Linode vs. Slicehost

By Chris Einkauf on 13 Aug 2009 at 05:54 UTC

I recently migrated from Dreamhost (shared hosting account) to Slicehost and I must say that I've been impressed with Slicehost so far. I got everything up and running, and although I came from shared hosting with a control panel, using the command line hasn't been as tricky as I thought it'd be.

That being said, I've only recent become aware of all the positive feedback concerning Linode from the Drupal community. It looks like Linode is a slightly better value in terms of memory (price of Linode 360mb = price of slicehost 256mb), and it seems as though Drupalers agree that Slicehost involves a bit more knowledge because you have to update everything yourself (it's unmanaged).

My question, then, is whether it's worth it to switch from Slicehost to Linode. Are there any factors that Slicehost is better at than Linode?

Other questions... Does the control panel that Linode uses negate that extra 100mb of memory? Is it easy to upgrade to a higher-memory plan on-the-fly (in case the site gets hit by Digg or something like that)? Lastly, is it really a hassle to have a plan where you have to manage them yourself (i.e. for a relatively noobie like myself, am I setting myself up for a big headache later on by going with an unmanaged Slicehost plan?)

Comments

Bump

Chris Einkauf commented 19 August 2009 at 00:33

Yep.. bumpity bump bump

My two cents

paj_mccarthy commented 19 August 2009 at 14:57

I haven't hosted with either of the two companies because I'm a partner in a hosting company myself.

However I will say that SliceHost are a division of Rackspace and so with that in mind you will receive excellent support. I have read numerous testimonials from their clients saying that the "Fanatical Support" from Rackspace is second-to-none. With this comes a price tag that is slightly higher than your bargain basement deals.

I have to admit I have no experience of even no much about Linode.

how much are you paying for a VPS slice with slicehost per month at the moment?

$20 for a 256mb slice at

Chris Einkauf commented 19 August 2009 at 16:56

$20 for a 256mb slice at Slicehost. For the same $20 at Linode, I could get 360mb.

Linode is a great option

melon commented 19 August 2009 at 23:37

I never had a chance to deal with Slicehost, because I chose Linode around 1.5 years ago.
IMO Linode offers a service that really worths the money you pay for. I don't really know what service is available which isn't at the other company, but I have also read nice things about Slicehost as well.

At Linode (like most proper xen vps hosting companies) your domU will have a fair cpu share scheduled with the chance to burst for almost the full potential of four xeon cores. I found that disk IO is snappy and connectivity is great.

I'd suggest you should think about the near future: how much scaling will your site need, compare the higher priced plans as well.

"Other questions... Does the control panel that Linode uses negate that extra 100mb of memory?"
I don't really understand this. Linode has a control panel to handle your vps environment (OS deployment, image resizing, graphs, network configuration, misc. settings) and DNS management. I am sure Slicehost has a very similar solution here. The control panel has nothing to do with your software can install on your vps (like cpanel or webmin)

"Is it easy to upgrade to a higher-memory plan on-the-fly (in case the site gets hit by Digg or something like that)?"
You only have to open a support ticket, once the upgrade is set, you only have to reboot at the time you want (and pay the extra :) ). Or you can simply add another linode to your account which happens almost instantly, and then you can simply copy over your existing image. Copying the image over really happens fast, if you opened your new linode in the same DC.

"Lastly, is it really a hassle to have a plan where you have to manage them yourself (i.e. for a relatively noobie like myself, am I setting myself up for a big headache later on by going with an unmanaged Slicehost plan?)"
One important thing. Linode virtual servers are the same unmanaged services like Slices, so if you're switching, you will have to deal with the same administrative tasks as at Slicehost. If you are able to handle this, you're fine. Otherwise you might want someone else who does system administration for you.

If you have any specific question about Linode, go ahead, I'm trying to answer my best. I'd also suggest to visit their forum and ask questions if you have anything in your mind.

Thanks for the great reply,

Chris Einkauf commented 20 August 2009 at 00:07

Thanks for the great reply, melon. After reading your input, and reading a few more reviews online, I think I'm going to open a Linode account and migrate my site over to it in the next couple weeks. My site is still in development right now, so I figure it's a good a time as any to do the migration and things like that which might interfere with actual users later on were I to wait until the site is live.

Thanks again.

cant you take a risk

socialtalker commented 30 August 2009 at 13:58

and try both for a couple of months?

