Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) Reviews

We're a hosting service, as well as a software development and website design company. We use Linode for virtual servers to host the websites that we design and maintain.

The relatively small but well-focused set of services is adequate for our use. We install our own software and run our own servers, so they're providing the base system for us.

It is important that Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centers. We don't utilize overseas currently, but that's definitely a plus in the event that we have a client that needs a local server overseas.

Implementing Linode has helped us to accelerate innovation. We moved from having servers in a colo where they were our servers and we maintain the hardware, to virtual servers with Linode five years ago. The ability to move between servers in the event that there's some hardware issue, and the ability to rely on them to maintain their hardware, was a real plus. It took a load off of us having to be concerned about the hardware the systems are running on. Plus, the connection that they provide is high bandwidth and has considerably more than we were being offered by the previous provider.

What we find most valuable about Linode is its service. The fact that you can get a person on the phone has just been fantastic. I've gotten to where I just won't use a company that doesn't provide somebody on the phone. There are some issues, especially when you're dealing with something as timely as an issue with a server, where communicating in any other fashion is just not adequate. You need to get somebody on the phone when you have a down issue, and they're very good. You don't necessarily always get the person that knows the most about the issue when you first call in, but they're pretty good about getting it to somebody who can help you.

It would be wonderful to have the person that is most familiar with an issue when you call up available on the phone immediately, but I understand that can't always be the case. There are too many different kinds of issues and you need a hierarchy for people to handle concerns.

I've had some difficulties with some of their IP addresses being banned by certain mail servers. I think it's based on the size of their network that they manage and the fact that they have different users within C-blocks of IPs that might be spam sources affecting anybody else that's on that same network. It's a difficult problem to address, but it does affect us occasionally, and having your email rejected is not something any of us like dealing with.

Typically, we try to reach out to the party that is blocking the IP address. On occasion, it takes contacting Linode and having them also reach out and request that the IP be unblocked. So far, that's been adequate.

I have been working with Linode for nine years.

Linode provides the servers for all of our clients, and the stability and availability are extremely good. I think in the five years that I've been with them, there was just one issue where there was a DoS attack. It's been quite some time but from what I recall, it took at most an hour to resolve the problem.

The rest of the time, there have been a few occasions where somebody on the same virtual host as us has been overusing the CPU and we've needed to move the virtual host to another physical server, and that's always been handled promptly. Most of the time, it has been really good.

Resizing Linodes is easy to do. I've not hit the boundaries of the capabilities of their system or even come close to it. There is plenty of bandwidth, plenty of CPU, plenty of memory available, and plenty of disk space. I've had no problems.

Nobody in the company really works with Linode on a regular basis.  Most management tasks can be handled online.   There's probably over the past five years been 10 or 15 occasions where somebody needed to do something over the phone.

There have been two of us that have dealt with Linode, including myself and a programmer that I have working for me. At this point, we don't have a plan to increase our usage.

The company has been operating for more than 20 years and prior to Linode, we did not use a similar product. Rather, we were using a colo facility with our own hardware.

The initial setup is extremely easy to manage. It doesn't require anything complicated. It's all online through their interface. You add Linode, delete Linode, pick where you want the Linode to reside, size it, or resize it. It's quite easy.

You can add Linode in a couple of minutes.

Our network layout hasn't changed in years. It's a setup that we've had in place over time and it's not like we're strategizing changes to it all the time.

The pricing model is simple. They don't make things complicated, which is important. We've had to deal with Oracle's crazy pricing, which is based on how many CPUs you're running.

When we consider everything including support, response time, uptime, and price, it makes all the difference to me that you can call and get somebody on the phone, pretty much immediately. Dealing in chat and email is just not adequate when you have an issue.

Using Linode has saved us some money compared to other cloud providers, although it is not our primary concern. Availability of support is much more important than pricing.

We looked at other solutions including, for example, Amazon, as well as other virtual server providers. We had some feedback from some of the people we reached out to in making the decision that had provided some good feedback on Linode, so we thought we'd give that a try.

