$250k of DigitalOcean credits for YC startups(blog.ycombinator.com)
blog.ycombinator.com
$250k of DigitalOcean credits for YC startups
http://blog.ycombinator.com/$250k-of-digitalocean-credits-for-yc-startups
222 comments
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!
OVH is well known here in Europe, they were the counterpart to USA's "The Planet" (merged with SoftLayer). If you wanted dedicated servers in the EU during the early 2000s, the preferred option was always OVH...
OVH is a French group, submitted to the new Jan 2015 law about spying. Read this for more information: https://www.ovh.co.uk/news/a1766.ovh-stand-french-surveillan...
So, they have the same situation as DO, practically (where we can be sure that the NSA has some backdoor in the systems).
No, it's worse than that. The French spying apparatus has way less legal boundaries because the government basically doesn't want to acknowledge the spying even happens.
At least you can argue in an American court that you have standing if you have proof the NSA is spying on you
At least you can argue in an American court that you have standing if you have proof the NSA is spying on you
... and? "Way less legal boundaries" — the NSA doesn't even have a published budget. If you're on the internet, you're in their database(s) and so is your data. If you're interesting to them, your sysadmins are already exploited.
Court? Legal avenues? Legal boundaries?! Surely you jest.
Court? Legal avenues? Legal boundaries?! Surely you jest.
and do you think the DGSE is some sort of transparent body?
They're obviously both groups you don't want to have as buddies, but the NSA has lost court battles before, and ends up complying with the rulings most of the time.
The French surveillance services openly gloat about working in a "judicial vacuum": basically all the rules of its operations are decided by the Prime Minister and their pals, and basically have no legislative boundaries.
They're obviously both groups you don't want to have as buddies, but the NSA has lost court battles before, and ends up complying with the rulings most of the time.
The French surveillance services openly gloat about working in a "judicial vacuum": basically all the rules of its operations are decided by the Prime Minister and their pals, and basically have no legislative boundaries.
AWS and DO are US - FISA 702 would like to say hello.
Also checkout https://www.vultr.com/. They let you boot via iPXE and have many locations.
Seconded. I ran some basic benchmarks and found that Vultr outperformed DO rather consistently.
Vultr: https://gist.github.com/bobobo1618/0972fc51f49d90fb37af
DO: https://gist.github.com/bobobo1618/81aa3f413b99aaab1f0d
Vultr: https://gist.github.com/bobobo1618/0972fc51f49d90fb37af
DO: https://gist.github.com/bobobo1618/81aa3f413b99aaab1f0d
See also: http://hetzner.de
I second Hetzner. See their "server borse" for best value: https://robot.your-server.de/order/market/
I just snatched a 6-core Xeon E5-1650v2 with 64GB RAM and 2x240GB datacentre SSD (samsung 840 Pro) for 70eur/month, no setup fee. A steal.
I just snatched a 6-core Xeon E5-1650v2 with 64GB RAM and 2x240GB datacentre SSD (samsung 840 Pro) for 70eur/month, no setup fee. A steal.
Looks like OVH starts at $34/month. While, at DO you can start at $5/month.
No, they start at $3.49/month, https://www.ovh.com/us/vps/
There's also https://www.kimsufi.com/en/
I use this guys, an initiative of OVH: http://www.soyoustart.com
Been with them for a year, no downtime, great prices.
Been with them for a year, no downtime, great prices.
A note of caution: the non-professional line of OVH (that includes soyoustart) comes with basically no support and no uptime guarantees. It's still terrific value, but you've got to think carefully about what you're signing up for.
I've just migrated most of my servers to OVH and could not be more pleased.
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.
You don't use OVH for the UI, you use it for the cheap and reasonably stable network. Do a quick bandwidth cost comparison between OVH and Amazon and you'll see what I'm talking about, unfortunately I'm unable to load the AWS pricing on mobile under Firefox or Chrome.
Quick off the cuff assuming I use about 10 TB of bandwidth per month -
AWS 10 TB = $899,
OVH 10 TB = $89,
SYS (OVH SoYouStart) 10 TB = $30, (warning about 250mbit limit and minimal support applies)
DigitalOcean 10TB = $50 (using 10 $5 nodes which is admittedly less than optimal, just trying to get a raw bandwidth estimate though)
Perhaps this isn't a fair comparison, but if you're in an industry that can be bandwidth heavy it might be something to consider. I am and it's why we couldn't look seriously at AWS. For whatever reason AWS bandwidth is extremely expensive compared to the competition.
AWS 10 TB = $899,
OVH 10 TB = $89,
SYS (OVH SoYouStart) 10 TB = $30, (warning about 250mbit limit and minimal support applies)
DigitalOcean 10TB = $50 (using 10 $5 nodes which is admittedly less than optimal, just trying to get a raw bandwidth estimate though)
Perhaps this isn't a fair comparison, but if you're in an industry that can be bandwidth heavy it might be something to consider. I am and it's why we couldn't look seriously at AWS. For whatever reason AWS bandwidth is extremely expensive compared to the competition.
Aren't there a bunch of offers of free cloud hosting for Startups? We should list them here.
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?
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?
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 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.
BizSpark requires a 5 minute write up. It's comically easy to get accepted as an individual if you can string together a few sentences.
Azure is so inexpensive even without BizSpark it's kind of amazing to me. Having done startups in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, what people have available now is incredible IMO.</old man>
Azure is so inexpensive even without BizSpark it's kind of amazing to me. Having done startups in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, what people have available now is incredible IMO.</old man>
If you want to use Microsoft Software, BizSpark is great. I've signed up a couple times for a couple different entrepreneurial endeavors of mine. Super easy. Always free.
