You have to consider out-of-band console access (which VPS services provide), you're not responsible for hardware failures (your VPS provider is, and will replace transparently without your involvement), support is available 24/7 beyond "please reboot my server", and transit typically ends up cheaper and you don't have to deal with it. You also don't have to pay for remote hands (oh, look, you do there). All around a much better solution for hosting than any dedicated plan in the world.

Happiness is not having to know how many RAID drives died to bring you this information. (Statistically speaking I'm pretty sure I've burned through at least one drive somewhere in St. Louis, but I never had to worry about it.)

It isn't the same price though. There is a setup fee of 150 euros and a monthly rate of 70 euros. This is in comparison to a rate of 80 usd a month with no setup fee. There is a fairly large difference in cost there.

Oh come on. Linode 2880 is ~100 EUR/month and you get far less computing power for your money.

You can also ask for a KVM over IP console to be attached to your server (for free for 2 hours) though this would only be needed when you have an emergecy (i.e. machine not reachable over SSH). There is no bandwith limit (you're capped to 10 Mbit if you exceed 2TB/month).

Seems like a pretty good deal to me.

From that description, KVM over IP doesn't sound free to me -- it looks like 149€ to set up and 19€ a month. Furthermore, even if what you say is true, what is the benefit of going with a provider who nickel and dimes you over something as simple as out-of-band console?

$dayjob has 24x7 free out-of-band console access, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a VPS provider that doesn't. The only way these dedicated providers keep margin as they do is by shanking you on little things like KVM over IP ($220 to set it up?).

You are wayyyyy better off sharing the cost of a colo'd 1U with others to offset your cost, in almost every case.

Well for a VPS, KVM over IP is as simple as running some piece of free software, as opposed to having the same thing on a real server where you need expensive equipment. This explains the cost. And as I said, the console is indeed expensive if you want it permanently, but is free for 2 hours and we seldomly needed it more.

Now if you are set with the computing power provided by a 20$ VPS that's another thing, I'm just saying, if you need more you should consider a dedicated server or maybe collocation.

and how many people use the 2880 plan?

I would guess > 90% of linodes users are on the $20pm plan, and look towards other areas when they start growing anywhere near 2880

Linodes give you four Xeon cores, and frequently outperform many low to mid-range dedicated servers.

Well anyway, we've had one of the servers hosted with these guys with 300+ days uptime (until we rebooted for a kernel upgrade). Our experience so for with them has been positive and I would recommend them anytime for hosting.

as I alluded to in the other comment,

I run a few popular websites, can experiment with new fancy server technologies, and have pretty much every need covered for $20pm.

why would I possibly pay $150 setups and 150% times the monthly charge if I dont need anymore?

I think my case is where linode has hit its sweet spot, obviously if you start needing some heftier processing / bandwidth you would look elsewhere. I would take a guess that most of the people on the bigger plans are people that are growing and mostly looking elsewhere

They want the best deal they can get for $20, not $57 (€39). The price point is important.