144 comments as I type this and I can't believe no one has mentioned OVH yet. I'm a happy customer of DigitalOcean, AWS, and OVH and my default choice for a while now has been OVH. DigitalOcean beats everyone in ease of use and UX, and AWS obviously has huge potential for scaling, but OVH consistently beats DigitalOcean in VPS performance and they include DDOS protection as standard.
Test for yourself, fire up similarly sized VPSs at both DigitalOcean and OVH and benchmark them running identical tests. The DigitalOcean VPSs are pretty fast but the OVH ones consistently perform better for both CPU and disk speed.
OVH supports startups just like the rest of the companies mentioned elsewhere in the thread too - see https://www.ovh.com/en/dlp/ for info. I have no affiliation with any of these companies except as a customer.
Interesting; I had never heard of OVH before. I currently have a bunch of stuff hosted on AWS and have been looking at digital ocean pricing; I'll add this to the list of places to check out. Thanks!
I use OVH and i find it horrible. The user interface is a total disaster. At times, it is half-french, half-german, half-english. Plus they redesign it every ~6months.
Unfortunately, all of these require that you be part of some accelerator or receive VC funding before you can take advantage of the discounts. Founders trying to bootstrap a company without external funding are SOL.
It strikes me that these cloud hosting companies are really interested in businesses that value growth above profits and are willing to ignore startups who try to manage costs to get to profitability more quickly.
It isn't a prejudice if you don't want to support a company with such a history. Azure could be the best cloud host for all I care, I still wouldn't use them.
In any case, I have no issue with listing them as an option, not everyone feels the same way I do.
As a non-YC startup, I feel it quite unfair to be subsidizing other startups with our fees to DO.
Which is a shame because I really appreciate and enjoy what the DO engineers have done.
Nonetheless, I feel slighted, and while I had been otherwise happy with the service I am now all of a sudden incentivized to explore places more ecumenical.
The feeling for me will probably pass, but I wonder how many other people have been similarly slighted.
Reading the replies it seems you're getting a mixture of "I agree / understand" and "It's a business decision you feel wrong".
Humans have weird triggers for emotions. Seeing something that benefits a group that you are not a part of but fairly equivalent to is a typical trigger, even if it does make sense to a degree. When I first saw this, as a non-YC-member, I felt pretty similar. I'm sure it's simply a business relationship in which either digital ocean is making money due to the advertising or YC is subsidizing it (though the latter is unlikely).
So it makes perfect sense from a business standpoint but I think your feelings are equally valid. I would love to see digital ocean partner with other incubators or provider offers to any start-ups in general.
We're always looking for ways to help startups get up and running on our platform. If you're not a YC company, reach out to our customer success team. They can help you get started. If you're already a DO user, they can help you scale up.
They aren't giving credits to YC companies out of charity. They're doing it because they (probably correctly) think that the gains from this marketing spend will be outweighed by future profits.
You've been paying them for hosting prior to this announcement. You apparently find the cost to be reasonable enough for the value they deliver. What's changed? Customer satisfaction withstanding, they can do whatever they want with their profits.
I don't understand why you would feel slighted, this is just a business partnership (albiet a large one) and no different than when Microsoft offered $500, 000 in azure credits to YC companies. There are certain perks to joining an organization of entrepreneurs and developers, this is one of them.
How's YC getting a deal for the companies it's funding a slight to all startups? It's not like YC is free or that it's easy to get into YC. DO is doing the deal because they're hoping to cash out servicing a hyper growth company; which in turn would subsidize small fish using DO. Understand the feeling, just don't see the logic.
The way I see it, I don't think I am subsidising these other startups since DO raised $83m last year [1]
Secondly, with the high attention of YC companies using the service, this may help push innovation forward for things like improved firewall and private networking, managed databases for backup and redundancy and an S3 comparable file store (thus no transfer costs).
If giving $250K to YC companies to create that demand for them to implement it, I'm all for it.
I'd feel even better about Digital Ocean. This ensures that it will stick around and I'm guessing the YC folks are a demanding bunch and so will will DO forward.
Its just business as usual, this gives them more exposure and good PR, with the financial gain this might bring to them you will enjoy a better (and maybe even cheaper) service in the future, looks like a win-win situation to me.
