given even after filling in numerous forms at yahoo.

Apart from that, they're the best hosts out there. I pick them over Linode, Hetzner and EC2 but not colo. Even at the price point they're at.

Re: DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M From Andreessen Horowitz to Take on AWS

#15

Post by jcampbell1 »

hiphopyo wrote: post #11
Kudos wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is integrated about it? They're just a VPS provider, which is a strict subset of what you can do on AWS.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't they a cloud provider? Ie. a bunch of machines connected into a distributed network, acting like a single virtual machine but with unlimited speed, memory and bandwidth, with the possibility of downtime completely eliminated, and where one only has to pay for the speed, memory and bandwidth one uses.

Everything you wrote is wrong. Not sure what to correct.

They are a VPS. They do bill hourly, which makes them somewhat unique. They were early to offer SSDs. Their pricing is great.

I don't want the "cloud". I want a really good VPS. Digital Ocean fits that bill.

Re: DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M From Andreessen Horowitz to Take on AWS

#16

Post by hiphopyo »

bananas wrote: post #14

Adding to the commentary on here with something not so gushing: * kernels lag terribly behind the distributions meaning you're wide open sometimes. * can't resize or add storage * no freebsd support or custom kernels * VM availability problems. If you want to have another box, you aren't guaranteed to get one. * no IPv6 * somewhat shonky security reputation. * cant deliver to yahoo mail from their AMS2 IPs I've been…

My logs show increased break-in attempts after moving to Digital Ocean. Their IPs are hot targets for hackers, making it all the more important to properly secure my droplets, something I'm having a hard time doing in Linux. With Linux, it's lot of beating around the bush. Overcomplicated config files, a lot of disabling and removing of things one don't need, having to deal with a messy and outdated firewall. With OpenBSD, lo and behold I'd have one of the simplest, most secure and well-configured droplets the world has ever seen.

Re: DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M From Andreessen Horowitz to Take on AWS

#17

Post by morganherlocker »

While not suitable for production operations, my go to has been a random one man vps shop. I have used him for years, because it is the cheapest plan I have seen. I pay $20/year per server, which makes it an easy decision to add another one whenever an idea comes up.

Re: DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M From Andreessen Horowitz to Take on AWS

#18

Post by dave_sullivan »

ddorian43 wrote: post #9
Kudos wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is integrated about it? They're just a VPS provider, which is a strict subset of what you can do on AWS.

restart your aws server = goodbye data or hello network hdd

That's true in the same way that double taxation is a concern when setting up a corporation. It kind of is, but it's really not.

Due to downvotes, I guess I better explain what I mean: Basically, EC2 provides instances where "if you restart your server you lose your data". You don't use those when that would be a problem for you, you use EBS backed instances which do not have this problem. Or you do it some other way. Point being, this is technically true but it's not really a problem in practice.

The double taxation reference refers to it being a somewhat common misconception among people that have taken a business class before that US corporations are "double taxed". IE, corporate profits are taxed, then your personal income is taxed. This is technically true but does not actually matter because you pay yourself a salary (which is taxed as income), but this is deducted as an expense from corporate income (thus not double taxed).

Point being--it's the same FUD.

Re: DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M From Andreessen Horowitz to Take on AWS

#19

Post by flavor8 »

hiphopyo wrote: post #6

Love DigitalOcean. Sorta sad they still don't offer OpenBSD though. OpenBSD -- the world's simplest and most secure Unix-like OS. Creator of the world's most used SSH implementation OpenSSH, the world's most elegant firewall PF, and the world's most elegant mail server OpenSMTPD. OpenBSD -- the cleanest kernel, the cleanest userland and the cleanest configuration syntax. https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/1365…

Saw your OpenBSD spam yesterday too. Do you develop for the project?

Re: DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M From Andreessen Horowitz to Take on AWS

#20

Post by yogo »

HorizonXP wrote: post #2

I really like these guys. It's really no-nonsense hosting, which as a developer, is exactly what I need. I've been (stupidly) running my website, VPN, and e-mail servers all on a single EC2 instance, mostly because I had a bunch of AWS credits. I got some Google Cloud credits, so decided to move it there. I then realized that I'm spending $60 a month on a single instance, which despite having "free" money, is stupid.…

With a little effort you can use the API[0] to spin up or destroy droplets. Sure, AWS and other services do that for you but I think this one of those cases where rolling your own isn't a crazy endeavour.

[0] https://developers.digitalocean.com/droplets/

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