Tue 28 Feb 2006
This is a shoutout to linode.com. Since I started my first website back in the 90s, I’ve tried out various web hosting companies. Most have been reasonable quality, but I’ve switched among several as the features and prices changed.
Last year, I purchased a small plan at linode.com. Linode is not your typical webhosting company. Typically, you get a web interface to control your site, and ftp to upload. With linode, you get a full linux “machine”. You choose the distro, you set it up however you want, and you choose everything to put on it. You buy a portion of a machine based on how much RAM, disk space, and monthly transfer that you want. It isn’t for the faint of heart. If you don’t have experience admin’ing a linux box I would recommend that you think twice about this service. But, if you know what you are doing, it provides the ultimate in flexibilty.
I have now been with them for a year. I wanted to try out a small plan and see how the year went. I can safely say that it has went really well. Reboots have been very infrequent (My uptime was over 150 days until a day or two back) and the service is top notch via a ticketing system and an IRC chat channel. Having been pleased with the system, I actually just purchased a larger plan. If you are thinking about this type of setup, definitely consider linode.