We set up a couple of servers, then I moved some sites over and had a good experience with them. So, we migrated the whole setup.

One of the significant differences between Linode and the other products is the support. We also found their pricing quite competitive, which is another reason that we opted for Linode.

My advice for anybody who is looking for this type of service is to seriously consider Linode.

In summary, this is a good service and something that we benefit from every day. Really, in my experience, they've done a fantastic job and there really hasn't been anybody dropping the ball over there.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use Linode in our projects. We have one Linode, and it is quite straightforward. We have one Linode provisioned, which is running on the LAMP stack.

We are using the latest version.

It makes the LAMP stack easier to manage. We just send one command, then automatic updates and security patches happen. We then just use some source code control, like GitHub or Bitbucket, which has helped us because I feel their prices are quite competitive. Sometimes, we need a lot of test applications to show things, do PoCs, and have test sites. So, it doesn't make sense for us to go with the big cloud solution, which is expensive. This way, you don't need to spin up some test sites or test applications for PoCs for just some UAT type of things. This has helped.

I like how if you are an older developer and have some development experience, then it is very easy to get to the foundation, which is cool. Then, you have complete freedom to configure it the way you want. Also, Linode is fast.

It is very focused and doesn't have a lot of features. For example, it doesn't have the complete DevOps pipeline. You can configure it directly using UIs, configuring the entire pipeline and even your project management, which is what we get in something like Azure. It is good to have that focused approach. 

For small businesses and people who have some technical skills and are good with Linux command line, this solution is great. I love Linode because it is very fast. Whereas, the same configuration on Azure and AWS will be so slow. The best thing is that their pricing and speed are great.

While Linode works well for people who have some technical experience, e.g., I am good with Linux and very comfortable with the command line, I can understand how people who are not so comfortable with the command line probably prefer a lot of feature-based cloud services.

I would like Linode (without cluttering things) to provide some type of DevOps workflow where people are configuring their pipelines from running their tests and deploying to their test server. Once approved by clicking a button, it just gets deployed to production. I would like something like Azure DevOps, which we use for large applications, and would be something nice to have in Linode.

I have been using it for the last two years.

It is very stable. We haven't had any issues.

Scaling up has been easier. We just scale up the node, then it scales up. One thing is if you want to scale up, then you cannot scale down. I have tried that a few times because we have certain seasons in the year where no one is using the application. So, I tried to scale down, but Linode doesn't allow that. However, scaling up was quite easy and fast.

Our applications are currently being used in Southeast Asia. Our clients are region-focused and very rarely will we have an application used outside this region. Performance-wise, it is more important how you build your application than having data centers everywhere unless it is a very high-end application. However, we don't have those kinds of applications, where thousands of users simultaneously work across the globes. 

We are set for scalability because we have small businesses and don't need a very high scalability, where we have something like Kubernetes or one of those high-end, complex scaling pipelines. We have not needed those things. We just have to scale the node, going from two CPUs to four CPUs and upgrading the RAM.

We are using it for small applications and are happy with that. However, there are no new projects on the horizon, so we are just maintaining the solution.

The couple of times that I have raised tickets, they replied within a day or two, but I never had an emergency situation. Their support is good.

We came across the solution through Linode's advertisements. We used it for the free trial period, liked it, and purchased it.

I didn't have any problems with the setup. It was quite straightforward and easy. Basically, you select what you need, then they give you access and you go on from there. It took 10 to 15 minutes.

Once you set up Linode, then you have to install some basic things. You install your source code software, like GitHub, with your application source code. It was quite straightforward.

I did the deployment.

I am the only person who uses and maintains Linode currently. Someone else looks at the other cloud solutions.

I have been using it for two years. Linode compared with other solutions must have saved us around $300 to $400, max.

The pricing and licensing are good. It is very straightforward and simple. I would like more options, e.g., if I want to upgrade my Linode right now, then I have to double it. I would like another option than that.

Linode is not as expensive as Azure and AWS. I feel that Linode is able to give very competitive rates. I find other providers, like Google and AWS, expensive.

