ready to give OpenSim a try? there are options and most are quite affordable

if you want to install it yourself, Maria at Hypergrid just published a detailed post on setting up your own grid. but what if you don’t feel like messing with that (ie, read: ener is really clueless but says “i’m too busy” to sound smarter) =p

setting up your own grid could be a clever way to go (and really is not that horribly hard). for example, our work on Reaction Grid over the last 10 or 11 months could have been carried out privately for no cost. simply have subQuark install it on his mongo machine (pffft, he won’t even customize his avatar) and then allow people to hit it. doing that could allow 2 or 3 people in at any one time. frankly, it’s only been a few times when 3 builders where on at the same time on our Reaction Grid sims

now that Reaction Grid no longer offers individual sims, i thought i’d give a shout out to someone we considered using

when we first started looking, we narrowed it down to two choices very quickly. that was a year ago and much has changed – new hosts are coming online as OpenSim becomes more stable and as more people are looking for less expensive alternatives to Second Life (and alternatives to fill needs that SL can’t – like teaching kids)

subQuark had been wanting to do this educational thing we are doing now but Second Life was just too expensive. OpenSim had caught his attention a year ago and he decided to give it a shot. he made a list of a few hosts and forwarded it to me and i narrowed it down to two – Reaction Grid and SimHost. my choice was SimHost because they had a very clean website and laid out what they offered in an easy to digest way. i also knew that Adam Frisby was huge into OpenSim development (lol, slightly! he is one of the 9 core developers). but to be fair, i did not delve into it too much, i was still trying to keep the iliveisl estate in Second Life afloat

so why didn’t subQuark go with SimHost?

well about a week before subQuark made the decision, Jokay of SLEDwiki fame was served a Take Down notice by Linden Lab. she set up a grid with Reaction Grid as a result

to show his support for Jokay and the place that offered her a great non-SL home, he went with Reaction Grid (plus Jokay really really knows her stuff, so she must have figured that Reaction Grid was the best choice)

Reaction Grid is great for educators and a wonderful choice.  their support is incredible and fast. if you are an educator, for $75 a month you can get a 4 sim grid – either on their grid or as a private grid. as a business it is more ($150). their focus is educators for sure

but what about if you just want one sim?

i revisited SimHost to see what they offer – for a single region it costs $69.95 (or $62.95 with the uber secret Hypergrid Business discount – you really should read Maria’s blog anyway)

SimHost does not have their own grid like Reaction Grid does. the RG grid may offer some benefit to you if you are a teacher. i can’t really speak to it because since i started building in earnest in March i have not had much interaction with anyone, i like to build alone anyway. but it was nice having some teachers come and visit and compliment our sims two weeks ago =)

SimHost will set you up as standalone grid or connected to other grids such as OSGrid, ScienceSim, or v-Business. if you are standalone (a private grid) you can be hypergrid enabled if you like

something that is either new, or that i missed, is a neat page explaining resource usage. coming from Second Life, i had no idea what sims needed resource wise (but that’s another post) =)

another neat thing is that SimHost also donates two servers to OSGrid for the welcome areas and they also donate some of their profits to OpenSimulator (but far more valuable is the time that the two main partners donate in coding OpenSim and running some of the OSGrid)

SimHost is just one of the options out there if you are looking for a single sim

for more options and a short blurb about each, take a look at the OpenSim hosting directory