"Deploy a Linux VM on Azure. Azure supports a wide range of Linux distributions including Ubuntu, CentOS, Oracle Linux, Chef and Puppet."
Doesn't sound very reassuring. Do they have a good track record with non-MS stacks?
Doesn't sound very reassuring. Do they have a good track record with non-MS stacks?
My experience has been positive.
Their team has been doing good work. For example, Azure had the first/best Docker integration of all the cloud providers. What they had was superseded by docker-machine and swarm eventually, but they were definitely thinking ahead of the curve.
As a user of Azure, I admit that find some aspects of the service unusual, such as requiring users to pick a globally-unique identifier for every server they boot. As in, they ask you to provide a string for your instance's name, then they provide a hostname based on that string; if the hostname (thus the name you pick) is taken, you'll get an error.
Their team has been doing good work. For example, Azure had the first/best Docker integration of all the cloud providers. What they had was superseded by docker-machine and swarm eventually, but they were definitely thinking ahead of the curve.
As a user of Azure, I admit that find some aspects of the service unusual, such as requiring users to pick a globally-unique identifier for every server they boot. As in, they ask you to provide a string for your instance's name, then they provide a hostname based on that string; if the hostname (thus the name you pick) is taken, you'll get an error.
Update: I just noticed that in the past few months, Azure has eliminated this weird DNS thing with the introduction of a revised API and are phasing out the old service as "classic". I'm actually looking at moving some of my infra (containers) to Azure with their Bizspark program which offers a $750/mo credit for startups.
GCN and AWS both have very easy drop in Docker support. I'm not sure how it could get any easier.
Yes, they do, but Azure beat them to offer first-class support and did so with their own Docker-API compatible endpoint. This was back around the first Dockercon in 2014. Rackspace had a similar integration at the time, but I was definitely more impressed by what Azure was doing.
Besides not being very reassuring, its quite expensive. People on HN always want to believe its affordable, I don't get it. Like you can go to the site and see that it's quite an expensive cloud service.
I use Azure for Linux and like it alot. You should try it.
Just out of curiosity, what's not reassuring about Azure, other than the fact that they seem to think Chef and Puppet are Linux distributions?
wut?? Azure is about 30-50% more expensive than AWS or GCN. I look around every time I have a new client, look for yourself.
I think they've just won favor of startups recently because they've been subsidizing their cloud costs. If theres one thing Microsoft has, its business savvy.
I think they've just won favor of startups recently because they've been subsidizing their cloud costs. If theres one thing Microsoft has, its business savvy.
I am consistently surprised by Azure pricing when I look to spin new stuff up (luckily I'm not paying for it). Not to mention I lose connectivity to some of my v12 sql databases randomly.
well to be sure not to get locked in then.
It is not only expensive, it is also really slow. If you want a VM that compares to a 10$ droplet (i.e. with SSD) you are paying five times that.
You can sign up for bizspark without a registered company?
yes, did that, got accepted.
Cloud hosting companies are making logical choices.
They care about a company's growth, not its profit.
They'd rather get $1M/annum from an unprofitable VC-backed company than $100k/annum from a profitable bootstrap.
They care about a company's growth, not its profit.
They'd rather get $1M/annum from an unprofitable VC-backed company than $100k/annum from a profitable bootstrap.
Bizspark does not require you to be part of an accelerator. I've used it with two separate startups without any external funding.
Actually, Bizspark requires neither. It's a great way to get resources while you're still figuring out what your idea really is.
That's absolutely not true.
All of these providers have multiple levels. There's a cheap option of usually a few hundred or thousand then the upscale option with 5 or 6 figures over a year.
We got into higher tier AWS Activate for $25k/year by just asking. Then we worked with a MS Azure evangelist to get us into the $120k/year program. We would've made it but declined because we asked Softlayer and they gave us $120k/year first and their network was a better fit for us.
Lesson: JUST ASK. There are entire teams of people at these companies who are working to get more customers onboarded and will do whatever they can to help you.
All of these providers have multiple levels. There's a cheap option of usually a few hundred or thousand then the upscale option with 5 or 6 figures over a year.
We got into higher tier AWS Activate for $25k/year by just asking. Then we worked with a MS Azure evangelist to get us into the $120k/year program. We would've made it but declined because we asked Softlayer and they gave us $120k/year first and their network was a better fit for us.
Lesson: JUST ASK. There are entire teams of people at these companies who are working to get more customers onboarded and will do whatever they can to help you.
Who exactly at AWS were you asking? I talked to people at the AWS loft a few times and they said there was nothing they could do for our startup.
I was able to get one of my websites on Azure hosting when I formed an LLC to manage it. I just had to send out a few emails to developer advocates until one could hook me up.
Granted, I'm on Digital Ocean now for my sites (most more cost effective) - but it was fun to play around with while it was free.
Granted, I'm on Digital Ocean now for my sites (most more cost effective) - but it was fun to play around with while it was free.
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.
In any case, I have no issue with listing them as an option, not everyone feels the same way I do.
Prejudice against people might be something which is contemptible. Prejudice against corporations is not something to be ashamed or concerned about. It means their brand sucks (as in the perceptions of customer), probably because of past behavior.
Google has an awesome plan too https://cloud.google.com/developers/startups/
> Microsoft Azure gives hosting to startups under their Bizspark program
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.
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.
