Hi everyone,<p>Quick question: what do YC applicants prefer - dedicated servers, co-location, VPS, regular hosting plans or somethings else? Where are they being hosted at? Are there any major hub of startup hosting?<p>Thanks!
Taking the list of YC-funded companies from wikipedia, excluding those marked as defunct or sold, resolving www.${domain} to an IP address, and then looking that up via whois, I see:<p>Amazon.com (presumably EC2?) -- 2<p>Layered Technologies, Inc. -- 2<p>NoZone, Inc. -- 2<p>Rackspace.com, Ltd. -- 2<p>Software Technologies Inc. -- 2<p>BitPusher, LLC -- 1<p>Carnegie Mellon University -- 1<p>Columbus Network Access Point, Inc. -- 1<p>Global Netoptex, Inc -- 1<p>ThePlanet.com Internet Services, Inc. -- 1<p>So it looks like YC-funded companies usually have dedicated servers, but there's no single place where they tend to congregate.
We've got two boxes at The Planet, and we're planning a box at RackSpace, and probably an Accelerator from Joyent. A lot of the guys I know from YC use the following hosts and said at least a few good things about them:<p>Joyent/TextDrive<p>Rails Machine<p>Amazone EC2 (though I also hear a lot of reliability complaints)<p>Rimu<p>Slice<p>There is no major concensus on the best. I've been using The Planet and RackSpace, or the cheaper ServerBeach offering from the RackSpace folks, for many years and have never had any complaints. Service is good and reliable, prices are fair (RackSpace is a wee bit pricier, but they provide good service and reliability).
I will answer the hosting part of your question.<p>1. get a list of all YC companies
2. get the AS (Autonomous System) number plugin for firefox
3. visit these YC companies to figure out where they are hosted<p>
Does anyone have any thoughts on ServerBeach (<a href="http://www.serverbeach.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.serverbeach.com</a>)? I've heard YouTube started with them.
A little-known, fantastic host is Reflected Networks (<a href="http://www.reflected.net" rel="nofollow">http://www.reflected.net</a>). I talked them down to an insanely cheap monthly rate for a dedicated server with 3mbps. It's so inexpensive that I'm worried Mr. CEO will fire whomever did it.. :) The service there is fantastic: Zero downtime, free support, and a quick setup. So you should shoot them an email to see what special rates you can get (much less than what they advertise on their site).
We have two servers (for various project sites) both VPS One from RimuHosting and one from Slicehost. Both are excellent, although you pay significantly more for Rimu but they have the best service I've ever encountered with a VPS hosting solution. We also have an EC2 invite but haven't got around to trying it out.
For anyone considering a host - be sure to check out webhostingtalk.com - you will find out whether your chosen host has had issues with others. You can also find some great deals from top hosts there ...