Its price-to-performance is better than other big cloud providers, like Azure, Google, and AWS. It has saved us money. While their rates might look the same, their servers tend to be slow. So, if you want the same speed as Linode in other big providers, then you need to go for a higher end solution and the costs will double. I think Linode's rates are good because the performance of their servers are good.

I just pay for the server and other things that I use, like their object storage. There are no hidden costs.

Once you open a new account, they give you some free credit. We used that free credit and liked the solution. So, we went ahead with it.

We use Azure a lot for our big business applications. Usually, we end up comparing and seeing things over there, determining how Linode would have handled this. I have tried out Linode analytics. Mostly, for innovation, we look for that in Azure with their side pipelines and DevOps. 

We looked at DigitalOcean, but never used it.

They try to give you the basics, They try to remove complexities, keeping the platform as basic and simple as possible. That is why the system works very quickly. This is a good model to take forward and better than going with the shared systems, like GoDaddy, because you have total control of what you want to install, upgrade, and where you want to apply security. You have total control over the server. Other shared systems don't have this because they are slowing due to sharing your sources. So, I really liked this model of Linode.

If you have some confidence or experience using the command prompt, then this is the best thing to go for. If you have the technical expertise to manage the server directly, then this is the best thing because you will save a lot of money, not going for a higher end, like Google or Azure. You will save money and get better performance. However, if you don't know how to manage the server directly, then you might have a hard time and need better support from Linode to set up your servers. Other than that, it is the best choice.

I would rate Linode as a nine (out of 10).

I primarily use Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) to host virtual machines for various services, such as backups. Recently, I have also begun using the S3 storage solution.

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) enables me to perform infrastructure maintenance only at the operating system level. I do not need to concern myself with the underlying infrastructure, which saves me time and resources.

The management of different DNS domains is beneficial due to the user-friendly interface that provides all necessary options. Resizing virtual machines is straightforward, causing minimal downtime. The block storage that can be attached to VMs is also helpful. 

Furthermore, the API for automation and the low cost of smaller VMs add to the overall value.

The Cloud Manager interface sometimes feels slow, particularly when accessed from Asia. Compared to the previous non-React interface, the current version could be more responsive.

I have been using Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) for roughly six or seven years.

The solution is stable. There are occasional short disconnects in the Singapore data center. Overall, the stability is commendable.

The scalability model is excellent for my projects. Although I do not use automatic scaling, I can easily increase CPUs, virtual machine size, and storage.

The customer service is exceptional, with responsive support that resolves issues generally within 24 hours.

Positive

The setup process is simple, especially with years of experience in its usage.

The pricing is competitive, rated an eight out of ten. Despite a recent price increase due to inflation, the value is commendable.

DigitalOcean is a comparable competitor to Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) due to their similar setups.

I recommend Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) to other users. My overall rating for the solution is ten out of ten.

I use Linode primarily as a backup for digital ocean services. I also host websites for clients in London on Linode servers for better proximity but managing DNS and domain records is easier on Digital Ocean compared to Linode. I haven't used Linode for managed databases or cloud storage.

When I started using Linode, I found its functionality easy to navigate, user-friendly and responsive to my needs. It provides clear reminders about services I'm not using, like DNS zones, which I appreciate. 

I'm not sure what could be improved at Linode since they're likely already making enhancements, especially with the Akamai acquisition and, I don't have any specific suggestions as I haven't encountered any major issues. I might consider using API for managing DNS records, but overall, I'm satisfied with Linode.

I have been using Linode for more than seven years. 

In my experience, Linode's stability is a solid ten. I haven't encountered any downtime or issues.

We serve about 150 users, and the scalability has been excellent.

I've had positive experiences with Linode's technical support team. They were prompt and helpful when I reached out for assistance, even extending my payment deadline once. 

Compared to other providers, I find Linode's pricing a bit higher. Storage could be more affordable.

Compared to competitors like Hetzner, Linode's server specs are better, though both companies are likely improving. I'm curious about Hetzner's low prices and plan to explore their services further.

