Ask HN: Dreamhost VPS | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Dreamhost VPS

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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@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.

+1 for Prgmr.

I've been with them for 6 months now and their service has been excellent. I've had no problems with them.

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.)

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.

Two separate +1 's to prgmr.com for a work(1G) and personal server(0.5G) respectively. PVGRUB on their new servers lets you boot updated/patched linux kernels without any control panel pick+click from a preset list(AFAIK Slicehost uses that method). More power to the sysadmins. The founder/boss/leadSysadmin is user lsc on news.yc

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Dreamhost can burn in hell.

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

Hear, hear! I've had nothing but horrible luck with DreamHosed. I moved to Rackspace's Slicehost solution for a few of my sites earlier this year and never looked back.

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.

prgmr.com is just like slicehost except with more RAM. I've been happy with them. Currently up 157 days.

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.

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... if you're concerned about not having them.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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

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

Go Slicehost.

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.

Happy slicehost user here.

Another happy slicehost custommer here.

Slicehost is good, but if you don't have any investment with them yet, Linode is good too, and significantly cheaper, without, as far as I can tell after a number of months with them, being any worse in any way. This is mainly due to the fact that Slicehost forces you to use 64 bit, whereas Linode lets you use 32 bit. If you took away that difference, they would mostly be equivalent.

I have a slice and also a linode instance and they are both good services. Slicehost is easier to make instances but linode offers you more configuration options. Both are great services though.

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

Anyone here uses Windows by any chance ? :)

Any recommendations ?

www.rackforce.com has good windows VPSs

qubovps.com

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