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DigitalOcean - 256MB KVM/XEN $5 Month in New York or Amsterdam - first month free

Mitch, the Marketing & Design man, from DigitalOcean sent in an offer last week. The offer is available in either New York or Amsterdam and is exclusive to LowEndBox.

256MB KVM/XEN

DigitalOcean have started their time on LowEndBox with a bang an exclusive deal. Unlike most vps hosting providers, DigitalOcean have their own control panel. It requires you to create an account before you can order anything. Once you have created your account, simply log in and submit a ticket with the title ‘LEB Credit’. Your account will then receive a $5 credit which you can use to purchase and instantly deploy a 256MB ‘droplet’. You’ll be required to enter your credit card/payment information, however you will not need to pay anything upfront (you can cancel at any time).

They were featured on Techcrunch back in April, 2012 when one of their staff members did 100 pushups in return for a 2 minute interview during New York Tech Day. DigitalOcean defiantly bring something new to the LowEndBox scene with their comprehensive and developer friendly control panel. They also have an active and thriving community with many helpful articles and tutorials.

UPDATE: Due to the volume of orders DigitalOcean has received they are temporarily putting this offer on hold whilst they deal with the backlog. New orders will not be processed.

IRC, VPN and proxies are permitted, however Tor and adult content is prohibited. A copy of their TOS is available here. They provide a 99.99% uptime SLA which covers network, power and virtual server availability. If they fail to deliver, they’ll credit you based on the amount of time that service was unavailable for.

Network and General Information

DigitalOcean use the same AS network at both locations. This consists of a mix Cogent, Tinet and Internap bandwidth.

AS Number: http://bgp.he.net/AS46652
Test IPv4 [Amsterdam, Netherlands]: 141.0.173.1
Test IPv4 [New York, United States]: 69.55.54.214

39 Comments

  1. circus:

    No paypal?

    September 24, 2012 @ 10:46 pm | Reply
  2. I think they accept Paypal now, you can see at billing area…

    September 24, 2012 @ 11:00 pm | Reply
  3. I’ve tried them a few months ago, and it’s great.
    Nice panel, and here is the benchmark:

    http://www.lebstats.com/2012/07/28/digitalocean-256mb-20gb-unmetered-cloud.html
    September 24, 2012 @ 11:24 pm | Reply
  4. unmetered 1gbps? no limit how much we consume?

    September 25, 2012 @ 3:55 am | Reply
  5. DaBiaoGe:

    Unmetered Bandwidth on a 1GB/s connection.
    OMG!

    September 25, 2012 @ 4:38 am | Reply
  6. Sree:

    I have been using Digital Ocean server for some time and their service is fabulous. Fast network and VERY stable servers. It is easy to navigate their control panel. One of the best features I found was, if you are not using your server, you can take a snapshot of the current server with its configuration and destroy it. You can bring the exact server alive whenever you want in the future with the same configuration. This saves money when you are not using the machine. There is also an option to take regular unlimited backups, which I did not try.

    My only concern is, they say they are using SSD hard drives but observed I/O is between 30 to 60MB/s. Of course it is sufficient for my work but is nearly ten times lower for a SSD drive.

    September 25, 2012 @ 6:42 am | Reply
  7. if i do live video streaming to 100 viewers, will that be okay?

    September 25, 2012 @ 7:11 am | Reply
  8. andy:

    the NL server can’t be trialed?

    September 25, 2012 @ 7:40 am | Reply
  9. Tom:

    Bought them when they released NL locaiton, for 5$ superb VPS.

    September 25, 2012 @ 8:40 am | Reply
  10. Mikeee:

    Tried to add CC details but it is not accepting the card :/
    Double checked to make sure the card data is valid.

    September 25, 2012 @ 8:58 am | Reply
  11. Loved the video lol, looks good might get a free month test it out!

    September 25, 2012 @ 11:12 am | Reply
  12. Freek:

    Why can’t I register for Amsterdam?

    September 25, 2012 @ 12:35 pm | Reply
    • Asad Haider:

      Have you just created an account? New account also have a free trial for a few hours, which is limited to US only. When you add billing details, you can order anything you like.

      What it says in the post above, create a ticket and they will add $5 to your account and approve it. Then you’ll be able to order a server in Amsterdam as well using the credit.

      September 25, 2012 @ 1:03 pm | Reply
  13. arjun sachdeva:

    Speeds are slow for a 1Gbps connection
    Download speed from CacheFly: 8.18MB/s
    Download speed from Linode, Atlanta GA: 7.95MB/s
    Download speed from Linode, Dallas, TX: 5.27MB/s

    i get easily above 40mbps on most of VPS

    September 25, 2012 @ 1:32 pm | Reply
  14. UPDATE: Due to the volume of orders DigitalOcean has received they are temporarily putting this offer on hold whilst they deal with the backlog. New orders will not be processed.

    September 25, 2012 @ 2:06 pm | Reply
  15. I’m with them in their .NL Datacenter. Very very nice Webinterface, more-or-less up2date images (nearly clean) i just had to wipe a few packages.

    September 28, 2012 @ 6:16 am | Reply
  16. Maxime:

    Seedbox (transmission) for download torrent on the server, and after download the file in direct download in my PC, it’s permitted ?

    October 6, 2012 @ 9:35 am | Reply
  17. newtesla:

    Cannot choose Serbia and Montenegro (a country which doesn’t exist for 6+ yrs, btw) from dropdown menu in credit card details.

