I’ve chosen a new hosting provider for all my websites. I’ve finally got IPv6 and a 85 % cost saving compared to my previous hosting provider.
I’ve used three different virtual private servers (VPS) providers in the last four years. The service offerings haven’t been all that great and they’ve been expensive. A visualized server without snapshots? Outrageously expensive backup plans? No support for IPv6? Unexpected downtimes? Forgetting to bill me for eight months? The providers I’ve used previously have all been based in Norway and were offering mediocre products. Ironically, it took my own job being outsourced out of Norway for me to move my hosting needs (and thus local jobs) out of Norway.
My websites are now hosted at DigitalOcean out of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. They offer a clean and pleasant user experience for creating and managing virtual servers and a very feature-rich and competitive product.
The best part that it costs less than the invoicing fee from the providers I used before. Automated backups and snapshots would more than double the cost from the Norwegian providers, but cost mere euro cents per gigabyte from DigitalOcean.
Update (): I’ve since moved to a $10 plan from Linode.
Update (): —and I’ve moved again to Hetzner Cloud.
DigitalOcean has also finally set my websites up to be reachable over IPv6. Something I’ve wanted to have done for a few years. However, all my former providers are still dragging their feet over IPv6 deployment. I also got other networking and DNS features like DNSSEC and PTR to play with at DigitalOcean.
You may be wondering why I’ve been so hesitant to move away from the Norwegian providers. As I hinted at earlier, I’ve wanted to support local technology businesses and local jobs. They haven’t made it easy and as you can tell I haven’t been all that satisfied with any of them.
The offers outside Norway have always been more appealing with better-developed products at a much lower cost. The provider I just left had already moved some of their development jobs out of Norway. Considering that the local providers are moving jobs out of Norway anyway and it doesn’t appear like they’re improving their products at all … it finally just became time to give up on them.
I’d this faint notion that I might work for one of them one day. Given that, I thought I’d better support their businesses as it might one day be my own job that depended on local customers.
This isn’t a sponsored article. I do, however, have a referral link that will get you a 10 USD service credit and help me pay for my hosting at the same time.