I would rate Linode an 8 out of 10. While I recommend it, I suggest users conduct their own research before making a decision, as my recommendation is based on personal experience and preferences.

Initially, my use case was to have a server platform running that wasn't tied to the company that I worked for at the time. I wanted a solution where I could access our product and services from a platform that had no relation to our own. I was performing testing, as if coming from the outside as a customer of ours, having no network conductivity on our servers or anything like that. That was the first use case.

We realized that it was pretty handy to have a cloud platform that didn't reside in our network, so what happened next, when we moved our data center from Dallas to Florida, we employed the platform to facilitate it. We used a temporary name server and temporary mail server and another temporary server to keep some of our core services running while we were physically moving servers across the country.

When I moved and thought of this company, I used Linode as a temporary general server, as a holding place for all sorts of things. This included web services, our website, and other similar things. But then when I moved most of that to other providers, I still kept some of the web services running. So, it's like an application server for customers.

Basically, if I provide a service to a company, such as a mapping service for a logistics company, then my domain name can be used to access applications on the Linode server. I have a couple of instances there right now that are performing this task.

Linode offers worldwide coverage in multiple data centers, although this is not important to me because I only use the US data centers. In fact, one of the reasons that I stick with Linode is because of their US presence. Right now, I am only using the data center in Dallas and this specifically gives me a US presence.

Having a long-standing relationship with Linode, it's been easy to develop and subsequently deploy services provided to our customers on their platform. Without it, I would have to use a different platform like Amazon or Microsoft Azure, or something like that. Where this makes a difference is that it would take longer to get to market in the case where one of our customers requires a change or a specific feature that we don't normally provide. The fact that it is easy for us to modify that quickly and without much overhead means we can implement it. Essentially, the flexibility that Linode provides extends through us to our customers, which is a bonus for them.

The most valuable feature is that they are flexible and easy to get a hold of if I need something. For example, if I need to provision a server quickly, or if I need to change something, or if I for some reason need to do something that's outside of my plan that I pay for, I can contact them quickly and always get a hold of someone and always get a solution for it. I don't know if this is typical or if it's just based on having been a customer for a reasonably long time, but that's the main reason that I stick with them. It can be summed up by saying that they provide a much better level of service than a larger company like Amazon. I use Amazon as well, but it's a different experience.

Because they are a smaller company, they do not have, for example, all of the ways for authentication that Amazon or Azure has. However, that's not a downside for me because it means it's less complex to implement for us. So, while it is simple compared to some large solutions, that's a benefit to me and not a drawback.

I began working with Linode in 2004 or 2005 when I was working as a technology officer in my former company in the US. I still use the product but it for my own business in Europe. 

Linode has been very stable. Every time there is an outage, they will always contact me beforehand to let me know that there is something planned. I've never had an unplanned outage, so it's positive.

Scalability-wise, it has improved over time. Initially, it was harder to deploy complex servers and then grow them. What we'd have to do was shut them down and then scale up and then deploy a whole other server and then move whatever we had. This could have been an application or a number of applications, which were all moved to that new instance.

As it is now, you can just do it on the fly. But having said that, I don't really scale up and down very much. I generally know what I need and then deploy it. After that, if I ever discontinue something, we turn that off.

So in summary, I see that it has improved, but I haven't really used it much.

In my company, there are between three and five of us who work on it at any given time. Each of us performs multiple roles but in this capacity, we are system administrators and system engineers.

At this point, probably between 20% and 25% of the server and cloud needs are provided by Linode. As the business grows, the usage will grow, although it's always going to be proportional to what we have now. Given that 2020 was a pretty crazy year, it is very hard to predict growth right now.

I also use Amazon but It's a less personal experience. For example, if I'm abroad and I can't take care of something until I get back, I can't call Amazon and say, "Hey look, can you delay my invoice for two weeks, because I'm in Bangladesh and I have to deal with something," because my company is not big enough for that. With Linode, it's perfectly fine. You can just call them and they'll take care of it, which shows a high degree of flexibility and a high level of service.