AWS does as well.
https://aws.amazon.com/activate/
https://aws.amazon.com/activate/
AWS package, if I understand correctly, only includes training and support for non-portfolio companies. You're still limited to their free tier for services themselves.
That would be great. Any idea on how effort is required for an incubator to become affiliated?
My incubator is a university, so they move their butt at a painfully slow rate.
and it's for all startups, not just to the cool YC kids.
I'd also like to see a list. Is there something that gives a comprehensive list of resources?
"Down for Maintenance" - not the greatest advert for Azure!
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.
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.
Odd use of the word ecumenical.
Unusual but not incorrect. My understanding has it that the religious sense is a (very common) specialization of a more general meaning along the lines of "treating different groups the same".
I'm pretty sure the OP intended to write "economical" instead.
No, I think "ecumenical" in the less common sense of the word, "worldwide or general in extent, influence, or application," makes perfect sense here. Or even in the usual sense of the word, if you're making an analogy between startup accelerators and Christian denominations. It's a pretty good analogy, since despite small differences in belief and large differences in culture and practice, everyone has roughly the same goals. A Lutheran might feel particularly slighted at a program that gives free choral music to Anglicans, because they sing all the same anthems and none of the differences are relevant, and so restricting the free stuff to Anglicans rubs in the difference for no good reason. This is quite different from the way a Buddhist or an atheist would feel slighted by not getting that free music.
Given that OP claimed the feeling will pass, I don't think "economical" quite makes sense.
Given that OP claimed the feeling will pass, I don't think "economical" quite makes sense.
More likely "equitable"
Geoff's comment nails the intent.
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.
Microsoft also offers 27k of azure service to non-YC startups so it's not like you're left out in the cold if you're not a part of the club.
https://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/about/default.aspx
https://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/about/default.aspx
I think that's fair to point out, but it's an order of magnitude difference (especially in the context of the other comp'd services YC companies get in their first year or two).
Think about it this way:
You’re a startup, and a significant percentage of the money you sent is directly given to your competitors.
Which is what’s happening here. If you’re a non-YC startup using DO, you’re directly financing your competitors.
You’re a startup, and a significant percentage of the money you sent is directly given to your competitors.
Which is what’s happening here. If you’re a non-YC startup using DO, you’re directly financing your competitors.
Absolutely. This reads like a big fuck you to anyone that chooses to go it alone and/or doesn't want to submit themselves to the YC complex.
You're exaggerating.
also (and this applies to a very large number of other services too) this excludes anyone not willing to reside in Silicon Valley for their business
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.
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.
https://www.digitalocean.com/company/contact/sales/
https://www.digitalocean.com/company/contact/sales/
Not a startup, but I was going to shut Go Report Card (http://goreportcard.com/) down because I didn't want to pay for it myself anymore, and I reached out to Digital Ocean and was given some credits to keep it running. Thanks.
+1 Thanks for commenting, and the offer too!
Many thanks for commenting, Andrew, and for the direction.
The underlying feeling remains – I feel DO ought to offer the terms of the YC deal to startups attached to other qualified incubators.
Whether that is practical or possible is a non-trivial discussion.
Nevertheless, I believe that outcome would feel fair, and it would right what feels wrong here.
(Incidentally, we are not at this time attached to any incubators.)
The underlying feeling remains – I feel DO ought to offer the terms of the YC deal to startups attached to other qualified incubators.
Whether that is practical or possible is a non-trivial discussion.
Nevertheless, I believe that outcome would feel fair, and it would right what feels wrong here.
(Incidentally, we are not at this time attached to any incubators.)
So just make the offer to all startups.
If your company employs less than three people then $X amount of service provided per month.
If your company employs less than three people then $X amount of service provided per month.
In some way these guys are "investing" in these YC companies' future, hoping that when they grow they will stick with DO. YC has good track record so it's relatively a good bet, whereas if they did it with any rando startup, they'll probably lose tons of money (statistically 99% of the startups die). Remember this is a company not a charity.
nobody wants to talk to a sales guy...
Really? If I want to discuss pricing, a sales guy is exactly who I want to talk to.
As a founder, I've got sales guys cold calling and emailing me all day long. They are usually new, and completely disconnected from the realities that a startup founder faces. They also generally lack the authority to make decisions, so the call always ends up as a waste of time.
Who do you want to talk to then? Unless you're a big customer, the founder or VP of the company selling to you is probably (understandably) too busy to talk to you. If they really want your business, the sales person will escalate it appropriately. If they don't want it bad enough ... they won't get it.
Don't wanna work for the company you're founding with that attitude
I don't recall asking you to do so.
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.
Wow, I find this rather extraordinary. Have your fees increased as a direct result of this gesture?
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.
So you aren't subsidizing anyone.
So you aren't subsidizing anyone.
Technically, all advertising and promotion is subsidized by the paying customers of the company. So increased promotional expenses still result in increased prices for customers, or reduced margin for the company (excepting an influx of customers that allows significant cost reduction due to scale).
But that's not always a bad thing.
But that's not always a bad thing.
Poor muffin. I too don't have the same opportunities as other folks, but it never stopped me running hard and achieving my goals ;)
Don't waste your time and energy worrying about what other folks have, and focus the same into achieving your goals and getting some credits won't make that big of a difference....
Don't waste your time and energy worrying about what other folks have, and focus the same into achieving your goals and getting some credits won't make that big of a difference....
Don't pat your back too hard. Someone is subsidizing this - and it's most likely the customers that have a choice where they spend their hard earned dollars. Point being, there will likely be a better hosting package somewhere else (for non YC-ordained members of the startup community).
