Hi dev, last month, my boss gave me a task to learn about Microsoft's VPS service, what else if not Azure. Okay, after studying the documentation, I found many advantages and disadvantages of Azure, and the undeniable thing is that it is EXPENSIVE. Even with the same price, I can get 2x the specs from other providers.
Okay, long story short our client wanted a 3-year package paid in advance, this feature is in the azure calculator, but in fact when our team did the setup in the azure cloud what happened .. we didn't find the feature. It turned out that after we contacted azure support, the special feature was only intended for certain countries, with several commitment requirements.
The conclusion is that the feature is not available for Indonesia, so it's a failure. Then this experience actually made me more enthusiastic to learn about this VPS segmentation, without further ado I finally proposed to the boss to review the Google Cloud service that we used to be runner up, because of performance reasons in mobile apps. Oh yeah, actually our team was doing observations before running production, and coincidentally I was assigned to explore the documentation, while the other friends set up the VPS and did stress testing together, I was in charge of mobile apps, the rest were web and backend.
The wisdom from the adventure above made my determination strong to migrate this site to VPS, but one thing is for sure I will not use Google Cloud or Azure, because that is too overkill.
VPS Providers
This research compares between several VPS providers whose data centers are in Europe. In addition, the package we use is entry level, around 5$ per month.
We tested several aspects and the results can be used as consideration before deciding to subscribe. You don't have to make the same sacrifice, I am happy enough to do all this, hopefully useful.
| | 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 | OVH | Linode | DigitalOcean | Scaleway | Vultr |Notes:
- Companies are sorted by year of establishment.
- Linode was spun off from the company that provided ColdFusion hosting (TheShore.net) which was founded in 1999.
- Scaleway is the cloud division of Online.net (1999), a subsidiary of the Iliad group (1990) which also owns the well-known French ISP Free.
- Vultr Holdings LLC is owned by Choopa LLC which was founded in 2000.
- Market numbers are taken from Wikipedia and other sources.
Billing
| Payment Method | 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 |General Features
| Features | OVH | Linode | DigitalOcean | Scaleway | Vultr |
|----------------------------|----------|----------|--------------|-----------------------------------|--------------|
| European data centers | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| Documentation | Docs | Docs | Docs | 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 | API Docs | API Docs | API Docs | API Docs | API Docs |
| Services status page | Status | Status | Status | Status | Status |
| Support Quality | | | | | |
| Account Limits | | | 10 instances | Limited instances (e.g. 50 VC1S ) | 10 instances |
| Legal/ToS | ToS | ToS | ToS | ToS | ToS |Notes:
- Scaleway has four SLA levels, the first basic is free but if you want something better, you have to pay a monthly fee.
- One of the reasons why Linode's documentation is so good and detailed is because they pay you $250 to write a guide for them if it's good enough to publish. They're a small team (around 70 people), so it makes sense.
- The Linode API is not a RESTful API yet, but they are working on future APIs.
- The default limits can usually be increased by asking for support, but not at Scaleway, where you have to pay for higher levels of support. The limits are set by default by the provider to stop account abuse.
- Scaleway also enforces more searchable limits in account settings (e.g. 100 images or 25 snapshots).
- Vultr also enforces a maximum sample fee limit of $150 per month and requires a deposit when fees exceed $50.
European data center
- OVH : Gravelines (FR), Roubaix (FR), Strasbourg (FR). It also has a data center in Paris (FR), but it is not available for this package.
- 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
| 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 antiquated and impractical.
- Linode also has an old interface, too powerful, but not friendly. But in the coming months they will ship a new control panel in Beta.
- Linode allows you to choose the Linux Kernel version in your instance profile.
- To reset the root password from the control panel is not a good security measure IMHO, it is useful, but you already have a KVM console for that.
- On Vultr you can copy/view the masked default root password, but not reset it. This is necessary because the password is never sent via email.
- You can reinstall the instance using the same OS/Application or choose another one.
- Linode reinstall time (they call it rebuild) does not include boot time, instances do not start automatically.
- On Vultr you can use a custom ISO or choose one from libraries such as 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 it is not accessible by ssh and perform rescue or management tasks.
- On Scaleway you must first set a root password to gain access to the KVM console.
- The Scaleway control panel on the basic/SLA level accounts is very limited and counter-intuitive, I don't know if this improves with higher levels.
- At Scaleway it happened to me that the provisioning time exceeded more than 45 minutes so I had to cancel the operation (it was not easy).