The initial setup was not very easy, although when I set it up, it was quite some time ago and things were more difficult on the web at that time. I think that the difficulty of the installation has been commensurate with the level of technology on the web at the time. It is easier to do now than it was when I started.

They have the Linode manager, which is an online interface that works by you starting with selecting a service. You select all of the things that you want to have included in your service, whether it's a bare metal server or a virtual server, or whether it's provisioning new storage for that server that you already have. After it's selected and it's up and running, you have the same KVM that you do on other services. For example, you have a virtual screen as if you were in front of your machine in the data center.

We're such a small company that we don't really do this type of financial breakdown. We're just happy if we make a little bit more money than we did last quarter. Nonetheless, I can say that we have seen ROI because I believe that our flexibility is partially based on Linode's flexibility, which lets us keep and get more clients. I just couldn't give a specific number of how much.

Being that they are small, their prices are slightly higher than the large providers like Amazon if you compare raw computing power. However, I understand they have to be slightly higher because they just don't have as many customers. If you come from the outside, not knowing how things are going to work, then look at the costs by doing a cost analysis, you might wonder why you should choose them if they're going to be more expensive across the board.

I can say that it doesn't affect me because I know what I'm paying for. It is easy to say that any solution can be cheaper and it could be better, but I know what Linode does, I understand the service I'm getting, and I know what it will provide me. As such, I think that it is fair and I am willing to pay the premium.

If you have a situation where you just want to spin up a server and run a test, without actually having a client and you don't want to incur too many costs, it's not been bad at all.

Considering support, response time, uptime, and price, I think that the price to performance ratio is pretty good. They've been very responsive whenever I have had questions, so from that point of view, I'm very satisfied.

I have experience with AWS and Azure but when it comes to evaluating other products, we haven't sat down and had comparison meetings or anything like that. Everybody that works in the company has been with me for a while, so they're very familiar with which servers and services work based on our needs.

There are obviously reasons to use, for example, Microsoft Azure because perhaps one of your services uses one of their services that they provide intimately. In a case like this, it's just easier to deploy on their platform because maybe you use one of their endpoints that are already on Azure.

I haven't seen any reason to compare the products because whatever service we create and develop to offer to our customers dictates where we put it.

Linode offers a smaller, but well-focused set of cloud computing services to customers, which I think is important because they are able to provide a very high level of support. If they did everything, if they were much larger, maybe they couldn't maintain that level of support because it wouldn't work if all of their customers asked for special treatment.

My advice for anybody who is considering Linode is to start very small and become a customer of theirs, just so you get used to and familiar with the way that you deploy servers and services. I suggest this because of the fact that they are not a Microsoft or an Amazon, but rather they're a much smaller company.

Again, become familiar with it, and even if it seems a little basic at times, allocate a small part of your development budget to just becoming a customer. This involves creating an account and playing around a little bit, and you'll see that you have most of the features that you need.

That is what the experience has been like for me. Maybe it's not like that for everyone, but try it out. You will probably see that it's more than you might think initially, at least that's the reason that I stuck around and stayed with them for so long.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I use it to host websites, including WordPress, Laravel, and Lumen.

I have hosted my website on Linode and my clients' back-end applications are running on it. One of them has a website on Shopify, and they needed an automation tool to upload products to Shopify. I developed an application that is hosted on Linode servers. It runs daily and synchronizes products with their suppliers.

The creation of instances is very good, as is their interface which is not complex and is easy to use. With the dashboard, it is easy to create a new instance and add your favorite things. You can add Debian, Ubuntu, or CentOS, or any flavor of the operating system. You can select the RAM for your instance as well.

The fact that Linode offers a small but well-focused set of cloud computing services is very important for me and for my clients. I have referred three or four clients to Linode and they are still using Linode to host their websites.

Everything is up-to-date for a small business. But for big business, they need to improve certain things. For example, there should be better security.

They also need to provide the ability to set limits. I should be able to turn off an instance at a given percentage of its capacity.

I have been using Linode for about a year.

It is very stable. It's mature now. I haven't had any issues with the services.

