The real-world effect of switching from Slicehost to Linode

Many startups use cost effective VPS (virtual private servers) to deliver their sites and applications. There are a number of providers, of which Slicehost (owned by Rackspace) are perhaps the best known and most successful. Amazon offer a more complex product, and prgmr have a beautiful we-don't-think-you're-stupid solution.

Slicehost provide great support and a fantastic web interface. Their DNS controls are currently second to none. However, as a number of hackers and bloggers have pointed out, they are often woefully underpowered. In most cases, Linode wins out.

It doesn't seem that anyone has put much by way of real-world data on the impact of migrating from Slicehost to Linode. We moved four of our VPS machines from Slicehost to Linode. Our business LAMP machine went from being 2GB Slicehost node, costing $130 per month to a 1GB costing a mere $39.95... and performance more than doubled. We've included a graph from Google Webmaster below. Don't forget that Google have said page speed affects search results ranking.

You can sign up to use Linode here (or without our referral tag).