Alternatives to Joyent

[Jonathan Landrum]

Lots of great suggestions have been put forward, so to keep them in one thread, here's what we've got so far (from memory):

Shared:

• DreamHost

VPS:

• A Small Orange
  
• Linode

Post your suggestions and special offers.

[Jonathan]

Just chiming in, the "777" promo for DreamHost gives you your first year of shared hosting for like $0.77/month. I believe if you commit to a longer period, you get an extension of the deal.

I'm working on a VPS promo right now, for those who are interested.

[Ignacio Torres Masdeu]

A great replacement both technically and by spirit would be SDF:

http://sdf.org/?faq?BASICS?01

[01] WHAT IS SDF?  (QUICK SUMMARY)
  Welcome to the only all 64bit public access supercomputing center!
  The Super Dimension Fortress is a networked community of free software
  authors, teachers, students, researchers, hobbyists,  enthusiasts and
  the blind.  It is operated as a federally recognised non-profit 501(c)7
  and is supported by its members.

Basically: they've been around since 1987. smj (the sysadmin) is a huge UNIX geek. It's a community and a great place to learn UNIX.

They have different plans, from free to VPS:

http://sdf.org/?join

And they have a lifetime ARPA ($36 one-time http://sdf.org/?join#arpa) account that they honor (cough, cough), though you can contribute annually to the system through different plans. I'm Meta-Arpa ($36 annual http://sdf.org/?join#meta)

And if you want to finger me, I'm itorres at sdf-eu.org. Been there since the first naghties, I cannot recall. :)

[Joel Dueck]

Do you host websites there? Are they static or do they use PHP/MySQL?

[Jonathan]

Okay, use the promo code "nojoy" to signup with a VPS at 10% off for as long as the account remains active. I won't use the term "lifetime" because I don't want to open any wounds :D

[Ignacio Torres Masdeu]

It's whatever you want. It's a complete UNIX environment with GCC. More info on http://sdf.org (though it's a bit convoluted).

SDF is where I first deployed a blosxom blog as a cgi with url rewriting 10 years ago. Those were the days.

[0:arpa/i/itorres> which gcc php python ruby mysql

/usr/bin/gcc

/usr/pkg/bin/php

/usr/pkg/bin/python

/usr/pkg/bin/ruby

/usr/pkg/bin/mysql

[0:arpa/i/itorres> php -v

PHP 5.3.11 (cli) (built: May 10 2012 15:29:07) 

[0:arpa/i/itorres> ruby -v

ruby 1.8.7 (2011-06-30 patchlevel 352) [x86_64-netbsd]

[0:arpa/i/itorres> python2.7 -V   

Python 2.7.2

[0:arpa/i/itorres> python -V   

Python 2.6.8

[0:arpa/i/itorres> mysql -V

mysql  Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.1.63, for -netbsd (x86_64) using  EditLine wrapper

[andrewbarnett]

I like http://www.ventraipeconomy.com.au/

There's an active user community, which includes staff, support is excellent and hosting though CPanel provides ssh.

I have no affiliation beyond having all my domains there.

[jonto]

A Small Orange also offers shared hosting with a 45 day money back guarantee (1). The MBG doesn't apply to their VPS offering however (2). Shared runs on CentOS, but the VPS offering has templates of many Linux flavors. I'm not that excited about CentOS, but the price point to service offering isn't bad.  

(1) https://asmallorange.com/hosting/shared/

(2) http://asmallorange.com/terms/ 

[slabanosa]

mentioned elsewhere http://www.webfaction.com/services/hosting
they claim to have servers in Europe which would be a good thing for me

[Jonathan Landrum]

Also previously mentioned, Gandi does both shared and VPS:

https://www.gandi.net/hosting/

[jas...@gmail.com]

I am an ARPA member, how do I ssh to vps3.sdf.org, my usual ssh password leads to auth failure.