Updated YC Company Hosting Stats (opens in new tab)

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93 pointsbrett16y ago50 comments

50 comments

This might be a little bit off topic, but I've always thought that it could make some sense to have a YC colocation. With enough companies, it could be more cost-effective than everyone getting their own slicehost. Of course, there would be a ton of other headaches involved like backups, outages, etc, but a lot of YC companies seem to be doing just fine administering their own boxes in a colo. I know it wouldn't be for everyone, but maybe a standard stack of software/configuations could be readily available for new YC companies. We all seem to have had the same frustrations with configuring webservers, mail servers (ouch!), tweaking database servers, etc. It could be yet another benefit of joining the YC mafia =)

rdl16y ago

I think an easier way to do this is for a forward-thinking hosting provider, colo, etc. in the bay area to offer discounted or free hosting to YC companies (free during the YC period, maybe not after); a few months of free hosting to have a shot at a successful site as customer would be more than worth it.

(alternatively, convertible debt)

Piggybacking on YC's selection process seems like a good business model in general.

lsc16y ago

I have considered offering free hosting to YC companies. Most of them seem to be a bit, ah, brand conscious (thus going for slicehost over linode) so I haven't bothered to push the idea.

But yea, if any YC company needs free hosting (and really, hosting is so cheap these days that it's all pretty much free) I'd be happy to give it to them. I'm younger than linode, but I've been renting Xen VPSs since 2005, which makes me older than slicehost, I believe.

I'm not asking you to go exclusive or anything (in fact, I think that's a bad idea. don't host all your stuff with the same provider.)

That said, I'd be a little surprised if any of the YC companies have to pay for hosting. Many, many ISPs would be happy to give away a little bandwidth in exchange for some publicity.

edawerd16y ago

I think this would be a win-win for YC and the hosting provider. The startups would save a little bit of money, and the hosting provider would get a good amount of recurring revenue after the 3 months, since we are unlikely to migrate our servers after spending countless hours setting it up.

carbon816y ago

Why only 1 on linode? Is there a reason?

mdasen16y ago

There are several.

Slicehost has been doing Xen hosting longer. Linode is older, but they were using User Mode Linux (not nearly as good as Xen) for a long time. Slicehost got the mindshare by getting to Xen hosting first.

Slicehost is local to all their data centers. Whether in St Louis or Dallas/Ft Worth, their employees actually work there. Linode's employees all work in South Jersey, 2 hours from their Newark data center and inaccessible to their other data centers. Kinda indicates that they have other people setting up a lot of their stuff.

Linode is often out of stock or having limited stock. This might just be that Slicehost doesn't tell us how the sausage is made and Linode does.

Linode tops out at 2880MB. Slicehost offers instances going up to 15.5GB. That's a major difference if you want to try scaling up easily and there is a huge difference between trying to get your site to handle traffic on a 3GB server and a 15GB server.

Backups are a nice touch.

The Rackspace name lends a "they're the big game in town" to their service.

They aren't that much more expensive. Linode charges a constant $0.0555. . . per MB of RAM. At the 2GB level, Slicehost is charging $0.634 per MB of RAM. That means that if you were to get 2GB servers from each, the Slicehost would cost you $130 and the Linode would cost you $114. It is cheaper, but it isn't so significantly cheaper.

Slicehost can more easily upgrade your plan. Linode has to switch your box should you want to move plans. Often Slicehost can move plans while keeping you on the same box.

Now, none of that may matter to you. It doesn't to me and that's why I'm a Linode customer. However, for many these are considerations. If you're running a business, having instances top out at 3GB is a concern. Would you pay a 13% premium for Slicehost just for the knowledge that you can upgrade beyond 3GB of RAM should the need arise? If I had a person project where downtime for migration would be embarrassing, I would.

Likewise, some might care that the Slicehost people actually work in the area rather than colo-ing boxes with places like The Planet.

I'm very happy with Linode, but I can see why many would choose Slicehost.

axod16y ago

>> "They aren't that much more expensive"

Bandwidth overage on slicehost is .30/GB. On Linode it's .10/GB. That's a fairly massive difference.