Docker Cloud Pricing

Support Billing and Subscriptions
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Hello,

I really like docker and have been using Docker hub and Tutum for a while now.

Yesterday I got the news that Tutum has gone live and is now called Docker cloud. I was thrilled since I have been waiting to use Tutum at work and that is not possible with beta software.

Today I was stunned by the pricing of Docker Cloud. 15$ / month / per node? Am I missing something? One node costs 5$ / month in Digital Ocean and then I have to pay Docker Cloud 15$ / month more. Are you serious? If this is the case then you just priced yourselves out of our toolbet.

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Hi Latenssi,

Docker makes available other free and OSS to help you manage your applications and infrastructure, such as Docker Engine, Swarm, Machine and Compose.

Also, please note that Tutum will continue to be offered as is and for free until May 31. We are also exploring additional plans and tiers to best accommodate for different use cases.

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I’m with latenssl on this one. I’ve used and enjoyed tutum and I was surprised by the pricing. I realize that 2 center per hour may not mean much at scale, but I’ve really enjoyed using tutum to depoy small projects, and 2 cents per node against a micro or small amazon instance is expensive.

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My main concern is scaling as running 50 nodes for example will cost $9000 a year. It forces users to use large instance sizes to reduce node cluster sizes.

– @revett

EDIT

@borja @kickingthetv - why was this thread closed? Many other threads are still open and haven’t had replies in over 2 days.

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Still familiarizing ourselves with this new forum system. Sorry about that.

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@borja - no worries, mistakes happen.

Any thoughts on the community’s response to pricing?

– @revett

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+1 I really think the pricing is not ideal as is. Maybe something based on number of cores should be better ? Also having to pay for packs of repository while just needed half of it feels very weird when it’s really the same for you to make a pay as you go formula.

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I’m surprised at the pricing, there needs to be a balance when there are other services that are open source

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I agree that the current pricing model hurts low traffic users the most. It definitely prices me personally out of using it for hobby projects. A more sophisticated model that caters for small projects, new startups, etc and then scales up would be great!

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14

Please note Bryan’s earlier message:

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Am I the only one that thinks the DockerCloud pricing is actually good value?

If you have a hobby based solution on a $5 droplet great – you get a free node.

If you have several hobby based solutions that’s great too – get a $10 droplet!

The beauty of DockerCloud (nee Tutum) is the option to have all kinds of random containers sitting in the same node cluster (even if that is a cluster of 1).

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@modius - agree it’s great value if you’re running 1-2 nodes. It starts to get expensive (when compared to AWS EC2 costs) when you start to scale up a production workload.

– @revett

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I’m not sure who is willing to pay 15$ extra for each single node when the trend is leaning towards cheaper and cheaper nodes and clusters of nodes. If you are a large business who actually uses clusters of nodes you would be insane to pay 15$ more for each single node.

Pricing per node cluster would in my opinion be a lot more sane.

If clusters of nodes is not what Docker Cloud is about then why everything is build around the concept of node clusters?

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18

I was just bit by this whole thing, hard. Nowhere on the nodes page does it tell you there’s a cost per node. I’m upgrading from Tutum, where no such thing existed. Not only was the upgrade process super painful (read: very poorly documented and left both of my servers in a broken state that I had dto very manually fix) but when I attempted to install dockercloud-agent on my second server, the install process simply hung installing the .deb package. I tried several times, after purging the files (again, manual intervention). Finally, I discovered in the log file I was getting 402 when attempting to register. I had to look that up; it’s not an official HTTP code. It was only after searching these forums I found out that you need to pay for your second node. Why does the UI allow me to add more than one, if I’m not allowed because I haven’t forked over the money? Since it uninstalls docker, it (again) put my system in an unusable state.

I would rather pay per stack than per node, though I see why they want that. If you’re going to charge per node, though, you’ve got to tell people that right in the UI. I might just be willing to fork over the money, if this hasn’t been a huge pain. As it is, I’m going to be evaluating alternatives like Rancher because Docker Cloud doesn’t have a clue what it’s doing.

I really liked Tutum. The only feature I wanted was multiple user support. Now, it feels like Docker’s held something I like hostage and is mailing it back to me in pieces.

