Cloud Servers

It is a true pleasure knowing that I have super computing power working for me at shared hosting pricing. Dan Dorato, www.uneasysilence.com

We're often asked how Cloud Servers compare to Amazon EC2. The products are different in a few key areas, and the differences can be important depending on the needs of your application. Here are a few key points to consider.

Starting At

$10.95/m
or 1.5¢/hr

per hour

Pricing Details

Comparing Cloud Servers

01. Persistence

Cloud Servers

One of the most significant differences between Cloud Servers and EC2 is the persistence of each virtual server. Cloud Servers has access to local, RAID10 disk storage, much like you'd expect in a physical server. This is important because it means your Server has inherent protection against drive failures. If for some reason the host does fail or become degraded, we will restart and/or migrate your Cloud Server for you. A failure doesn’t mean that your Cloud Server goes away.

Amazon EC2

Amazon EC2 instances are transient or ephemeral—if there is a host failure that causes your instance to terminate, all data will be lost.

02. Server Sizes

Cloud Servers

We provide a wide variety of Cloud Server sizes, starting at 256MB going up to 15.5GB. Cloud Servers can be resized to scale up or down without any reinstallation.

Amazon EC2

Amazon EC2 instances start at 2GB so if your workload requires fewer resources, you are stuck paying for much more than you need.

03. CPU Scheduling

Cloud Servers

Cloud Servers has guaranteed minimum CPU power (relative to the size of the Cloud Server), with free bursting when extra capacity is available on the host.

Amazon EC2

Amazon EC2 instances have a capped CPU. If additional CPU capacity is required, you need to launch another instance.

04. IP Addresses

Cloud Servers

Each Cloud Server comes with the simplicity of a dedicated and persistent public IP address (no NAT) with a second, private IP address for free, low latency bandwidth between your Cloud Servers. Additional public IPs are available upon request and shared IPs can be provided for high availability.

Amazon EC2

With EC2, the IP configuration is more complex. Each instance gets a non-persistent private IP address NATed to a public IP address. When instances terminate and new ones are launched, a new private IP address is assigned which means you need to plan for changing private IPs (although Elastic IPs can be remapped). In addition, only one NATed IP address is available which, for example, does not lend itself to hosting multiple sites via SSL.

05. Tools

Cloud Servers

Cloud Servers has a variety of tools available to make managing each Cloud Server easier:

  • Web-based console access
  • Bootable rescue mode
  • Snapshot-based Cloud Server backups (available as an option)
  • Authoritative DNS hosting and management included at no cost

Amazon EC2

In the ephemeral world of EC2, there is no console access, no rescue mode, and no server level backup capability as these are all useful tools for managing persistent servers. In addition, Amazon offers no authoritative DNS capability which means you need to use an external DNS service or run your own DNS servers for any domains you run in the cloud.

06. Support

Cloud Servers

Cloud Servers is backed by the legendary Fanatical Support you can only get from Rackspace. Included for free, you'll have access to our forums and online resources.

Amazon EC2

To receive 24x7x365 support for Amazon EC2, you pay the greater of $400 per month or 20% (scaling down) of your EC2 costs. That means your support cost goes up with your EC2 usage and isn’t directly related to the amount of support you use.

07. Hybrid Hosting

Cloud Servers

Depending on your needs, you can get the best of both worlds with a combination of cloud and dedicated servers. Why make a trade when you can have both under one roof from Rackspace?

Amazon EC2

Amazon only offers part of the answer, with just pure cloud solutions.

Pay as you Go!

Cloud Servers API is here!

Check out our API page here.

Join The Ecosystem

Interested in building a solution on top of Rackspace's cloud products? Contact us at cloudpartners@rackspacecloud.com.

What people are saying

  • @elpinturrichio: I tried Rackspace Cloud recently and liked it - flexible, easy, nice customer service

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  • @chewbocka Go for the Rackspace Cloud .... best hosting. ever.

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  • YellowLlama i'm gonna be moving all my sites to RackSpace Cloud Sites... had a chat with them now.. quite impressed. good pricing. cheers

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  • ckeck Helping a friend migrate from his antiquated dedicated server over to Cloud Sites from the Rackspace Cloud / Mosso! No more hassles :)

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  • satefan The Rackspace Cloud console is awesome. I thought I would prefer command line tools for casual admin tasks, but this is really much better!

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