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For a few years I have been using VPS link as the virtual machine host for my website. They were great, but nothing has changed with them in a few years and the VPS specs started to get a bit stale. I had a single core, 256 MB of ram, 10 Gigs of storage, and a static IP with 300 Gigs of data. That was enough to run my simple site, but I felt that $19.95 a month was too much for such a simple platform.

A friend at work sent out an email about a new player in town called digital ocean. For only $5 a month I get more virtual machine. 1 core, 512 MB of ram (2X as much) 20 Gigs of storage (again 2X as much) and a static IP with 1TB of data (3X as much). They also use SSD hard drives so the overall speed of the machine is faster.

Overall I have had no issues with the transfer, setting up the machine was super easy! I just created an account, and selected which tier and disk image I wanted and in about 30 seconds I had a Linux server ready to be used. Installing my software and website was easy too (mostly because I have the entire process scripted). I had the site up and online in about 15 min. Then I updated my A record, let it run for a few days and canceled my old VPS subscription. All-in-all it was a great experience.

Obviously my site is small and I get a limited amount of traffic, so I can take a chance on the new guy. I recommend this host to anyone who feels they are paying too much and getting too little. Don’t get me wrong, I did like VPS link and never had an issue with their service or support. I just can’t justify paying more and getting less.