    October 7, 2012 @ 9:03 am | Reply
  18. Robert:

    FYI – I got a droplet setup ok. I’ll be checking them out and see if they fit my immediate needs. :)

    October 24, 2012 @ 4:54 pm | Reply
  19. Florian Strankowski:

    Update: Beeing with them for 3 Months now – no problems at all, no downtimes, speed perfectly always on cap. I went to .NL after testing out new york. Same think, everything perfectly workin.

    November 2, 2012 @ 7:14 pm | Reply
  20. Rob:

    Nice advertising XEN when you don’t offer it.

    November 14, 2012 @ 11:30 pm | Reply
  21. Rob:

    Severs also spike a lot.

    November 14, 2012 @ 11:31 pm | Reply
  22. Joe Merit:

    The network speed achieved with my droplet is nowhere near 1 gigabit, tested at multiple times during the day.

    Even getting 100mbit is a rarity. I would be curious as to why they advertise gigabit when its not even close.

    November 15, 2012 @ 1:06 am | Reply
    • can you post what you are getting on an average day?

      November 15, 2012 @ 1:30 am | Reply
      • Joe Merit:

        Just ran this, the Cachefly, Atlanta and Washington results are about 2MB/sec higher than average
        and I don’t really know what is up with the I/O result. 4.8MB/sec is pretty pathetic, I let 20 minutes go by and tested it again and it was 4MB/sec. It is usually somewhere between 20 to 100MB/sec.

        Number of cores : 1
        CPU frequency : 2659.998 MHz
        Total amount of ram : 243 MB
        Total amount of swap : 0 MB
        Download speed from CacheFly: 7.22MB/s
        Download speed from Linode, Atlanta GA: 5.71MB/s
        Download speed from Linode, Dallas, TX: 1.71MB/s
        Download speed from Linode, Tokyo, JP: 1.39MB/s
        Download speed from Linode, London, UK:
        Download speed from LeaseWeb, Haarlem, NL: 1.34MB/s
        Download speed from Softlayer, Singapore: 280KB/s
        Download speed from Softlayer, Seattle, WA: 833KB/s
        Download speed from Softlayer, San Jose, CA: 451KB/s
        Download speed from Softlayer, Washington, DC: 8.05MB/s
        I/O speed : 4.8 MB/s

        November 15, 2012 @ 2:30 am | Reply
  23. Jowy:

    My vps speed is very slow :(

    [root@karaya ~]# wget http://speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com/downloads/test10.zip
    --2012-11-19 02:50:33--  http://speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com/downloads/test10.zip
    Resolving speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com... 74.86.116.210
    Connecting to speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com|74.86.116.210|:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 11536384 (11M) [application/zip]
    Saving to: “test10.zip”
    
     2% [                                       ] 235,717     9.67K/s  eta 18m 21s
    
    November 19, 2012 @ 2:54 am | Reply
    • ward:

      I also signed up with them, with the intention of buying a server.
      I got a free trail, and got similar results.

      Although I was planning to sign up in Amsterdam, i didn’t do it at the end.

      That speed is extremely slow, and that’s a trail vps, you should use that to get custommers interested, not to scare them away…

      November 25, 2012 @ 7:23 am | Reply
  24. Xei:

    I signed up but wasn’t able to ever start a Droplet since I had some static page telling me to put in billing info (maybe a bug? billing info isn’t required for a trial account) — that particular page is where you’re presented with the option to start the droplet. I made a ticket but by the time they replied the account was already suspended so I couldn’t actually read the reply. The trial account lasts for a few hours and if they don’t reply to you before that time expires and you don’t have billing info added, the account gets suspended. So I have no idea how to rate their service and decided to just pursue another provider due to the complications.

    December 18, 2012 @ 4:12 pm | Reply
  25. Joko:

    BAD support,
    delete server without confirmation..

    dont use this vps for production site

    March 2, 2013 @ 3:08 pm | Reply
    • Bobert59:

      I agree with Joko.

      I had a vps running for a couple months (basically just as a proxy server) when my account was suddenly suspended without any sort of notification. I had to open a ticket just to ask what happened. I’ve been emailing them back and forth for the past week, but essentially they claim I’ve violated their AUP/TOS, but won’t tell me any details because that might reveal the super secret logic they use to identify suspicious activity.

      They were great most of the time, but their support is terrible. Unless they do more for their higher end plans there is no way they I would ever consider using them for a production site.

      The skeptic in me thinks they are intentionally doing this to get rid of the older low end plans that have unlimited bandwidth (they now have a 1TB cap).

      April 10, 2013 @ 9:21 pm | Reply
  26. Ahrotahntee:

    I’ve been running with Digital Ocean for 6 months now, no incidents, no downtime, no issues. Great IRC community as well, which is always a bonus!

    October 17, 2013 @ 3:41 pm | Reply
  27. Nikolai:

    Great value for the money, two month using it without any trouble, true 1Gb btw

    December 24, 2013 @ 2:01 am | Reply
  28. I’ve noticed I get poor throughput in the daytime to the San Fran. center, but I think it’s actually network congestion between here and there (at night it’s good, to UT). FWIW.

    December 27, 2013 @ 5:20 pm | Reply
  29. Michael:

    Been using them since March of 2013. Been great .. no issues at all. Would recommend them anytime.

    January 3, 2014 @ 7:21 pm | Reply

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