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.
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.
Great response! I can totally understand the feeling.
We do work with a number of other incubators. DO itself is an alumni of TechStars. We have some stuff in the works with 500 Startups. We're definitely interested in working with other incubators as well. If you're involved with one, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] I'll make sure to get you to the right folks at DO.
If you're not in an incubator, check out the link I shared below. There's still a lot our customer success team can do for you.
We do work with a number of other incubators. DO itself is an alumni of TechStars. We have some stuff in the works with 500 Startups. We're definitely interested in working with other incubators as well. If you're involved with one, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] I'll make sure to get you to the right folks at DO.
If you're not in an incubator, check out the link I shared below. There's still a lot our customer success team can do for you.
I've only seen more coverage of "avoid these startup groups, but use YC instead!" It can set a very dangerous precedent.
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).
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).
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.
I read the OPs concern as saying: as a non-YC DO customer, he doesn't like the fact he is providing revenue to a company that is giving services away (the same he pays for) to a group of companies that doesn't include his, and may even be a competitor.
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.
What's changed is that in the perception of the commenter he's not on a level playingfield to begin with and this announcement tilted it even further away from level. So in order to do what's in his power to re-adjust he takes away some of those profits.
Anyone not living and working in SV is not on a level playing field when it comes to startups. Either the service you use does it's job at a price that fits your cost structure or it doesn't.
Get mad then use your anger to code up a storm and surpass those spoiled brats.
I'd look at it this way:
1) If you feel you're funding direct competitors...we're talking about startups. More of a validation of your base idea than a real edge for the competition. It's also not horrible to know your direct competition uses the same infrastructure.
2) Otherwise...this lets DO add more customers from the group of startups, which you're in, and thus gain more experience with their typical problems and needs which should benefit you (ever so slightly).
1) If you feel you're funding direct competitors...we're talking about startups. More of a validation of your base idea than a real edge for the competition. It's also not horrible to know your direct competition uses the same infrastructure.
2) Otherwise...this lets DO add more customers from the group of startups, which you're in, and thus gain more experience with their typical problems and needs which should benefit you (ever so slightly).
If you feel you're funding direct competitors...we're talking about startups. More of a validation of your base idea than a real edge for the competition.
There are startups and there are YC startups. If you've got in to YC you've probably already proven your idea and you're generating revenue - YC is about accelerating rather that actually starting after all. If you're directly competing with a YC company then this does put you at a disadvantage, especially if you're in a space where computational power is a big part of your burn.
Mind you, hasn't AWS given huge blocks of credits away to startups in lots of accelerators since forever? This isn't really a new problem for competitors.
There are startups and there are YC startups. If you've got in to YC you've probably already proven your idea and you're generating revenue - YC is about accelerating rather that actually starting after all. If you're directly competing with a YC company then this does put you at a disadvantage, especially if you're in a space where computational power is a big part of your burn.
Mind you, hasn't AWS given huge blocks of credits away to startups in lots of accelerators since forever? This isn't really a new problem for competitors.
Life's unfair bro. Grow a pair.
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.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/08/digitalocean-raises-83m-ser...
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...
[deleted]
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.
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.
Yes. Similar to programs offered by other providers, this credit does expire after one year.
Apparently Bizsparks lasts three years.
Yep--according to their TOS credits expire after one year unless stated otherwise.
From https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/terms/
5.8 As of March 6, 2015, redemption of promotional credit is limited to 12 months from the date of issue (unless otherwise stated), at which time the credit will expire. Upon redemption, promotional credit expires after 12 months unless otherwise defined in the terms of the promotion. For instances where promotional credit was issued or redeemed prior to March 6, 2015, that credit will expire on March 6, 2016.
From https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/terms/
5.8 As of March 6, 2015, redemption of promotional credit is limited to 12 months from the date of issue (unless otherwise stated), at which time the credit will expire. Upon redemption, promotional credit expires after 12 months unless otherwise defined in the terms of the promotion. For instances where promotional credit was issued or redeemed prior to March 6, 2015, that credit will expire on March 6, 2016.
Enjoy your free service, but I would avoid paying for Digital Ocean for any serious project.
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.
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.
There seems to be a bit of confusion about how we handle kernels at DO. Hopefully I can clear things up a bit. On newer distro versions (e.g. Ubuntu >= 15.04, Debian 8, Fedora, CoreOS, FreeBSD) we no longer use "external" kernels. You are free to compile and use custom kernels. We're happy with what we've seen, and with Ubuntu 16.04 around the corner our default distribution will have support for this as well. After that point, we'll be backporting the change to older releases.
For Droplets still running with external kernels, we import new ones on a regular basis as they are released. If you happen to need one that hasn't been imported yet, just open a support ticket and the team will do so.
For Droplets still running with external kernels, we import new ones on a regular basis as they are released. If you happen to need one that hasn't been imported yet, just open a support ticket and the team will do so.
Are you planning to offer storage options? I find it's ridiculous to have to upgrade to a higher CPU/RAM plan (or add a new node) just because we're running out of disk space. We don't need detachable volumes or anything fancy, just the ability to increase the amount of disk storage.
Storage is also an area we're working on heavily right now, and we should have some good news soon. We definitely recognize that there's a lot of demand for more storage without the need for the corresponding upgrade in compute power. Check out the update from our product team on this UserVoice request, and vote/subscribe to get updates:
http://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocean...
http://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocean...
Thanks!
