Rackspace Cloud Versus Amazon : Head to Head Comparison

Rackspace Cloud Versus Amazon or rather why you will go for Rackspace or Amazon for Private Cloud, Public Cloud, Storage, Network services or any managed service. You can check Rackspace Cloud Files Vs Amazon CloudFront if you are thinking only to compare CDN options, please check the latest prices from the respective websites as Rackspace has decreased the cost more now.

Rackspace Cloud Versus Amazon : Disclaimer

We are not neutral, we are against Amazon Cloud Services or any Services or Products from Amazon. Moreover, Rackspace uses Free Cloud Software named OpenStack.  If you search our guide articles, almost all are examples with Rackspace Cloud Server or Rackspace Cloud Sites. There are basic guides for Amazon too, but looking for various factors and technology we prefer Rackspace. However, our personal preference has not been reflected in this guide on Rackspace Cloud Versus Amazon comparison article. We do have the highest number of Cloud Computing related articles in English language as a non product selling website. It is not that, Rackspace Pays us for promoting. This website has no affiliate links to any product selling website. If a new company other than Rackspace can offer better quality of service, we will show example with that service. For example for Free PaaS we suggest to use Heroku Cloud, App Fog or Red Hat OpenShift. They are far superior than $3 / month shared server.

Again, our preference towards Rackspace for being a long term customer of various services has nothing to do or influence positively or negatively n this article on Rackspace Cloud Versus Amazon.

Rackspace Cloud Versus Amazon

On pricing, Amazon has slight advantage. Their notion of instance of reserved is interesting (payment of a fixed annual rental at a better price), but it goes a little against the flexibility of the cloud.

Note: The calculator is handy at Rackspace to get quote in few seconds. Also note: Amazon offers free testing service for one year minimum on an instance (be careful not wrong button, otherwise the counter will starts). It is important to get started and learn a little cloud hosting. Rackspace offers one month’s demo.

On Networking, Amazon is now worldwide, Rackspace has partnered with Akamai for CDN. All technologies and services of Rakspace except Cloud Sites are based on OpenStack. Their private cloud software is freely available too.

On Flexibility, if you want to work with one instance flexibile, Rackspace is more interesting because the variation of an instance is progressive (256 MB Ram to 30 GB of RAM). At Amazon, if you want to gain more strength on an instance, you must change the type of proceeding and step-downs are more important. However, they offer dedicated instance of  storage, computing etc.
 

 
On loadbalancer technology and storage technology, to be honest, there is not a single brand who has such variation and combination as offered by Rackspace.

On the service side, Rackspace has excellent support, where as Amazon appears to provide a powerful but anonymous support. It is impossible to compare a 1:24 die cast scale model (read Amazon) and the real BMW’s 5 years warranty that works.

Rackspace Cloud Versus Amazon :  Conclusion

Rackspace is winner from various aspects. The bigger brands possibly use Amazon due to other business relationship rather than seeking the quality. If you are seeking for compact managed service, Rackspace Cloud Sites (previously Mosso) at that cost is unbeatable and there is no competitor. With unmanaged services, its difficult to judge Rackspace.

We had hope that other good quality Hosting companies will get enthusiastic by looking at the success of Rackspace’s fanatical support and will try to provide something closer with a free tier (and we will create tutorials for free on them !). But in last 1.5 years, we have not seen any such trend. Obviously, the quality of Apple MacBook Pro can not be compared with a HP’s laptop at 1/3rd price and take that, OS X is Free, source code is available and an always ready technically sound bunch of peoples are ready to help you 24×7.
Tech Crunch (possibly it was Tech Crunch) once wrote, the biggest mistake they did is moving from Rackspace Managed to WordPress VIP. If you have a serious website – be it a commercial blog or service website that can carry the cost of Rackspace, just like Mac, it deserves the pricing tag. We can not say about unmanaged service, as it is fully upon you, how you will manage yourself.