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19

This is crazy.
Comparing to heroku (let’s say we want single web process running on 2 dynos):

HEROKU: 2x25$ = 50$/mo for two web dynos with 512mb ram

DockerCloud:
web nodes: 2x(4.68$ + 15$) = 39.36$/mo (4.68$ is for EC2 nano inst, 15$ is for DockerCloud )
load balancer: 1x(4.68$ + 15$) = 19.68$/mo (same as above, we run load balancer on 1 EC2 nano inst)
total: 59.04$/mo

It’s 9$ more expensive than heroku, and I have to set up load balancer on my own…
Of course it is possible to run both web processes and load balancer in 3 containers on the same node, but you usually want your nodes (and load balancer!) to be separated “phisically” from each other…

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I have to agree with @morgul - the pricing is frustrating, but what really has annoyed me is the way the release has gone out.

– @revett

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For better or for worse, pricing a product is a complicated exercise to go through. Over the past two years, as we’ve built this product we have queried and surveyed hundreds of hobbyists, professionals, startups, SMBs and enterprises about their use cases, requirements, price sensitivity, perceived value from the product, etc.

The price you see today for Docker Cloud is a reflection of that work. That is not to say, this is the final price, nor that it won’t evolve over time or that other tiers won’t be made available. There are plans to introduce tiers that cater to individual hobbyists as well as teams and enterprises.

Some of you are frustrated about this pricing, and we understand. It seems that overnight you went from using a service that was offered to you for free, to being asked to pay $0.02/node/hour. Now, if you are a hobbyist, as Geoff Bowers mentioned above, we are giving away your first node and private repo for free, and if you were a Tutum early supporter, you’ve been given additional free credit to help you transition from our free beta service.

If you are using the service to run your business, we ask you to think about the value that it is providing and to then judge whether or not it is worth the cost. We like to believe that it is, but we realize there are other alternatives at your disposal to consider. The team here at Docker even makes available great and free open source software, such as Docker Engine, Swarm, Compose, Machine, etc., to help you build, ship and run your applications on any infrastructure.

The most common comparison I see is that of Docker Cloud pricing and Cloud Provider infrastructure cost; most often with DigitalOcean’s $5/month node. The thing is, infrastructure has become a commodity. Infrastructure is available from a great number of different providers around the globe, with little differentiation, and prices will keep dropping.

The service that Docker Cloud offers, which is to manage your applications end-to-end across any infrastructure, shouldn’t be viewed as a commodity; it is a service built on top of a commodity (in this case, infrastructure).

We believe that our service’s value actually increases as infrastructure cost lowers since the managerial overhead of that infrastructure will continue to grow as you add more nodes, which prevents you from working on the things that truly matter.

We ultimately provide a managed end-to-end solution that will save you time, expertise, and possible headcount compared to rolling your own solution. We think the cost of Docker Cloud will be more than made up for in technological, individual, and organizational efficiencies.

Lastly, I’d like to add that this pricing is the same tentative pricing that was communicated to the community many months before Docker Cloud became available. We apologize to any Tutum users that feel they have been blindsided, but we tried our best to convey this information early.

As always, thanks for your support and we hope to see you join us on Docker Cloud :slight_smile:

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I disagree very very strongly, how can you possibly think a pricing model that penalises bossinesses / applications simply because of their size is fair in anyway?

Basically your encouraging developers to change their infrastructure requirements to take advantage of your pricing structure.

I for one will be using less larger nodes, rather then many smaller nodes as a direct result of this pricing model. You would be crazy not to?

How ever did you reach this conclusion, if as you stated, careful study and consideration was undertaken?

As you have said:

“The thing is, infrastructure has become a commodity… the service Docker Cloud offers…shouldn’t be viewed as a commodity; it is a service built on top of a commodity”

THEREFORE DON’T price it as a commodity, price it as a service.

Simple no?

Can you directly address this concern:

Your pricing structure will now influence and dictate how developers deploy their applications across the underlying infrastructure.

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You are taking that inexpensive commodity and making it expensive once again.

I have no issues paying for a service I feel worth it. Neither does my workplace. But say we have 20 nodes and ignore what they cost. Your service would then be valued at 300$ per month (AND it goes up for every single node). Considering the alternatives to Docker Cloud I really can’t make a compelling case to the management about switching to Docker Cloud.

If on the other hand the cost wouldn’t go up for each node and be tied to like 100$ a month for unlimited nodes the case would be a lot simpler to make. I’m not saying that this would be great pricing model but at least it would make more sense since we are paying for a service not the infrastructure. As I stated in my first post I strongly believe your pricing is currently way of.

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