Product manager for Storage at DO here. I generally avoid comment on these kind of things but given the public statements already out there it is safe to say we are launching storage reasonably soon. If you are truly interested in participating in the beta program, email me at [email protected]
>>You are free to compile and use custom kernels.
What's exactly does this mean? Could you please post the link to the documentation page that explains how?
What's exactly does this mean? Could you please post the link to the documentation page that explains how?
It's like on any Linux or BSD machine. You can build and install the kernel normally, and it just works.
Only some of the older images still use the old method of selecting the kernel from the Control Panel. The rest that Andrew mentioned use the bootloader and kernel from the droplet's image itself.
Only some of the older images still use the old method of selecting the kernel from the Control Panel. The rest that Andrew mentioned use the bootloader and kernel from the droplet's image itself.
Let's add to this the fact that if you're under a DOS attack with DigitalOcean they disconnect your machine from the internet (making it impossible for you to log in and do log analysis, etc.), send you an email saying "figure out what's happening and stop it", and then reconnect your machine several hours later only to repeat the process practically as soon as it's back online (assuming the DOS continues). I wouldn't trust a side project on DO, let alone my business.
I was about to post this. My project received a DDOS, and I could not access my droplet for over 12 hours.
Just to clarify, DigitalOcean does not offer any form of DoS mitigation services so they blackhole during a DoS. Its for 3 hours, a lot less than other providers.
If you've got a DoS issue, you definitely need a 3rd party DoS protection service. Cloudflare free works pretty well
If you've got a DoS issue, you definitely need a 3rd party DoS protection service. Cloudflare free works pretty well
It's not "a lot less than other providers". You know what happens when someone starts DDOSing one of my AWS servers? I get a CloudWatch alert saying "high inbound traffic" and that's it. They don't black hole the thing and cut off all traffic. Then, I can log in, see what's happening, and take my time diagnosing the problem. Even under a fairly heavy DDOS I never feared losing access. With DO, the black hole happens before the email alert. It's a terrible policy and I can't use or recommend DO until it's changed. I can't stick CloudFlare in front of every server I own.
> No custom kernel support
How many people run custom kernels?
I have used a kernel with realtime extensions enabled but that was a very special case and wouldn't run that in a VM anyway.
How many people run custom kernels?
I have used a kernel with realtime extensions enabled but that was a very special case and wouldn't run that in a VM anyway.
> How many people run custom kernels?
How many people want to run an updated kernel without known security vulnerabilities? Or with fixes to relevant issues?
How many people want to run an updated kernel without known security vulnerabilities? Or with fixes to relevant issues?
> How many people want to run an updated kernel without known security vulnerabilities?
How many people call that "a custom kernel"? Haven't heard anybody call an upstream distro kernel update a "custom kernel".
Is this a typical conversation people have?
"Hey Jim, did you update the servers to get the latest OpenSSL security fixes? - Yap, I compiled and installed a custom kernel".
Maybe they need to run a better distro with faster security update response?
How many people call that "a custom kernel"? Haven't heard anybody call an upstream distro kernel update a "custom kernel".
Is this a typical conversation people have?
"Hey Jim, did you update the servers to get the latest OpenSSL security fixes? - Yap, I compiled and installed a custom kernel".
Maybe they need to run a better distro with faster security update response?
It's specific to VM images. "Custom" here means "not baked into Xen," since your filesystem is not considered when spawning a domU kernel except in limited circumstances. In the Xen world, your kernel is provided by your hosting provider. You can apt-get all day and nothing will happen.
That is what custom means in this context. "Not yours." Read accordingly; you've made the same flawed point at several spots in this thread.
That is what custom means in this context. "Not yours." Read accordingly; you've made the same flawed point at several spots in this thread.
Ah, I understand now, thanks for explaining.
I thought they used KVM for some reason... But I guess if they use Xen they yeah, they are stuck with whatever kernel they get.
I thought they used KVM for some reason... But I guess if they use Xen they yeah, they are stuck with whatever kernel they get.
I've got both Xen & KVM systems under my care.
It's no longer true that Xen needs to mean managing the kernel outside the VM. PVGRUB can be specified as the 'kernel' to boot, which will chainload a grub which can be managed inside the VM, which lets you run any kernel you wish and manage the boot process as you would on a non-virtualized system.
Amazon uses Xen for their EC2 product, and as I understand they too now set people up with pvgrub.
It's no longer true that Xen needs to mean managing the kernel outside the VM. PVGRUB can be specified as the 'kernel' to boot, which will chainload a grub which can be managed inside the VM, which lets you run any kernel you wish and manage the boot process as you would on a non-virtualized system.
Amazon uses Xen for their EC2 product, and as I understand they too now set people up with pvgrub.
It's a slightly similar story under KVM in these scenarios. Customer kernels are trickier.
Depending on what kind of level of virtualization they opted for, I've run Windows on Linux under KVM. They are doing the "boot a kernel" mode instead of fully virtufalized hardware mode probably to save on resources.
Just to confirm, we use KVM across our fleet at DO.
DO uses KVM.
Very few people run actual custom kernels, but most people want to run the distro-supplied kernel for their distro of choice (including security updates to it) and most decent providers configure their VMs to allow custom kernels so that their users can do this.
This is especially big for RHEL, OEL, and friends. Yeah, CentOS is cool for your startup but a big portion of the valley wants support contracts so they can stop doing OS grunt work, and if your provider doesn't roll RHEL you get to deploy your own, and AFAIK that is not possible on DO (and requires quite a bit of work on Linode, its closest competitor in the space; DO is not AMZN). Deploying RHEL in a supported way requires using their kernels.
