vps-comparison

WARNING: A work in progress!

ATTENTION

If you like this project, and you would like to have more plans and providers in the comparison, please take a look at [[https://github.com/joedicastro/vps-comparison/issues/22][this issue.]]

• VPS Comparison

A comparison between some VPS providers that have data centers located in Europe.

Initially I'm comparing only entry plans, below 5$ monthly.

What I trying to show here it's basically a lot of things that I would want to know before sign up with any of them. If I save you a few hours researching, like I spend, I'll be glad!

• VPS Providers

** Company

|--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------+------------+------------------| | | OVH | Linode | DigitalOcean | Scaleway | Vultr | |--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------+------------+------------------| | Foundation | 1999 | 2003 | 2011 | 2013 | 2014 | | Headquarters | Roubaix (FR) | Galloway, NJ (US) | New York (US) | Paris (FR) | Matawan, NJ (US) | | Market | 3° largest | | 2° largest | | | | Website | [[https://www.ovh.com/us][OVH]] | [[https://www.linode.com/][Linode]] | [[https://www.digitalocean.com][DigitalOcean]] | [[https://www.scaleway.com/][Scaleway]] | [[https://www.vultr.com/][Vultr]] | |--------------+--------------+-------------------+---------------+------------+------------------|

Notes:

• The companies are sorted by the year of foundation.
• Linode was spun-off from a company providing ColdFusion hosting (TheShore.net) that was founded in 1999.
• Scaleway is a cloud division of Online.net (1999), itself subsidiary of the Iliad group (1990) owner also of the famous French ISP Free.
• Vultr Holdings LLC is owned by Choopa LLC founded in 2000.
• The Market numbers are extracted from the Wikipedia an other sources

** Billing

|--------------------+-----+--------+--------------+----------+-------| | | OVH | Linode | DigitalOcean | Scaleway | Vultr | |--------------------+-----+--------+--------------+----------+-------| | Credit Card | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | PayPal | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | | Bitcoin | No | No | No | No | Yes | | Affiliate/Referral | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | | Coupon Codes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |--------------------+-----+--------+--------------+----------+-------|

Note:

• Linode needs a credit card associated with the account first to be able to pay with PayPal later.

** General Features

|----------------------------+----------+----------+--------------+-----------------------------------+--------------| | | OVH | Linode | DigitalOcean | Scaleway | Vultr | |----------------------------+----------+----------+--------------+-----------------------------------+--------------| | European data centers | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | | Documentation | [[https://www.ovh.co.uk/community/knowledge/][Docs]] | [[https://www.linode.com/docs/][Docs]] | [[https://www.digitalocean.com/community][Docs]] | [[https://www.scaleway.com/docs/][Docs]] | [[https://www.vultr.com/docs/][Docs]] | | Doc. subjective valuation | 6/10 | 9/10 | 9/10 | 6/10 | 8/10 | | Uptime guaranteed (SLA) | 99,95% | 99,9% | 99,99% | 99,9% | 100% | | Outage refund/credit (SLA) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | | API | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | API Docs | [[https://api.ovh.com/][API Docs]] | [[https://www.linode.com/api][API Docs]] | [[https://developers.digitalocean.com/documentation/][API Docs]] | [[https://developer.scaleway.com/][API Docs]] | [[https://www.vultr.com/api/][API Docs]] | | Services status page | [[http://status.ovh.com/][Status]] | [[https://status.linode.com/][Status]] | [[https://status.digitalocean.com/][Status]] | [[https://status.online.net/tasklist/?project=11&status=&perpage=50&order=id&sort=desc][Status]] | [[https://www.vultr.com/status/][Status]] | | Support Quality | | | | | | | Account Limits | | | 10 instances | Limited instances (e.g. 50 VC1S ) | 10 instances | | Legal/ToS | [[https://www.ovh.com/us/support/termsofservice/][ToS]] | [[https://www.linode.com/tos][ToS]] | [[https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/terms/][ToS]] | [[https://www.scaleway.com/terms/][ToS]] | [[https://www.vultr.com/legal/tos/][ToS]] | |----------------------------+----------+----------+--------------+-----------------------------------+--------------|