- In OVH the first provisioning of a VPS server is a manual process and you have to go through strange identification protocols on the way, including an incoming phone call in my case.
Instance creation
| Operating System | OVH | Linode | DigitalOcean | Scaleway | Vultr |
|------------------|------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------|----------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------|
| Linux | Arch Linux, CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu | Arch, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, OpenSUSE, Slackware, Ubuntu | CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu | Alpine, CentOS, Debian, Gentoo, Ubuntu | CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu |
| BSD | No | No | FreeBSD | No | FreeBSD, OpenBSD |
| Windows | No | No | No | No | Windows 2012 R2 (16$) or Windows 2016 (16$) |
| Other OS | No | No | CoreOS | No | CoreOS |One-click Apps
| Apps | OVH | Linode | DigitalOcean | Scaleway | Vultr |
|----------------|---------------|--------|-----------------------|----------------|----------------------|
| Docker | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Stacks | LAMP | No | LAMP, LEMP, ELK, MEAN | LEMP, ELK | LAMP, LEMP |
| Drupal | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| WordPress | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Joomla | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Django | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| RoR | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| GitLab | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Node.js | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| E-Commerce | PrestaShop | No | Magento | PrestaShop | Magento, PrestaShop |
| Personal cloud | Cozy | No | NextCloud, ownCloud | OwnCloud, Cozy | NextCloud, ownCloud |
| Panels | Plesk, cPanel | No | No | Webmin | cPanel (15$), Webmin |Notes:
- Some providers offer more one-click Apps which I have not included here to save space.
- Some of these apps on some providers require larger, more expensive packages than the sub-$5 entry I'm analyzing here.
- Linode does not offer you one-click applications. Linode is old school, you can do it yourself, and Linode also gives you a lot of detailed documentation for doing it that way.
- OVH uses Ubuntu, Debian or CentOS as OS for its applications.
- Digital Ocean uses Ubuntu as the OS for all its applications.
- Vultr uses CentOS as the OS for all its applications.
- OVH Also offers Dokku on Ubuntu.
- Do you really need a Panel (like cPanel)? They are usually a pretty big security risk with multiple vulnerabilities and admin privileges.
Other features
| Features | OVH | Linode | DigitalOcean | Scaleway | Vultr |
|--------------------|-----|--------------|--------------|----------|-------|
| ISO images library | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Custom ISO image | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Install scripts | No | StackScripts | Cloud-init | No | iPXE |
| Preloaded SSH keys | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |Notes:
- Linode allows you to install almost any OS on your instance the old fashioned way, almost as if you were dealing with bare metal. Although the instance doesn't boot itself in the end, you have to boot it yourself from the control panel.
- Vultr's ISO image library includes several ISOs such as Alpine, Arch, Finnix, FreePBX, pfSense, Rancher Os, SystemRescueCD, and Trinity Rescue Kit.
- Vultr's "Custom ISO Images" feature lets you install almost any OS supported by KVM and server architecture.
- Linode doesn't preload your ssh keys into the instance automatically, but it's still easy to do it manually (ssh-copy-id).
- Scaleway has an interesting way to provide custom images, a service called Image Builder. You create an instance with Image Builder and from there you can create your own ISO images using Docker’s builder system which creates images that can run on real hardware.
Security
| Aspect | OVH | Linode | DigitalOcean | Scaleway | Vultr |
|-----------------------------|------|---------|--------------|----------|-------|
| 2FA | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Restrict access IPs | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Account Login Logs | No | Partial | Yes | No | No |
| SSL Quality | A- | A+ | A+ | A | A |
| DNS SPY Report | B | B | B | B | C |
| HTTP Security headers | F | E | C | F | D |
| Send root password by email | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Account password recovery | Link | Link | Link | Link | Link |Notes:
- Sending plain text passwords via email is a very bad practice in terms of security.
- OVH sends you the root password optionally if you use SSH keys, always in plain text otherwise.
- Linode never sends you the root password because you are the one who sets it (even booting the instance for the first time).
- DigitalOcean sends you the password only if you don't use an SSH key, in plain text.
- Vultr never sends you the root password, only what is needed for the one-click application.
- Linode only registers the last login time for each user, and does not register the IP.
- Account password recovery should always be via a reset link via email, and never restore your current password (and in plain text), but you never know... and if you find a provider that does that, you don't need to know anymore, get out of there as fast as possible and never reuse that password (any password).
- DNS Spy Reports are especially useful for those who are going to use a provider to manage their domains.