Perhaps you are not subsidizing them, but they are betting that one of them will be a success gaining them more profit in the end than this grant? Maybe this is a marketing expense.
Does the DO credit expire after one year? AWS and Google credits for >= $100K expire after one year. This really is a genius business move on any cloud provider's part. If you can get a startup to spend $100k of their free credit, they will have somewhere around an $8k monthly bill once they convert to a paying customer after the first year.
It's a nice deal for startups, but the average startup will save more money in the long run by developing efficient applications that likely won't come close to a $100k credit in the first year. This will also likely result in a much more scalable app and much less technical debt.
>> hosting is often one of the biggest expenses for early stage companies.
I don't understand this claim, at least when it comes to services like Digital Ocean and Linode. Maybe it's a statement made out of selection bias. Yes, Ycombinator batches have had their share of hyper growth startups. Yes, hyper growth can lead to scaling challenges and expenses.
That being said, it strikes me that most early stage (or any stage for that matter) tech companies do not and may never have that kind of problem. If I had to venture a guess, the normal case for tech startups is closer to the SaaS company with a few hundred business customers. For these more common cases, it's hard to imagine server costs on Digital Ocean running much higher than what you'd see in a cable internet bill.
This is nice and long due regardless of DigitalOcean's actual merits. AWS, Google (100k), IBM (120k) and Microsoft (500k) all offer credits to YC companies. More options will compel cloud providers to provide better service offerings to startups.
I wonder to what extent YC companies default to AWS though. Based on what I've heard from acquaintances at Microsoft, I'm not sure they're getting the traction they'd like.
I'm sure this has been said already, but this is a pretty big slap in the face to startups not in a fancy incubator program, which probably already have everything else going for them. It's like giving a big check to someone who already won a full ride to a top university, no?
I think it's great that DO is offering this, but it's a little shocking they don't offer this to fellow Techstars alum. We only get $10K in credits, which is a stark contrast. We are loyal to Digital Ocean because it's a great service but also because it's family. We could have just as easily went AWS. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that it's a slight oversight and they'll bring this offer to their roots.
This is interesting, given that they are a Techstars company. I sure hope that they're going to up their credits for Techstars companies as well (currently at $10k, which is generous, but man.. $250k is 25x more!)
Digital Ocean is really great for hobbyists and side project. I especially admire their community tutorials, which hosts tons of great content and I'm sure has been very valuable marketing for their products. With that said, I think trying to build a real startup on DO would be a big mistake. They simply don't offer the suite of products that the bigger cloud offerings do, and as clouds become more sophisticated, companies using them will have huge competitive advantages. From my perspective, tools like PaaS, Lambda, managed databases, big data/analytic tools etc are getting increasingly sophisticated. Using them now is a bit like a late 90s company using Python to code circles around companies sticking familiar, stable C++, where in this analogy C+ +is the equivalent to DO's basic VPS offerings that you use to cobble together what you need (stable and familiar, but ultimately less powerful and requires much more developer time to use effectively).
> their customer success team offers excellent support
Just one piece of anecdotal evidence, but I did not find this to be case. I received terrible support, responses, and lack of responses from Digital Ocean to the point that I no longer use their services for anything serious.
Here's one of the issues I experienced before I pulled the plug:
I wanted to perform the simple task of creating an image from a backup and spinning it up into a server so I could have a duplicate dev server. Seemed very straightforward. Clicked a few buttons in their "dead simple" control panel.
Their timer said "57 seconds remaining" but it never finished. I tried to contact support. 3.5 hours later I received a message saying that it could take hours to complete due to them:
"zeroing out the storage space to be used in order to ensure previous data in those blocks are erased."
I was further told that the advertised timer works for their images they have already setup, but everything else they couldn't give any ETA on. So, the timer was just eye candy not really attached to anything:
"Unfortunately, this part of the process can take a while, especially for larger droplets or droplets based on backups or snapshots. Smaller droplets and those that are based on images we provide are generally faster and should finish creation within the advertised 55 seconds, as long as the system is not under high load.
It's hard to give an accurate ETA for droplets of this size since there are many variables that go into the provisioning process, but note that the process could go up to three or so hours if there's high load at the time. I apologize for any inconvenience with this."