That's actually what I've

Chris Einkauf commented 1 September 2009 at 00:16

That's actually what I've decided to do. I currently have accounts with both companies, with one holding my production site and one holding my testing site. So far, so good for both, but I'm leaning towards Linode right now just based on resources per dollar.

More info

daring-2 commented 2 October 2009 at 05:54

Look forward to hearing more feedback about this, please let us know how you get on.. ;)

+1 for linode

peter_n commented 19 October 2009 at 00:49

I have just set up with linode and am finding drupal is much more responsive than with my shared hosting (downtownhost). It kind of depends on what your interests are, but personally I think that being able to administer your own server is a great skill to have and you learn a lot. Although if you're not careful you can stuff up your server completely :) I've also discovered the joys of lighttpd which serves up drupal really well and is apparently better than apache in a virtual environment.

With linode you just start out with monthly payments, so it is easy to try it out for a small outlay.

Have fun,

Peter
http://www.botanicalartistry.com/

are they a vps cloud hosting

adrianmak commented 27 January 2010 at 11:16

are they a vps cloud hosting provider ?

No vps cloud but 'build your own'

melon commented 31 January 2010 at 07:56

AFAIK neither Linode nor Slicehost are cloud hosting providers.
However if availability is your concern, you can still sign up for multiple linodes/slices and build your own HA environment.

What would be best: Run MySQL

bryzo commented 9 May 2010 at 15:06

What would be best: Run MySQL and Web Server on seperate VPSes or on the same VPS? I am considering building a "scalable" website but can not determine what would be the better option. The website will have around 700 visitors a day checking the website 2-3 times a day.

In my opinion, this argument

brendoncrawford commented 31 March 2010 at 01:29

In my opinion, this argument comes down to one thing. Slicehost does not offer telephone support and Linode does. For me, that answers this question.

What about powervps ? I am

Diegen commented 19 April 2010 at 14:11

What about powervps ? I am too looking at linode and powervps. Powervps looks good too, but then again Im used to a MT DV. And I dont really know which would be best suited at this stage, between Powervps and Linode.

How much do you have to know

AngelicLight commented 27 April 2010 at 13:21

How much do you have to know about server admin to use one of these services as opposed to a managed VPS service, which takes care of a lot of the admin for you?

Linode support bad

khangle100 commented 8 May 2010 at 20:13

I got two Linode 1080 running well. Then suddenly, my production site just died. I traced the problem to disk sector damages on my virtual server, causing a bunch of critical files to be damaged/destroyed. Support from Linode has been slow. I will try slicehost now, just willing to pay more for memory. Hopefully, slicehost can be more reliable.

I've been with linode for

j0rd commented 22 June 2010 at 08:36

I've been with linode for about a year now and have not experienced a problem. I assume with the poster above that a hosts true colours come out when you have a problem, but so far so good.

One of the reasons I host with linode is because they give you free upgrades when they upgrade their servers. Linode just increased my memory from 525megs to 751megs for free. Yippie. Free memory.

http://blog.linode.com/2010/06/16/linode-turns-7-big-ram-increase/

Because of this, I'll stick with linode until/if I have problems.

anonymous07 commented 6 July 2010 at 21:20

Would love to see additional comments/updates from anyone on this topic

Follow-up comment from OP

Chris Einkauf commented 19 July 2010 at 17:10

Hey,

I was the original poster for this question. To give a little update to anyone that's interested, I ended up testing out the same site on Slicehost and Linode simultaneously. Both servers worked really well for me from a technical standpoint, so I ultimately decided to go ahead and switch everything to Linode for the sole reason that Linode offers a little more memory for your dollar (and like one of the other commenters mentioned, they even recently increased everyone's memory for free, so I'm actually on a 512mb account for $20 per month).

When I cancelled my Slicehost account, the customer service team was super helpful and friendly, so I'd imagine they're also very helpful if anything suddenly happens to go wrong with your Slicehost server. Because I didn't have any major setbacks with either Slicehost or Linode, though, I can't really speak from experience in terms of which company is better when it comes to things like that.

I also thought both companies had pretty good documentation on how to manage your own servers (I'm not too experienced with server management, so this was important to me), but I will say that I found myself reading through the Slicehost articles while I was setting up my server over at Linode. (This shouldn't factor into the decision of which host to use; it's more of just a general comment).

All in all, I'll say this: both companies are awesome choices for hosting your Drupal site, and both are much much better than some of the other hosts I've used in the past. If you value immediate customer service, I think Slicehost would slightly win out; if you value memory for your dollar, I think Linode would slightly win out.