This seems to be contradictory with what you state just after that.
Honestly, their pricing almost seems “to good to be true”, especially the promos … on timers, as you said.
They claim to use KVM. CPU ressources are not shared with KVM. It is the case with OpenVZ, but not with KVM. There are some negative reviews out there. Some claiming that it works quite well at the beginning, but not over the long run. And the good prices are when you prepay for 3 years. Some review also talk of poor performance compared to the announced specs.
I have to admit these prices with 3 years prepayment are tempting, but a little scary (and lowering prices quite a bit for long term engagements are sometimes not a very good sign). When it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Since how long are you with them?
Just hitting 3 years. We had low expectations, but it has been okay so far. Been nice to learn system administration. We’re lucky to have a number of knowledgeable volunteers. We got a 24gb ssd system which runs a number of services in addition to Discourse. Honestly, never recommended publicly due to their marketing… but now that our contract is ending we are happy to continue on.
Is there any increase in price from what you have been paying to what you will be paying with a new contract? Do they tie you in for another 3-year contract or do they have 1-year and/or monthly billing available?
The prices have actually continued to slowly go down, especially around the holidays. This is most likely tied to them trying to encourage nvme servers (shrug) in the last year. Main thing is they will not change your contract afaik, so you cannot say “switch me to this new deal”. You just pay for the new server contract and migrate yourself.
Clarification: the prices and exact contract you agreed to are persistent, until you stop paying.
Firstly, this is a great post by @pfaffman and there are many excellent contributions along the way so thankyou one and all.
I’m considering setting up my own discourse and I’m wondering if the concerns mentioned regarding Digital Ocean still apply (I live in Sydney, Australia)
Also, if anyone can recommend a Hosting Provider they have used in Australia, that might be useful (or is this something unimportant?)
If you’re going to use mailgun and digital ocean, I’m testing a new tool that does installs and rebuilds. It’s free during testing. https://www.pfaffmanager.com/
We were on UpCloud for many years. They provided us with excellent uptime (I recall one incident at FRA DC - it was well communicated to customers) and a highly reponsive 24/7 support channel.
But since we were commercially affiliated with them, I dont’t dare to add it straight to your wiki.
Overall a top notch service provider, in terms of performance and reliability.
