I've been a happy customer at Slicehost for over 3 years. However, Rackspace bought them out purely to bury them, forcing everyone to their own service.... which is aimed at pretty much the opposite kind of customer.

I'm looking to find a hosting company similar to Slicehost, and several people on the Slicehost forums that are abandoning the mess over there have mentioned Linode as the company they're switching to. Looking at the setup, it does indeed seem like a very similar service, and with better prices, too.

For those of you who switched from Slicehost to Linode, how would you compare them? Are they as reliable? Is the customer service as awesome? Is the control panel as good? Do they have similar communities?

Thanks in advance to whoever replies.

Having never been a Slicehost customer I can't offer a comparison but I can say that both the customer support and community around Linode are pretty awesome. All my support tickets have been answered very quickly (a few within 5-10 minutes!), and as for the community just look around and/or pop your head into IRC, there are some pretty knowledgeable people so you can normally get some decent advice/input on even pretty complex setups and problems.

I moved from SH over a year ago and my answers are

1) Control panel: Linode's is better, the layout is easier to use, it has more features, and it has a support ticket area where as slicehost it's mainly email support.
2) Support speed, well I've raised about a dozen support tickets in my time, all responded to in minutes and solving my issue off the bat. So yes awesome
3) Reliability, compare the status pages status.linode.com vs status.slicehost.com Slicehost has quite a few problems with their slice manager and api, linode doesn't.
4) Communities, last time I paid a visit to the SH community it was dead, here it's getting busier and busier both on IRC and here (I mainly hang here).

Other good points:
a) London data centre
b) More ram etc for your buck
c) Lish (you'll never have to use the crappy ajax console again)
d) I think linode gives you an extra backup slot
e) Not owned by rackspace
f) Not owned by rackspace

Shameful plug of referral link

_________________
Paid support
How to ask for help
1. Give details of your problem
2. Post any errors
3. Post relevant logs.
4. Don't hide details i.e. your domain, it just makes things harder
5. Be polite or you'll be eaten by a grue

This. I remember when I joined there was maybe a dozen max in irc. Havent been back in a while since I never really have any problems, but it's probably triple digits now.

What, the total number of nicks in #linode? Currently 449, and continuing to grow steadily. (The biggest increases come during major outages. ) The number of active users is obviously much lower.

Now that you (well, obs) mentions it, I think #slicehost is a bit less active than it was a year or two ago. Still, it's not dead.

Edit: 450. Someone else joined. (In fact, it was 448 when I started writing this post, but I updated it.)

_________________
Matt Nordhoff (aka Peng on IRC)

I have had experience with both Slicehost and Linode and there is no comparison. Support is probably equally awesome between the two though Linode does not have an official support chat, but that's a minor point. Other than that, Linode wins in almost every respect.
Linode has:
- Better hardware.
- Better value for the money.
- Better community.
- Better management panel.
- A lot more control over what you can do with your Linode.
- More datacenters.

It's a no-brainer.

Slicehost has been dead for over a year - ever since they were bought out by Rackspace.

Anyone with half a brain or better left at that time. Now all the remaining rats are scrambling to leave the ship before it slips completely under water.

Only thing Slicehost is good for these days is the soap opera thread of all the whiners commenting on the forced migration to Rackspace and reading the spin doctors from Rackspace telling them how they should appreciate getting butt reamed because it's "premium butt reaming".

Edit: Oops, that should be "fanatical butt reaming".

How can they even write this? (from their "Our Servers" page):



At every service level they are more expensive and provide less resources than Linode. How can they even write the above? It's laughable because it's written with such over-confidence and bravado, and so very, very wrong.

SliceHost I haven't tried, but I think Linode is far better.
I agree with the pryor post that was mentioned as far as the servers and such.
I know that they offer no extras for one.
And they still say something like "We have no plans to offer extras at this time."
How long ago was that FAQ put together?
Plus, as a totally blind Linode customer, I am putting together Linode audio tutorials that explain how to do some stuff.
Please look in the "Linux Tips, Tricks, And Tutorials section," for more.
I am putting together one right now, demonstrating how to post in a Linode forum topic.
Hope you all enjoy-I'll post in the proper thread once I'm done.
It'll probably be in a WMA format, but I'm sure Linux has a WMA capable player like MPlayer?
Take care everyone!

_________________
Regards, --Keith.
Primary Email:
keithint1234@gmail.com
Skype: skypedude1234
Twitter: @keithint1234
Facebook:
http://facebook.com/keith.hinton1

I just transferred in from Slicehost. I was a Slicehost customer for 3 years.

I can verify these points regarding Linode.

- The support guides are better.
- The staff support is better.
- The network is faster.
- The Linode Manager is better.
- The price is better. (not that this really counts when you consider the above!)

I am liberated to be free of the Rack "Space Junk".

- Pete

Hello Pete!
Welcome to Linode!
As a fello user (who is actually blind) as that might surprise you perhaps, I'll happily welcome you to Linode from SliceHost!
I'm glad you like the Linode manager.
I'm just a community member, but if you need any help with anything or have questions that you think I couldu try to also answer for you, please let me know.
You have my permission to PM me on the forums here, or contact me via any of the profile information for me that you find publically available.
If you know of future people who are interested in signing up, please feel fre to pass around my short form referral URL, and my code will be filled in for anyone that uses that.
Welcome to Linode, I think you'll find it lots of fun.
As I said, feel free to get in touch.
Hope you find your experience an enjoying one.
God Bless, and happy Linodeing!

_________________
Regards, --Keith.

Primary Email:

keithint1234@gmail.com

Skype: skypedude1234

Twitter: @keithint1234

Facebook:

http://facebook.com/keith.hinton1

I just switched from slicehost over the weekend for that same reason.

If Linode doesn't match slicehost, it exceeds. In every aspect.

I would say Linode more than matches any other VPS provider.
I mean, check out even other providers like VPSLink, and you'll find that without any overselling being done whatsoever here at Linode, that Linode.com can beat them all.
That's my opinion of Linode's services.
I've been a customer for three times in a ro, beginning in May of 2009 I think it was.
So keep that in mind, that Linode does indeed excell where other providers would fail.
Hope you like your new Linode or nodes!

_________________
Regards, --Keith.

Primary Email:

keithint1234@gmail.com

Skype: skypedude1234

Twitter: @keithint1234

Facebook:

http://facebook.com/keith.hinton1