# VULTR-Chicago is the best VPS location / SoftLayer is the best CDN? **URL:** \ **Category:** Self-hosting\ **Tags:** hosting\ **Created:** [2015年九月9日 16:24 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/vultr-chicago-is-the-best-vps-location-softlayer-is-the-best-cdn/33072 "2015-09-09T16:24:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bdl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bdl/32/45737_2.png) [@bdl](https://meta.discourse.org/u/bdl)\ **Post date:** [2015年九月9日 16:24 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/vultr-chicago-is-the-best-vps-location-softlayer-is-the-best-cdn/33072/1 "2015-09-09T16:24:15Z")
I’ve used three VPS providers primarily and they are, by far, the three largest in the U.S.: Amazon EC2, Digitalocean, and [**VULTR**](http://www.vultr.com/?ref=6848840). They are all on what I consider top networks with dozens of backbone peers and the best that anyone can do for a budget VPS (i.e., not paying up for a CDN like Fastly yet). I believe that each guarantees 100% uptime in their SLA. Anyway, I found a great site for testing the network speeds of these hosts to various points in North America. I’d always assumed that of the major points of presence in the U.S., probably Chicago or Atlanta are the ideal places to locate web servers that are not on a CDN. Being at a major Internet crossroads more in the middle of the country (and Georgia may be the “east coast,” but Atlanta is geographically as far west as it is south of the Northeast) ensures that you’re never _too_ far from any particular web surfer. Armed with these new statistics [from CloudHarmony](https://cloudharmony.com/network), I now see that I was right. In short, here are the benchmarked average latencies to North American Internet users. Moral of the story: **VULTR is the most bang for your buck** , but location matters more than provider. **Host in Chicago or Atlanta** if you can; **avoid hosting in the west** (as the North American population still skews heavily toward the east), and **especially avoid locations at the extreme tips of the country** (such as Miami and Seattle). I had already chosen VULTR/Chicago before seeing these benchmarks, and now I feel vindicated! It’s the only VPS location to come in at under 100 ms on average to typical North American Internet users. VULTR (_Chicago_), 99 ms VULTR (_Atlanta_), 101 ms Amazon EC2 (_Virginia/DC_), 105 ms VULTR (_Dallas_), 106 ms VULTR (_New York_), 106 ms DO (_New York_ 1), 109 ms DO (_New York_ 2), 109 ms DO (_New York_ 3), 110 ms VULTR (_Los Angeles)_, 119 ms VULTR (_Miami_), 121 ms VULTR (_Silicon Valley_), 124 ms Amazon EC2 (_Silicon Valley_), 125 ms DO (_San Francisco_), 130 ms VULTR (_Seattle_), 133 ms Amazon EC2 (_Portland_), 144 ms For those of you wondering how much of a difference a CDN could make, as a rule they obviously blow even VULTR/Chicago out of the water. SoftLayer, 41 ms Akamai, 48 ms CloudFlare, 48 ms Fastly, 59 ms Amazon CloudFront, 75 ms Although, as you can see, some more than others. Amazon CloudFront is more similar to VULTR’s single Chicago location than it is to SoftLayer, CloudFlare, or Akamai here. ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [2015年九月9日 21:29 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/vultr-chicago-is-the-best-vps-location-softlayer-is-the-best-cdn/33072/2 "2015-09-09T21:29:15Z")
Pricing seems good, but I am not sure it’s fair to say these guys are as big / well-known / reliable as Amazon or Digital Ocean.. ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/f/f/ff0e57dc477bd2ca7bfb219cc1e613b7b1875e8e.png) Basically save $4 per month, or $8 per month, over Digital Ocean with a fair bit more disk? (45gb / 90gb vs 30gb / 40gb) ---
**Author:** ![bdl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bdl/32/45737_2.png) [@bdl](https://meta.discourse.org/u/bdl)\ **Post date:** [2015年九月9日 22:03 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/vultr-chicago-is-the-best-vps-location-softlayer-is-the-best-cdn/33072/3 "2015-09-09T22:03:04Z")
> [@codinghorror](#): > > Pricing seems good, but I am not sure it’s fair to say these guys are as big / well-known / reliable as Amazon or Digital Ocean.. > > Basically save $4 per month, or $8 per month, over Digital Ocean with a fair bit more disk? (45gb / 90gb vs 30gb / 40gb) They were definitely third to the party after Amazon and DO among the big boys (of the U.S.), but they are very large as well. Vultr and its parent, Choopa, have between [166,000 IPs](http://fixedorbit.com/AS/20/AS20473.htm) and [439,000 IPs](https://ipinfo.io/AS20473) under their control, depending on whom you ask. And yeah, the Vultr pricing is based off a **20% discount to DO** , across the board, despite having many more node options (e.g., Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle, Miami) to choose from. For example, the 16 GB RAM and 8 CPU plan is $128 at Vultr and $160 at DO, for a savings of $32. After that point, of course, maybe you’re better off going with a dedicated server or even colocating.