It's your virtual machine. You should be able to pick a kernel. This isn't for running Andrew Morton patches, as some of the comments imply.
It's your virtual machine. You should be able to pick a kernel. This isn't for running Andrew Morton patches, as some of the comments imply.
Yeah, I often get annoyed when DigitalOcean doesn’t keep with with Ubuntu kernels. One of my DigitalOcean servers is running Ubuntu 15.04 and kernel 3.19.0-21. The newest kernel from Ubuntu is -49, which DigitalOcean does not have. I also have -26 in my /lib/modules, but they don’t have that either. So now I have to explicitly install -30, the latest they support, or remember to update later.
Is there a good reason they can’t automatically add all new kernels from the major distributions?
Is there a good reason they can’t automatically add all new kernels from the major distributions?
> people want to run the distro-supplied kernel
I read "custom kernel" as in "replace distro-supplied kernel and compile your own with some custom flags and patches".
I read "custom kernel" as in "replace distro-supplied kernel and compile your own with some custom flags and patches".
Well, you can do that too, but the point is that you have control over what kernel your VMs are running and not the hosting provider. From a technical perspective it makes little difference where that kernel comes from; either you control what kernel you're running or you don't.
I was at least thinking that once you pick a distro, they'd be first in line updating the security patches for it (or at least as fast as say your own ops team would). But I guess that is not the case.
Most people don't consider custom kernel as a requirement for serious projects. I don't see why this is a joke.
If you want to run your own LXC or Docker you might need a custom kernel to enable aufs.
[deleted]
If you want to maintain your server well and keep the kernel updated against security vulnerabilities, that's a pretty big deal. It would suck to be the victim of a root escalation and have no way of preventing it.
It's less about customised kernel and more about an up-to-date one. You may want to patch at your own schedule (faster, or slower than DO). Any serious project will take updates (especially security updates) seriously.
> 1. Your private IP addresses are accessible by everyone in the same datacenter.
This is pretty bad compared to an AWS VPC -- you basically have to manage and sync your own iptables between all your nodes.
This is pretty bad compared to an AWS VPC -- you basically have to manage and sync your own iptables between all your nodes.
I would suggest that instead of trying to maintain shared state (which IP addresses are blessed) across all of your nodes, you look into using ipsec. Those internal interfaces aren't for security, they're to segment cheap/fast network traffic internal to the dc from expensive/slow/metered traffic that hits the Internet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunistic_encryption
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunistic_encryption
Perhaps, but at the same time, you shouldn't be using IP addresses as a security mechanism. Assume the connection between your hosts is compromised, and code accordingly, with encrypted/authenticated connections between hosts.
Not that I want to wade into the "don't use D.O." part of this argument, but, in practice, nobody does this. Virtually every deployment environment I've ever seen with more than 4 hosts in it would be fatally compromised by an attacker who could reach any IP address in that environment.
True. I haven't heard folks other than Google explicitly talking about this as a best practice.
A VPC is analogous to a physical network, not a subnet. Nobody uses them that way because it's not easy to grok, but you can treat a VPC as a physical network complete with your own numbering and ACL policies.
If you're doing that defense in depth on a physical network, I'm impressed by your dedication but would avoid your work for wasting resources.
If you're doing that defense in depth on a physical network, I'm impressed by your dedication but would avoid your work for wasting resources.
it's analogous to a vlan, and it's not that much work to maintain ACLs if the vlans aren't supposed to talk to each other, which they're not, that's the whole point.
[deleted]
We have a lot of interesting stuff coming up later this year around networking. Some of it will be behind the scenes, but it is going to open up a lot of new possibilities for user-facing features. We're looking to give users a lot more control over their network while maintaining our focus on UX simplicity.
Might be a good time to mention we're hiring network engineers as well:
https://www.digitalocean.com/company/careers#software-engine...
Might be a good time to mention we're hiring network engineers as well:
https://www.digitalocean.com/company/careers#software-engine...
That link is for "a software engineer on the Network team", not network engineer. Did you post the wrong link or just use bad working? I'm a network engineer but I'm not a "developer" by any means -- and there's a helluva difference!
Hey! Guess I miss-typed a bit, and it's too late to fix. We have two separate teams, a Networking team and a SWE-Networking team. It seems we don't have a proper "network engineer" posting up right now, but if you know someone interested they should still get in touch (http://do.co/1mf6HgB).
User-managed kernels are currently supported on new distro releases, and will be supported for all distributions that are released moving forward.
"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."
Far more egregious is that they silently drop port 25 on IPv6. This means that enabling IPv6 will cause mail problems for some destinations (destinations that support IPv6, like Google). When asked they say it's because a /64 is too much address space in the hands of potential (ab)users. This fails to understand that an IPv6 /64 is conceptually similar to an IPv4 /32. (In fact, there are pretty reasonable arguments for assigning IPv6 /56s or /48s with the same semantics as how IPv4 /32s are assigned.)
Far more egregious is that they silently drop port 25 on IPv6. This means that enabling IPv6 will cause mail problems for some destinations (destinations that support IPv6, like Google). When asked they say it's because a /64 is too much address space in the hands of potential (ab)users. This fails to understand that an IPv6 /64 is conceptually similar to an IPv4 /32. (In fact, there are pretty reasonable arguments for assigning IPv6 /56s or /48s with the same semantics as how IPv4 /32s are assigned.)
