GOOD NEWS CrownCloud vs. Vultr vs. RackNerd

[Gregorywest]

How would you rate CrownCloud vs Vultr? $25.00/year is a lot less than $5.00/m I am getting with Vultr.

 

[wardmundy]

Vultr started out at $2.50 a month with 50 cents more for backups. Now it's $5 a month plus an extra $1 for backups.

We're big fans of CrownCloud, and they have been very supportive of the Incredible PBX platform with images of all our products that can be installed in a matter of minutes. We still use Vultr as our sandbox. But most of our production servers are running under CrownCloud now.

 

[kenn10]

Vultr started out at $2.50 a month with 50 cents more for backups. Now it's $5 a month plus an extra $1 for backups.

We're big fans of CrownCloud, and they have been very supportive of the Incredible PBX platform with images of all our products that can be installed in a matter of minutes. We still use Vultr as our sandbox. But most of our production servers are running under CrownCloud now.

I agree.

 

[RalyBlune]

How does CrownCloud allocate vCPU time? vs Vultr?

 

[RalyBlune]

How about CrownCloud vs Racknerd?

 

[wardmundy]

We have seen no adverse effects running Incredible PBX on either the CrownCloud or RackNerd platforms.
CrownCloud provides a free snapshot. RackNerd does not.

We test all of the Cloud Providers listed on the Incredible PBX Wiki, or they wouldn't be there.

 

[krzykat]

How long has crowncloud been around and how long have you been using it in production?

 

[Halea]

In one of my recent posts on this forum I had shown standardized benchmarks comparing CrownCloud and racknerd for fairly similar configurations (both a bit more than entry level configurations).

CrownCloud performed a bit better overall, but in real world use, which I setup identically, it was hard to impossible to notice any difference.

I was excited about CrownCloud initially, because the snapshot feature was valuable, or so I thought.
But, CrownCloud's snapshot feature is a bit misleading as it only works on a machine instance that has been shut down. So, that's more of a backup functionality.

When you're used to proxmox or other "full-service" vps platforms you get spoiled with on-the-fly or live snapshot capability which keeps your virtual machine in running condition as the snapshot is being made.

On CrownCloud you need to down the vm instance, run the snap and reactivate it. That might take anywhere between 5 to 10 minutes.

As it was mentioned above, racknerd doesn't even have that, although it has lower pricing (for my favorite configuration used in this comparison - 3 or 4 cores, 2 or 2.5GB RAM, 40GB SSD).

But that's not an issue by a long shot, because with more processing power, ram and storage, i always install the xfce desktop on my instances along with timeshift, which gives me on-the-fly (live) snapshotting capability.

(Timeshift can be installed and used on a single core vm with 1 GB ram and no desktop gui, but it's slower and more difficult to use interactively. If you manage it through scripts it makes little difference except in speed.)

Finally, one great advantage of CrownCloud is the fact that the whole IncrediblePBX platform is avalable as a pre-set image, including the OS, which can be installed in a few minutes. But if you have done the install a few times here and there, installing it from ground up is really not difficult either and takes about the same time.

Update:

I wanted to address @krzykat 's question below regarding automated snapshots without scattering bits of comments all over the thread, so I'm adding it here:

If you use timeshift in its intended way (aka with a desktop gui like Xfce or any other), it has provision for periodic LIVE snapshot creation of the active instance and management through its interactive window. If you use it through CLI, without an active GUI, you can still schedule jobs through cron (independently from its built in scheduler).

The snapshots/backups are made in the same partition (or separate partition if there is one accessible) under a separate (isolated) directory, which can hold an unlimited number of instances (snaps) as long as there is space in the partition. Each snap goes in turn under a separate sub-directory. So, you can restore any one of them at any time. You can copy them out remotely, using basic sftp or scp tools while your VM is running. You can delete any snap in any order you want.

The beauty about this tool is that it works from within the VM instance while it is actively running. Depending on the processing power you have available, the impact is from negligible to some slow down.

Having one snapshot capability while the vm is off is a nice protection when you want to experiment with some settings that could put your machine to risk. If something goes wrong, you put it back and all that it costs you is a few minutes of down-time. But a single snapshot capability without easy copying out to a remote system is really not much of a backup management.

To be clear, when CrownCloud makes a snapshot or backup, you have no access to it or the ability to copy it out to a remote location with traditional tools (such as cp, rsync, sftp, scp or ftp) from within your active instance. All that you can do is to "put it back in service" from the portal.

 

[wardmundy]

How long has crowncloud been around and how long have you been using it in production?

Wayback Machine shows CrownCloud chugging along for more than 10 years. They are based out of Australia. They've been hosting Incredible PBX 2020, 2021, and 2022 images for more than 2 years with zero complaints. We've been using them since June, 2019.

 

[krzykat]

How do you handle the comment by Halea on the snapshots / backups? That is one thing I certainly enjoy from Vultr is the snapshots whenever I want so I can even do snapshots as often as I want while in development mode and go backwards to whichever I need. For production, the fact that they're automatically backed up every other day or whatever I want is nice, because if there was a big issue, I can simply restore from that backup. Sounds like with Crowncloud, unless I took a manual backup, I'd be screwed.

 

[kenn10]

@krzykat Crown Cloud definitely shuts down the instance while it takes the snapshot. On mine, its about a 2-5 minute process. I just do it periodically as a disaster recovery and not as a daily backup. The Vultr backup is a much better solution for continual disaster recovery but I don't need that level of recovery for what I do. Otherwise, I am very happy with both Crown Cloud and Rack Nerds.

 

[wardmundy]

Yep. Same here. My Incredible PBX setups only change rarely. We also use CrownCloud for the Wiki, and I do a snapshot about every weekend or two. Also have tested them with flawless results. In the off days, we use rsync to get the main files to a separate server.

 

[krzykat]

In the off days, we use rsync to get the main files to a separate server.

Smart. We keep our call recordings on a separate server, perhaps we should do the CDR's also, that way if you need to restore, you wouldn't lose anything.

 

[krzykat]

By the way, a major reason for keeping recordings on a separate server is that eliminates a major problem with the VM's on these sites that limit you to like 25GB, your call recordings can eat that up quickly.

 

[dhoppy]

By the way, a major reason for keeping recordings on a separate server is that eliminates a major problem with the VM's on these sites that limit you to like 25GB, your call recordings can eat that up quickly.

I setup extensions to email and then delete the VM, and I let the email system do backups. Maybe that's the wrong approach?

 

[krzykat]

I setup extensions to email and then delete the VM, and I let the email system do backups. Maybe that's the wrong approach?

No - nothing wrong with doing that. When I say recordings, I am referencing CDR recordings - as in mixmonitor.

 

[Joe Diamond CPA]

Crown Cloud I highly recommend..............I have 8 PBX's and my WP web site there, there support is awesome! 24 hours a day almost immediate! they go out of there way to help NOOBS like me. I am also a fan ov Voip.ms, been there over 10 years, awsome support too.