This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org:
---
Title : DigitalOcean Sucks. Use DigitalOcean!
Author : Remy van Elst
Date : 19-11-2013
URL : https://raymii.org/s/articles/Digital_Ocean_Sucks._Use_Digital_Ocean.html
Format : Markdown/HTML
---
[DigitalOcean][1] sucks. And rocks. This is an article reviewing the pro's and
con's on Digital Ocean after +1 year of usage.
What is DigitalOcean? Buzzword Bingo, DigitalOcean provides scalable cloud
servers across the globe. Down to earth, they provide virtual private servers.
And frankly, they do it quite well.
<p class="ad"> <b>Recently I removed all Google Ads from this site due to their invasive tracking, as well as Google Analytics. Please, if you found this content useful, consider a small donation using any of the options below:</b><br><br> <a href="https://leafnode.nl">I'm developing an open source monitoring app called Leaf Node Monitoring, for windows, linux & android. Go check it out!</a><br><br> <a href="https://github.com/sponsors/RaymiiOrg/">Consider sponsoring me on Github. It means the world to me if you show your appreciation and you'll help pay the server costs.</a><br><br> <a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212">You can also sponsor me by getting a Digital Ocean VPS. With this referral link you'll get $100 credit for 60 days. </a><br><br> </p>
### Why they suck!
**Their defitinion of Cloud is different than that of most people**.
When you think of a cloud server provider you probably think they have a SAN
where the disk images are stored. This because when a virtualization node fails,
all virtual servers are automatically failed over to another server and you have
little to no interruption. [DigitalOcean does not have a SAN. They use local
storage in RAID 5, when more than one disk fails you are going to have a bad
day][3]. There are [more people][4] having trouble with failed nodes.
**There is still no IPv6**.
Come one you guys, [even Comcast and Time Warner Cable][5] are now rolling out
IPv6. It is almost 2014, [and they hoped to have had something working in 2012
already][6].
**You cannot install your system yourself, or provide your own ISO**.
When I buy a KVM VPS I do that because either I need special kernel/firewall
settings or because I want to do the install myself from my own provided ISO. I
might want to run FreeBSD, Windows, Mikrotik RouterOS or whatever else the
provider does not provide. Heck, I've even ran MINIX on a KVM VPS because I was
reading [the book by Tanenbaum][7]. DigitalOcean does not provide this
possibility, they only allow their set templates to be used on a VPS.
**There have been security issues with SSH Host Keys**.
See above point, DigitalOcean only provide images to roll out. Some time ago
[someone found out that the SSH Host keys were the same for all Ubuntu VM's on
DigitalOcean][8] because of the use of images.
### Why they Rock!
**Cheap**.
$5 for an SSD based VM with 512MB RAM, 20GB of disk space and 1TB of transfer?
That is holy cow cheap. The base Linode costs $15 more. Many [other VPS
providers][9] exist around this price point but most of them are not as good as
DigitalOcean.
**Fast Network**.
I'm from the Netherlands, their Amsterdam location has a 20ms ping to my home
internet. That is fast. Even the US based nodes have a ping around 125ms from
The Netherlands. Most providers outside the country are at least 200 or more ms
away. Heck, even some in the country are.
**Fast Disks**.
Here's a disk benchmark on a DigitalOcean VPS:
remy@vps23:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync
16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 3.84315 s, 279 MB/s
Other VPS I have are around 80/150MB/s. I use a few DigitalOcean VPS for disk
intensive applications, speeds are just really fast.
**A lot of Operating Systems and Images**.
From Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch to a full PHP or Rails stack, everything is
available. The amount of images available is more than enough for me. 29 base OS
images and 7 stack images available on the current date. Even better, when you
have your own VPS, you can image that and use it to provision new servers based
on that image.
**Great Management Panel**.
[Do you know all those WHMCS+SolusVM VPS Providers?][10]. Where you have three
panels, one for billing, one for support and one for server management? And
maybe one for DNS at your domain provider? DigitalOceans panel combines server
management, support, billing and DNS in one panel. Tickets, invoices, domains
and servers all in one place under one login. Heck, you can even add SSH keys
via the panel which then will be available in all current and new VPS from
DigitalOcean.
**Lots and Lots of support articles and a great community**.
[There are a lot of good copy/paste tutorials][11], there is [a forum][12], they
have a [blog][13] and there is [an IRC channel][14]. The forums and IRC are
helpfull, the blog is nice to read and most of the tutorials are great for new
users and also good as reference for experienced users. [If you have an article,
they even pay you for it][15].
**Coupon codes all the way**.
You can get your first two months free using [available coupon codes][16] or by
following them on Twitter for coupon codes. [And when they accidentally give out
a $60 coupon code, you get to keep it even when it is their error][17].
**Customer Care**.
Three hours after this article was published I got an email from John Edgar from
DigitalOcean:
Hey Remy,
I wanted to thank you for your article about us, I appreciated both your honesty and your kind words, so thanks!! Feedback is something that is extremely important to us, and very very welcome.
One thing I needed to quickly point out is the post you linked RE: ssh. You mentioned we had issues with SSH keys, this would be AWFULLL. The issue was with ssh hosts, not keys. (box vs user)
Thanks again! :)
j.
Updated the article plus a smile on my face :).
**TL;DR: DigitalOcean is a good VPS provider with minor issues. I like them and
have been using them for over a year.**
[Disquss this article on Hacker News][18]
[1]: https://digitalocean.com/
[2]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212
[3]: http://dfernandez.me/articles/digitalocean_lost_our_data/
[4]: http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/10261/digitalocean-is-a-joke
[5]: http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/blog/2013/11/comcast-and-time-warner-show-dramatic-increases-in-ipv6-deployment/
[6]: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/is-ipv6-available
[7]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_Systems:_Design_and_Implementation
[8]: http://missingm.co/2013/07/identical-droplets-in-the-digitalocean-regenerate-your-ubuntu-ssh-host-keys-now/
[9]: http://lowendbox.com
[10]: http://dailyserverdeals.com/
[11]: https://digitalocean.com/community/
[12]: https://digitalocean.com/community/questions
[13]: https://digitalocean.com/blog
[14]: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=digitalocean&uio=d4
[15]: https://digitalocean.com/write-for-digitalocean
[16]: http://www.retailmenot.com/s/digitalocean
[17]: http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/363429/#Comment_363429
[18]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6764102
---
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