I love their support. If I have any issue or if my client has an issue, I just click to create a message for support and they resolve the issue or provide relevant guidance. Their support is 24/7/365.

I also use AWS and their support is very good. But Linode's support is quicker and better compared to AWS or other cloud providers. They take my problem as their problem and provide a solution very quickly.

I click on the required instance. They may have a special which only costs $5 per month. If I need that, I click on that instance. Then I choose the OS like Debian, Ubuntu, or CentOS. I then add a data center location, and then, if I need my personal PC access to the server automatically, I add that and click "next." Within 30 seconds, it is ready.

It's very cheap. The pricing model is very simple. If you have very small applications, you can use the plan which costs $5 per month. That gives you 50 GB of memory and almost 1 GB of RAM. If you need more than you have to select the next plan which is $10 per month, which has about 70 GB of data and 2 GB of RAM. I build small applications and that provides more than enough for small applications.

Taking everything into account, it has a very good price-to-performance ratio. If I use AWS, it costs more than Linode. It saves me $5 per month compared to AWS.

Many of the competitors, like AWS, have an interface that is slightly complex compared to Linode. There are no authentications or other things required in Linode. You just create your account, add your card, and do what you want to do. A non-technical person can't do AWS; you need some technical expertise to use it. But with Linode, you don't need such expertise. You can easily use and create anything on Linode.

I would recommend Linode. If you need to configure or implement applications, it is very good and fast, and saves you a lot of work compared to AWS or Azure. The interface is very simple.

In the beginning I needed something to host domain name services for the domain name that I had registered. I also use it for email and file sharing. We were pioneers in that regard, in April 2008, going fully online for the company, with everybody working from home and interacting through the platform that we set up with Linode.

Linode's services accelerated our company's innovation, in a way. It facilitated this transition where, right now, everybody is working from home. But in April 2008, very few companies were doing so. We were able to do so because of their services and because they made it so easy to configure and set up.

Linode has saved us money compared to what we would pay other cloud providers, absolutely. It's hard to tell how much we have saved because we've only evaluated the others, we haven't really full-scale used them. At some point our own service was co-located with a provider, which was a different model, but that certainly was far more expensive, three to four times more expensive.

The most valuable and important thing is that it is a hosting platform where I can configure and deploy virtual machines on-the-fly. 

It is also important that Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centers. The ability to deploy on multiple servers, worldwide, allows us to have distributed services and failover and redundancy. We added some features to our platform that leveraged that and helped us do it in a distributed manner.

It would be helpful if they provided the additional Linux distributions that I prefer using. But there is still a workaround. I can do it without direct support. It's a bit more complicated, but it can still be done.

I opened an account with them in April 2008.

I haven't used it for the whole of those 13 years. There have been some interruptions for a while when I haven't needed the service. But I have used it pretty much throughout that period.

So far the stability has been very good. We have never had unplanned downtime.

There has been planned downtime, but that was announced well in advance, whenever they had to roll out patches to hardware and software. We were notified a month, or sometimes even more than a month, in advance. So we were fine in preparing 

And whenever they have had a failure, they seem to have a very good predictive failure system that notifies them. So even then, they gave us two or three days' notice about the need to restart environments. It's been good.

For what we need the scalability is fine. The platform gives us all the computing power required. When we scale our solution up, we have features in our own solution that help us leverage multiple distributed environments and multiple machines. So we do not need support from the provider for this. It's not like we need any kind of clustering solution from outside our company. We do that kind of thing ourselves.

We are happy with what they provide, but others probably would need more in terms of scalability.

All our employees, about 30 people, are working from home, so everybody is connecting to this platform. We are building enterprise-level software for supply chain planning for other companies. It's not only our own employees who connect to do their regular day-to-day jobs, but we also deploy an environment for our customers, which they connect to and run data integration on. With our customer users, there are about another 50 users.

We plan to increase usage of Linode, absolutely. As we grow, as we get more customers of our own, we will configure and deploy more environments to serve them.

Their 24/7/365, no-tiered, human customer support is very important, although we very rarely use it. But it's important to know that there's somebody there, in extreme cases, that we can reach and talk to.