I was attempting to recreate an image from a backup they did. It was of the smallest droplets they have available and it wasn't near capacity.
The server never did actually get setup. Instead, just falling off of my "dead simple" dashboard every time, never hitting active. I mentioned this in the support ticket I had open, since the problem was obviously not resolved. Here was the response:
"Glad to be of assistance.
We appreciate you being a Digital Ocean customer and please let us know if we can be of further assistance!"
This was the third person to respond on my ticket; a different person for every response.
I left them and never looked back. You can find similar experiences on this website or by some brief Googling.
Ultimately, DO is probably still fine to get things going or play around, but I wouldn't trust it for anything serious or anything where you would expect a timely or decent response to help you ensure you can get work done that day. I certainly wouldn't trust DO with anything even close to $250k worth of operations.
This website looks great, but feels like it is from a template. I want to know which template, if you don't mind? If it is original, well more power to you! Someone should make a template of your site :)
[+] [-] tombrossman|10 years ago|reply
Test for yourself, fire up similarly sized VPSs at both DigitalOcean and OVH and benchmark them running identical tests. The DigitalOcean VPSs are pretty fast but the OVH ones consistently perform better for both CPU and disk speed.
OVH supports startups just like the rest of the companies mentioned elsewhere in the thread too - see https://www.ovh.com/en/dlp/ for info. I have no affiliation with any of these companies except as a customer.
[+] [-] tajen|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BinaryIdiot|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _urga|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sschueller|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fabiandesimone|10 years ago|reply
Been with them for a year, no downtime, great prices.
[+] [-] z92|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbreedlove|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sauere|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewstuart|10 years ago|reply
And you don't need to be a YC company......
Microsoft Azure gives hosting to startups under their Bizspark program - get over your prejudice - it's a great way to run Linux machines.
Softlayer and Rackspace I think also have programs for startups.
Any other companies offer free hosting to startups?
[+] [-] curun1r|10 years ago|reply
It strikes me that these cloud hosting companies are really interested in businesses that value growth above profits and are willing to ignore startups who try to manage costs to get to profitability more quickly.
[+] [-] lugg|10 years ago|reply
In any case, I have no issue with listing them as an option, not everyone feels the same way I do.
[+] [-] asadlionpk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s_kilk|10 years ago|reply
My curiosity piqued, I just tried to sign up for BizSpark:
1. I go to http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/
2. It's "Down for maintenance"
3. Try again in an hour
4. Still down
5. Lightbulb goes off, check status.azure.com
6. "We're having issues."
7. Hmmmmm... Probably not a coincidence.
[+] [-] ceejayoz|10 years ago|reply
https://aws.amazon.com/activate/
[+] [-] jxm262|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ascorbic|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmh_ca|10 years ago|reply
Which is a shame because I really appreciate and enjoy what the DO engineers have done.
Nonetheless, I feel slighted, and while I had been otherwise happy with the service I am now all of a sudden incentivized to explore places more ecumenical.
The feeling for me will probably pass, but I wonder how many other people have been similarly slighted.
[+] [-] BinaryIdiot|10 years ago|reply
Humans have weird triggers for emotions. Seeing something that benefits a group that you are not a part of but fairly equivalent to is a typical trigger, even if it does make sense to a degree. When I first saw this, as a non-YC-member, I felt pretty similar. I'm sure it's simply a business relationship in which either digital ocean is making money due to the advertising or YC is subsidizing it (though the latter is unlikely).
So it makes perfect sense from a business standpoint but I think your feelings are equally valid. I would love to see digital ocean partner with other incubators or provider offers to any start-ups in general.
[+] [-] andrewsomething|10 years ago|reply
https://www.digitalocean.com/company/contact/sales/
[+] [-] harryh|10 years ago|reply
So you aren't subsidizing anyone.
[+] [-] nhangen|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whalesalad|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bnchrch|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nxzero|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] urda|10 years ago|reply
YC isn't the end all of all, but it's starting to feel like it is becoming a mandatory part of the startup process (which is NOT ok).
[+] [-] martin-adams|10 years ago|reply
Secondly, with the high attention of YC companies using the service, this may help push innovation forward for things like improved firewall and private networking, managed databases for backup and redundancy and an S3 comparable file store (thus no transfer costs).