Plans (≤5$)
| Specs | OVH | Linode | DigitalOcean | Scaleway | Vultr | Vultr |
|----------------------|------------------|------------------------|----------------------------------------|--------------------|----------------------------------------|----------------------------------------|
| Name | VPS SSD 1 | Linode 1024 | 5bucks | VC1S | 20GB SSD | 25GB SSD |
| Monthly Price | 3,62€ | 5$ | 5$ | 2,99€ | 2,5$ | 5$ |
| CPU / Threads | 1/1 | 1/1 | 1/1 | 1/2 | 1/1 | 1/1 |
| CPU model | Xeon E5v3 2.4GHz | Xeon E5-2680 v3 2.5GHz | Xeon E5-2650L v3 1.80 GHz | Atom C2750 2.4 GHz | Intel Xeon 2.4 GHz | Intel Xeon 2.4 GHz |
| RAM | 2 GB | 1 GB | 512 MB | 2 GB | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| SSD Storage | 10 GB | 20 GB | 20 GB | 50 GB | 20 GB | 25 GB |
| Traffic | ∞ | 1 TB | 1 TB | ∞ | 500 GB | 1 TB |
| Bandwidth (In / Out) | 100/100 Mbps | 40/1 Gbps | 1/10 Gbps | 200/200 Mbps | 1/10 Gbps | 1/10 Gbps |
| Virtualization | KVM | KVM (Qemu) | KVM | KVM (Qemu) | KVM (Qemu) | KVM (Qemu) |
| Anti-DDoS Protection | Yes | No | No | No | 10$ | 10$ |
| Backups | No | 2$ | 1$ | No | 0,5 $ | 1$ |
| Snapshots | 2,99$ | Free (up to 3) | 0,05$ per GB | 0,02 € per GB | Free (Beta) | Free (Beta) |
| IPv6 | Yes | Yes | Optional | Optional | Optional | Optional |
| Additional public IP | 2$ (up to 16) | Yes | Floating IPs (0,006$ hour if inactive) | 0,9€ (up to 10) | 2$ (up to 2) / 3$ floating IPs | 2$ (up to 2) / 3$ floating IPs |
| Private Network | No | Optional | Optional | No (dynamic IPs) | Optional | Optional |
| Firewall | Yes (by IP) | No | Yes (by group) | Yes (by group) | Yes (by group) | Yes (by group) |
| Block Storage | From 5€ - 50GB | No | From 10$ - 100GB | From 1€ - 50GB | From 1$ - 10GB | From 1$ - 10GB |
| Monitoring | Yes (SLA) | Yes (metrics, SLA) | Beta (metrics, performance, SLA) | No | No | No |
| Load Balancer | 13$ | 20$ | 20$ | No | High availability (floating IPs & BGP) | High availability (floating IPs & BGP) |
| DNS Zone | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Reverse DNS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |Notes:
- OVH is keeping the actual CPUs under wraps, but what they claim on their website matches the hardware information reported in testing (E5-2620 v3 or E5-2630 v3).
- Vultr also hides the actual CPUs, but they could be Xeon E5-2620/2630 v3 for the 20GB SSD package and possibly v4 for the 25GB SSD.
- Vultr's $2.50/month plan is currently only available in Miami, FL and New York, NJ.
- OVH limits network speed to 1 Mbps after 10 TB of monthly traffic exceeds
- DigitalOcean and Vultr prices do not include taxes (VAT) for European countries.
- Linode allows you to have additional public IPs for free but you have to request it to support and justify that you need it.
- Linode Longview's monitoring system is free for up to 10 clients, but also has a professional version that starts at $20/mo for three clients.
- Linode does not currently support block storage, but they are working on offering the service in the coming months.
- Linode Snapshots (called Images) are limited to 2 GB per Image, with a total Image storage of 10 GB and 3 Images per account. The disk of a newly recreated instance is automatically saved as an Image.
- Scaleway also offers a BareMetal package for the same price (with 4 ARM Cores), but since this is a dedicated server, I'm not including it here.
- Scaleway does not offer Anti-DDoS protection but they maintain that they use the Online.net standard.
- Scaleway uses dynamic IP by default as private IP and you can only choose to use static IP if you remove Public IP from the instance.
- Scaleway uses dynamic IPv6, meaning the IPv6 will change if you stop your server. You can't even choose to reserve IPv6.
Source
https://github.com/joedicastro/vps-comparison/blob/master/README.org