Softlayer is a high-performance hosting service offering bare-metal and Nvidia Grid at hourly rates, perfect for any dev.
February 27, 2017
Softlayer is a high-performance hosting service offering bare-metal and Nvidia Grid at hourly rates, perfect for any dev.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cloud IaaS (formerly IBM Bluemix - IaaS)
SoftLayer is one of several of our preferred hosts, which we use to power custom design HA/LB LEMP server clusters, which power our clients' Wordpress sites after we have finished making them. We utilize cloud providers mostly, due to the low cost of shared-resource computing, while being adequate for most needs. Every so often, we get a client that has a huge project or site, that needs more than a cloud server, and that is where Softlayer comes in, giving us the ability to host our clients servers on cloud resources, while having the ability to move to a bare-metal server when it is required, without moving to a different company. We also use Softlayer heavily for development, which is the area where I think they shine, as they offer "cloud-style" pricing for all their services, which means we can get a bare metal server, or Nvidia grid on an hourly basis, making development much more affordable, and available, giving us a huge edge in the market, having the ability to develop, test, and learn systems that would be way too expensive on a monthly basis. The abilities of a business, given this resource, grows at an amazing rate.
- The pricing options for services is awesome, offering bare-metal and other high-demand services at hourly rates.
- Softlayer offers a huge assortment of high-powered services, such as Nvidia Tesla GPU computing, high-bandwidth connection options, and highly customizable bare-metal servers
- All of Softlayers' plans and services are fully adaptable to to fit your needs, with a huge amount of options for both the services they offer and the management options available for those services.
- Softlayer is designed primarily for advanced clients, and can be a little finicky like many other advanced services, such as highly-customizable options for nearly every part of a service. You build your servers by specs, just like a real server, rather than clicking a few buttons to get a basic cookie-cutter server.
- Costs are much higher than one would expect, however, you do get what you pay for, and having high-quality equipment available at hourly rates is going to cost.
- Support is surprisingly mediocre, and the primary cause of most complaints about softlayer. I personally have had no problems with support, but, remember that this is an "advanced" service, and even my eyes go cross-eyed looking at the config options of a server. I would imagine support is focused and trained for dealing with experienced Linux admins, and developers, and would not be of much help to anyone that accidentally ventured in, expecting an EC2 style experience.
- Softlayer has had a definite positive impact on our ROI, and our business in general. Having started as a basic cloud consulting firm, Softlayer "play" sessions directly led to the development of our current core services, such as our custom Wordpress servers, which are on par with high-end hosts, such as WPengine, would not have been possible without Softlayer.
- We have been able to map out a new future, due to the resources we get from Softlayer, and we are considering using the service to build our own cloud compute services using Softlayer bare-metal servers, rather than making a separate cloud account for each client.
Softlayer is definitely a unique host and offers a blend of both standard cloud and shared-resource services along with standard hosting services such as bare-metal, VPS, and etc. Comparing only cloud providers is hard enough to begin with, as so many different types exist, such IAAS, PAAS, SAAS, & etc, with each having different purposes and goals. So, when it comes to Softlayer, I want to reiterate something I have said in prior reviews. "Every project has a different set of requirements", and a service that worked perfectly for one project might end up being a pure headache with another. Take the time to analyze your ideal requirements for completing the project, and make your short list with those, before you let yourself get influenced. With that said, if Softlayer has managed to offer all of your requirements, and you have the experience to feel comfortable with playing around with Softlayer, then I suggest you do exactly that, get the $500 promo, and put it to the test.