I can't talk about port 25, but we have 15 mailservers hosted on $5/per pop with DigitalOcean and with properly setup rDNS and SPF including our IPv6 address, we don't see any problems with deliveribility to gmail via subscription port.
That is on circa 600,000 emails per month sent to gmail.
That is on circa 600,000 emails per month sent to gmail.
You send server-to-server messages on port 587? That is... non-standard. But an interesting approach.
You are using your users' gmail credentials? Or are you simply delivering over 587 the same as you would over 25?
You are using your users' gmail credentials? Or are you simply delivering over 587 the same as you would over 25?
It's very "non-standard" -- that's not what the submission port (587/TCP) -- not "subscription port" -- is for.
It sounds like you're talking about sending mail, not receiving it. Port 25 is only an issue if you're trying to receive email.
If you want to send mail as a peer (i.e. without using a smart host / relay) you need to be able to connect outbound on port 25, which some providers block.
> 3. These kernels often contain relevant security vulnerabilities.
This is really the only part of the list that I think has merit. I love Digital Ocean in general, but my own gripe is with their API and its lack of proper automatic key management:
https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocea...
This is really the only part of the list that I think has merit. I love Digital Ocean in general, but my own gripe is with their API and its lack of proper automatic key management:
https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocea...
Ok, no serious project would run their own kernel. What are you hosting that you want to run your own kernel?
If you want to maintain your server well and keep the kernel updated against security vulnerabilities, that's a pretty big deal. It would suck to be the victim of a root escalation and have no way of preventing it.
If you want a DO competitor check out vultr.com -- I've used them for years and been quite impressed. They seem at least as good if not better and they have some very interesting features like turn-key BGP and AnyCast hosting.
I have no affiliation with them.
I have no affiliation with them.
For the most part, I think Vultr has a better offering than Digital Ocean. However, I had an infuriating experience with Vultr recently (not that I have reason to believe DO would have done any better). Vultr has poorly configured DDoS mitigation equipment. If that equipment believes your IP is under DDoS, it will automatically blackhole your IP from their upstreams.
With near-zero traffic on my interface - and for an internally facing VM, the IP address of which has never been published in any DNS, their DDoS 'protection' system decided I was under DDoS attack and blackholed my IP with their upstreams. I investigated and my conclusion is that the most likely cause was that their system mis-idenfied the overlay networking software I was using (which communicates over UDP) as DDoS traffic.
I raised this issue with support, who did not manage to help. Amongst other things, they told me that they didn't retain logs long enough to be helpful. I agreed that I would raise the issue with them again should it re-occur.
The second time they blackholed my IP, they didn't even bother telling me. And when I filed a support ticket, they took somewhere around an hour to even respond - during the time they've taken my system offline, I expect them to make themselves available.
When I tried calling their parent company on the phone, they were downright rude with me. I understand they don't usually do phone support, and that's fine, but if you've told me that (A) you can only help me resolve a problem during an incident because you don't keep logs, and (B) don't make yourself available to me through your regular support channels, don't get pissy with me for phoning you. And especially don't completely refuse to do anything remotely helpful.
I ended up terminating the VM and moving that workload elsewhere. I don't have time to be fixing other people's networks, especially when they can't be bothered to participate in the process.
It's a shame, because their BGP & AnyCast stuff looked really interesting, and I'd love to explore their offerings more. But I don't currently have confidence I can deploy anything with them in production, because when something goes wrong with their service, they don't appear competent at making themselves available to fix things.
(For the record, in some respects I consider one of my companies to be a competitor to both Digital Ocean & Vultr. But I like to be familiar with the competition, so I use them for some things. It also provides us a way to put workloads in locations we wouldn't otherwise be able to justify.)
With near-zero traffic on my interface - and for an internally facing VM, the IP address of which has never been published in any DNS, their DDoS 'protection' system decided I was under DDoS attack and blackholed my IP with their upstreams. I investigated and my conclusion is that the most likely cause was that their system mis-idenfied the overlay networking software I was using (which communicates over UDP) as DDoS traffic.
I raised this issue with support, who did not manage to help. Amongst other things, they told me that they didn't retain logs long enough to be helpful. I agreed that I would raise the issue with them again should it re-occur.
The second time they blackholed my IP, they didn't even bother telling me. And when I filed a support ticket, they took somewhere around an hour to even respond - during the time they've taken my system offline, I expect them to make themselves available.
When I tried calling their parent company on the phone, they were downright rude with me. I understand they don't usually do phone support, and that's fine, but if you've told me that (A) you can only help me resolve a problem during an incident because you don't keep logs, and (B) don't make yourself available to me through your regular support channels, don't get pissy with me for phoning you. And especially don't completely refuse to do anything remotely helpful.
I ended up terminating the VM and moving that workload elsewhere. I don't have time to be fixing other people's networks, especially when they can't be bothered to participate in the process.
It's a shame, because their BGP & AnyCast stuff looked really interesting, and I'd love to explore their offerings more. But I don't currently have confidence I can deploy anything with them in production, because when something goes wrong with their service, they don't appear competent at making themselves available to fix things.
(For the record, in some respects I consider one of my companies to be a competitor to both Digital Ocean & Vultr. But I like to be familiar with the competition, so I use them for some things. It also provides us a way to put workloads in locations we wouldn't otherwise be able to justify.)
Custom kernel support is actually available for certain distributions on DigitalOcean, though it's not widely marketed.