Note:

• Scaleway has four grades of SLA, the first basic is for free but if you want something better, you have to pay a monthly fee.
• One of the reasons why the Linode's documentation is so good and detailed is that they [[https://www.linode.com/docs/linode-writers-guide/][pay you 250$]] for write a guide for them if it's good enough to publish. They are a small team (about 70 people), so it makes sense.
• The Linode API is not a RESTful API yet, but they are working in an upcoming one.
• The default limits usually can be increased by asking support, but not in Scaleway, where you would have to pay fo a higher level of support. Those limits are set by default by the providers to stop abusing the accounts.
• Scaleway also imposes a lot more of limits that can be looked up in the account settings (e.g. 100 images or 25 snapshots).
• Vultr also impose a limit of a maximum instance cost of 150$ per month and requires a deposit when charges exceed 50$.

*** European data centers

• OVH: Gravelines (FR), Roubaix (FR), Strasbourg (FR). It has also a data center in Paris (FR), but is not available for these plans.
• Linode: Frankfurt (DE), London (GB)
• DigitalOcean: Amsterdam (NL), Frankfurt (DE), London (GB)
• Scaleway: Amsterdam (NL), Paris (FR)
• Vultr: Amsterdam (NL), Frankfurt (DE), London (GB), Paris (FR)

• Control Panel

** Features

|-------------------------------------+-------------------+-----------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------+--------------------------------------| | | OVH | Linode | DigitalOcean | Scaleway | Vultr | |-------------------------------------+-------------------+-----------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------+--------------------------------------| | Subjective control panel evaluation | 5/10 | 6/10 | 8/10 | 5/10 | 9/10 | | Graphs | Traffic, CPU, RAM | CPU, Traffic, Disk IO | CPU, RAM, Disk IO, Disk usage, Bandwith, Top | No | Monthly Bandwith, CPU, Disk, Network | | Subjective graphs valuation | 5/10 | 8/10 | 9/10 | 0/10 | 8/10 | | Monthly usage per instance | No | Yes | No | No | Bandwith, Credits | | KVM Console | Yes | Yes (Glish) | Yes (VNC) | Yes | Yes | | Power management | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Reset root password | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | | Reinstall instance | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | | First provision time | Several hours | <1 min | <1 min | some minutes | some minutes | | Median reinstall time | ~12,5 min | ~50 s | ~35 s | N/A | ~2,1 min | | Upgrade instance | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | | Change Linux Kernel | No | Yes | CentOS | Yes | No | | Recovery mode | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Boot with custom ISO | | Tag instances | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Responsive design (mobile UI) | No | No | No | No | Yes | | Android App | Only in France | Yes | Unofficial | No | Unofficial | | iOS App | Yes | Yes | Unofficial | No | Unofficial | |-------------------------------------+-------------------+-----------------------+----------------------------------------------+--------------+--------------------------------------|

Notes:

• The OVH panel has a very old interface, effective but antique and cumbersome.
• Linode also has an old interface, too much powerful, but not friendly. But in the coming months they are going to deliver a new control panel in Beta.
• Linode let you choose the Linux Kernel version in the profile of your instance.
• To reset the root password from the control panel is not a good security measure IMHO, it's useful, but you already have the KVM console for that.
• In Vultr you can copy/see the masked default root password, but not reset it. This is necessary because the password is never sent by email.
• You can reinstall the instances using the same SO/App or choosing another one.
• Linode reinstall time (they call it rebuild) does not include the boot time, the instance is not started automatically.
• In Vultr can use a custom ISO or choose one from the library like SystemRescueCD or Trinity Rescue Kit to boot your instance and perform recovery tasks.
• Linode has an additional console (Lish) that allows you to control your instance even when is inaccessible by ssh and perform rescue or management tasks.
• In Scaleway you have to set a root password first to get access to the KVM console.
• The Scaleway's control panel in the basic account/SLA level is very limited and counter-intuitive