If giving $250K to YC companies to create that demand for them to implement it, I'm all for it.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/08/digitalocean-raises-83m-ser...
[+] [-] pbreit|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] assocguilt|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Scarbutt|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnarbarian|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rileymat2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caleblloyd|10 years ago|reply
It's a nice deal for startups, but the average startup will save more money in the long run by developing efficient applications that likely won't come close to a $100k credit in the first year. This will also likely result in a much more scalable app and much less technical debt.
[+] [-] tshtf|10 years ago|reply
No custom kernel support
1. Digital Ocean does not allow you to run your own kernel natively.
2. Digital Ocean droplet kernels are infrequently updated.
3. These kernels often contain relevant security vulnerabilities.
4. This has been a known issue since 2013.
5. You can kexec a kernel, but this is an annoying workaround.
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/how-can-i-b...
Private networking is a joke
1. Your private IP addresses are accessible by everyone in the same datacenter.
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-isol...
IPv6 support
1. Took forever to implement, and the timetable broke promises to customers.
2. Inferior. Digital Ocean still won't give you a /64 per standards.
[+] [-] pcote|10 years ago|reply
I don't understand this claim, at least when it comes to services like Digital Ocean and Linode. Maybe it's a statement made out of selection bias. Yes, Ycombinator batches have had their share of hyper growth startups. Yes, hyper growth can lead to scaling challenges and expenses.
That being said, it strikes me that most early stage (or any stage for that matter) tech companies do not and may never have that kind of problem. If I had to venture a guess, the normal case for tech startups is closer to the SaaS company with a few hundred business customers. For these more common cases, it's hard to imagine server costs on Digital Ocean running much higher than what you'd see in a cable internet bill.
[+] [-] Gaessaki|10 years ago|reply
I wonder to what extent YC companies default to AWS though. Based on what I've heard from acquaintances at Microsoft, I'm not sure they're getting the traction they'd like.
[+] [-] arrty88|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goeric|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mck-|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ditonal|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbose78|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulofilip3|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brianbreslin|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] randomdrake|10 years ago|reply
Just one piece of anecdotal evidence, but I did not find this to be case. I received terrible support, responses, and lack of responses from Digital Ocean to the point that I no longer use their services for anything serious.
Here's one of the issues I experienced before I pulled the plug:
I wanted to perform the simple task of creating an image from a backup and spinning it up into a server so I could have a duplicate dev server. Seemed very straightforward. Clicked a few buttons in their "dead simple" control panel.
Their timer said "57 seconds remaining" but it never finished. I tried to contact support. 3.5 hours later I received a message saying that it could take hours to complete due to them:
"zeroing out the storage space to be used in order to ensure previous data in those blocks are erased."
I was further told that the advertised timer works for their images they have already setup, but everything else they couldn't give any ETA on. So, the timer was just eye candy not really attached to anything:
"Unfortunately, this part of the process can take a while, especially for larger droplets or droplets based on backups or snapshots. Smaller droplets and those that are based on images we provide are generally faster and should finish creation within the advertised 55 seconds, as long as the system is not under high load.
It's hard to give an accurate ETA for droplets of this size since there are many variables that go into the provisioning process, but note that the process could go up to three or so hours if there's high load at the time. I apologize for any inconvenience with this."
I was attempting to recreate an image from a backup they did. It was of the smallest droplets they have available and it wasn't near capacity.
The server never did actually get setup. Instead, just falling off of my "dead simple" dashboard every time, never hitting active. I mentioned this in the support ticket I had open, since the problem was obviously not resolved. Here was the response:
"Glad to be of assistance.
We appreciate you being a Digital Ocean customer and please let us know if we can be of further assistance!"
This was the third person to respond on my ticket; a different person for every response.
I left them and never looked back. You can find similar experiences on this website or by some brief Googling.
Ultimately, DO is probably still fine to get things going or play around, but I wouldn't trust it for anything serious or anything where you would expect a timely or decent response to help you ensure you can get work done that day. I certainly wouldn't trust DO with anything even close to $250k worth of operations.
[+] [-] orliesaurus|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrmondo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rjurney|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] rjurney|10 years ago|reply