Right now, Debian 8, Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 15.10, Fedora 23 and FreeBSD all allow you to control your kernel version. The next LTS release of Ubuntu in April, 16.04, will also allow you to customize your kernel.
Right now, Debian 8, Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 15.10, Fedora 23 and FreeBSD all allow you to control your kernel version. The next LTS release of Ubuntu in April, 16.04, will also allow you to customize your kernel.
> 2. Inferior. Digital Ocean still won't give you a /64 per standards.
Huh? I made a droplet just a week ago and it was assigned a whole /64. Maybe this is only a recent change, but you should know that it's here now.
Huh? I made a droplet just a week ago and it was assigned a whole /64. Maybe this is only a recent change, but you should know that it's here now.
Yep, but you are allowed to use only 16 of them. Check the configurable address range.
I bet this deal drives improvements on all of those points (or at least the ones that matter).
> Private networking is a joke
> 1. Your private IP addresses are accessible by everyone in the same datacenter.
This is also the case at Linode. Besides AWS VPC, are there VPS providers that give your hosts their own private VLAN?
> 1. Your private IP addresses are accessible by everyone in the same datacenter.
This is also the case at Linode. Besides AWS VPC, are there VPS providers that give your hosts their own private VLAN?
[deleted]
>> 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.
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 probably a leftover opinion from just a few years ago using AWS. At that time, the pricing model increased shockingly fast with AWS. I know a few startups that were caught off-guard.
AWS is far more competitive now and relatively inline with offerings from Digital Ocean and Linode.
AWS is far more competitive now and relatively inline with offerings from Digital Ocean and Linode.
The company I work at spends a lot more money on staff than hosting.
This is exactly people use Rails in startups, dev time is mminimised, at the cost of speed, and hence a requirement for more servers.
This is exactly people use Rails in startups, dev time is mminimised, at the cost of speed, and hence a requirement for more servers.
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 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 share your feeling. We are running our cloud platform on AWS, and it's hard to offer competitive prices when you are not founded and the AWS bills kick your ass.
We are in an university incubator that gives us the office space (we pay a 'friendly' rent) and that's it.
I realize it's a petty feeling, but...
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).
sorry can you be more explicit on what would be hard when scaling with DO?
also, it's mainly just for your app hosting, right? You can use DO and RDS / Dynamo DB / Lambda etc...
also, it's mainly just for your app hosting, right? You can use DO and RDS / Dynamo DB / Lambda etc...
If they are already a YC Startup, they are probably the ones who least need a $250k DO Credits.
Good initiative. Wrong target.
That's giving credit to those who need it less... I'm pretty sure, YC backed startups have plenty $$ for hosting.
Why not to all startups?? Like a proper startups program...
Does anyone know the community manager or equivalent person at DO?
There are multiple, here is their team:
https://www.digitalocean.com/company/about/
https://www.digitalocean.com/company/about/
/me waves
I've been doing some into to linux/web development workshops at my hackerspace lately, would you guys every be interested in sponsoring one with some DO credits? (Like the first month free or something?).
Also, I have some bad feedback for you (sorry). We ran a workshop last night, and during the workshop, everybody signed up for an account (about 15 people at once). Presumably because we were all connecting from the same place, people started getting "fraud alert" (or whatever you guys were calling it) problems, and had to do additional steps to verify their accounts.
One guy actually had somebody asking for his passport (wat?), and then for links to his social media profiles. That seems EXTREMELY skeezy. It also ground the workshop more-or-less to a halt.
Is there somebody that I can talk to in advance next time so that the same thing doesn't happen again?
Also, I have some bad feedback for you (sorry). We ran a workshop last night, and during the workshop, everybody signed up for an account (about 15 people at once). Presumably because we were all connecting from the same place, people started getting "fraud alert" (or whatever you guys were calling it) problems, and had to do additional steps to verify their accounts.
One guy actually had somebody asking for his passport (wat?), and then for links to his social media profiles. That seems EXTREMELY skeezy. It also ground the workshop more-or-less to a halt.
Is there somebody that I can talk to in advance next time so that the same thing doesn't happen again?
Sorry to hear that. That does sound incredibly frustrating. Send me an email at [email protected] We can discuss how DO can support your hackerspace, and I can take a deeper look into why you got caught up in our verification process.
Andrew want to ping you about our tech non-profit in Miami. can you email me brian at refreshmiami . com
Sure thing. Expect an email in the morning.
I've had pleasant experiences with Etel Sverdlov in the past who is a community manager there I believe.
> 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.
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.
Hey David,
Zach here, Director of Support at DigitalOcean. I found the ticket you mentioned, no question that we did a poor job replying in 2014 to this ticket.
Since your experience a while back, I can tell you that we've improved tremendously. There's no longer an issue where we can't determine the status of a create. Also, our response time has improved considerably, and on average for the past 6 months you would get a reply in under 30 minutes.
I'm going to shoot you an email as well about your account, but please feel free to keep the conversation public if you have any other questions or comments.
Thanks! Zach [email protected]
Zach here, Director of Support at DigitalOcean. I found the ticket you mentioned, no question that we did a poor job replying in 2014 to this ticket.
Since your experience a while back, I can tell you that we've improved tremendously. There's no longer an issue where we can't determine the status of a create. Also, our response time has improved considerably, and on average for the past 6 months you would get a reply in under 30 minutes.
I'm going to shoot you an email as well about your account, but please feel free to keep the conversation public if you have any other questions or comments.
Thanks! Zach [email protected]
Is it 250K per team or globally?
Is there any ETA of when digital ocean will be available in Australia?
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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.