Dedicated boxes with enterprise sandy bridge processors (Intel E3-1270s), enterprise SLC SATA III SSDs, segregated gigabit public (12 network providers, 8x Tier 1) and private networks (with dedicated SSL/PPTP VPN), costs considerably more than $8.99 per month :)
Our pricing model based around scaling horizontally, rather than vertically. There are always different requirements for every project, and that's why I'll never say that our solution will fit everyone's needs.
Well, since this is a thread about amazon clouding their prices, I'll call you out on that.
It makes little sense to compare your $8.99 package to anything, but you surely know that. What is the use-case for a box with 128MB RAM in 2012? Even the cheapest VPS providers (ThrustVPS et al) start at 512MB for $5.95...
Since your packages are sliced so small, a meaningful comparison seems to start only at your "high-end" (graviton).
For $180 USD you offer 3GB Ram, 6 cores on a shared box, 8GB SSD + 400GB S-ATA disk.
I'm sorry, but for the same amount leaseweb, hetzner, OVH will happily rent me a full, unshared E5540 (passmark 9600 instead of your ~3500), 16+ GB RAM and SSD.
I don't mind constructive feedback, it helps us improve our services. I think we're both comparing two different things here. I mentioned in the previous post that our pricing model is scaling horizontally, rather than vertically.
I've seen many different uses for the 128MB node, either as backup servers, DNS servers, small web servers (nginx works amazingly well), private BSD development boxes, small-scale proxy servers, personal VPN servers, etc. I've also seen the 1GB of SSD storage used as cache for ZFS, which results in extremely low latency reads and writes. The 128MB node was initially offered because of demand and is actually one of our higher selling services.
Unfortunately, comparing the numbers from two different company offerings doesn't give the full picture on what either of them offer. There's a lot more that's included in our pricing, and you end up paying a bit more for new, under-utilized physical servers where you can actually use all of the resources provided with great disk I/O. There are a lot of providers out there who try to cram as many people as possible on a single box, and we're simply not one of them.
I appreciate you taking the time to write out your thoughts. If you have any more concerns feel free to put them here and I will try to address them the best I can. If you would prefer to discuss them in private, email me matt[at]ssdnodes.com
Our pricing model based around scaling horizontally, rather than vertically. There are always different requirements for every project, and that's why I'll never say that our solution will fit everyone's needs.