Their support is 100 percent very good. Whenever we needed their support they were there for us and they provided everything we needed. When it comes to the flexibility and overall responsiveness of Linode, compared to the other major cloud providers I have worked with, they're great. I don't know how big Linode is, but they certainly are a big company, yet they still give you the impression of a mom-and-pop shop, where you have direct personal service. You're not interacting with a big corporation with a technical support center somewhere overseas. The interaction gives a very personal feeling and it's great.

I was looking for a very simple solution provider. I'm not looking for a complex solution added on top of that. That's why I use Linode instead of Amazon Web Services or Google. Being a technical person myself, it's easier to get the basic thing and to configure it the way I want, as opposed to a less sophisticated person who would want all the additional services on top to help them navigate through things.

The initial setup is very clear and straightforward. I've been using Amazon Web Services too, because I was interacting with another company and they had set up with Amazon Web Services. Comparing them, I find Linode more straightforward and to the point. With Amazon it was very hard to figure out everything you need.

To set up an environment using Linode, the part that has to be done using the Linode tools, takes less than an hour. Of course, there's the actual configuration of the environment in addition, but that would have to happen on any platform. But having the environment positioned and ready to go doesn't take long at all.

Recently, I've been looking at Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services, and we have also used Azure, and I'm still far more happy with Linode than any of those. Surprisingly, Azure has been better than Google and Amazon, but not that much.

One key difference is that pricing is very hard to come by and to understand with all the bigger companies. Their pricing models are so weird and it's hard to figure out exactly how much I am going to pay for this kind of service. Everything is piecemeal. With Linode, it's simple and straightforward. You know exactly what you will have to pay at the end of the day.

Everybody's needs are different, but if you have the level of technical knowledge, and if you're looking for a simple, straightforward solution, where you are able to configure and customize it to the way you want it, Linode is the ideal platform. They provide you with the support in that regard. If you don't have the technical capabilities in-house and you need more support from the provider to deploy more elaborate solutions, then maybe others would be a better fit. But as long as you have the in-house technical capabilities, Linode is a better fit, in my opinion.

It does what we want it to do. Over the years they have grown and implemented many features. There isn't anything in particular that I would request from them. The services have always been very effective and quick.

Our use cases involve their virtual server (VPS) solutions, which we have used since we first started with them. They also have a wonderful DNS service, and we use that as well.

For most of their existence, VPS is more or less what they have been providing.

We're happy that it works, and we're happy that we have never had to contact them. They have been proactively managing hardware issues and network issues for us. These are all nice things and these are reasons we're keeping using Linode and not going elsewhere.

That said, we're moving part of our business from Linode to one of the local companies because of regulations in privacy laws. In Turkey, we have to serve local, Turkish customers using a local provider because by regulation, we're not allowed to move certain kinds of data out of the country. This means that we're obliged to use one of the local companies, but otherwise, for our global services, we intend to keep using Linode.

Considering the features we use, I would not say that we're an extensive user. For example, we don't use volumes, object storage, or Kubernetes. We do have a number of servers and we're using the DNS service exclusively. We don't have any other DNS servers.

The cloud management panel is nice.

It's very easy to create new servers.

The VPS and DNS servers work smoothly and we're happy with what we have.

It is important that Linode offers worldwide coverage through multiple data centers, although for us, if they covered only Europe and the U.S., we would be fine with it.

They don't provide managed databases so when we need one, we have to build and install a server and manage the database by ourselves. This is an important feature for us that should be added. Currently, the object storage and volumes features are insufficient for our needs. We need an actual database.

They have recently started to provide cloud firewall service on some of their data centers but it's not widely available yet. This is something that would be nice to have, although it's not very important.

Having a load-balancer feature would be nice, and I have been reading that this is something that they have been working on for the past few years. It's surprising that they're very slow when it comes to implementing certain features.

They don't have role-based access control, which is problematic for us. Imagine a case where you have multiple departments and you have a number of servers and you want to give limited access to some departments or some people. You just can't do that. Another example is that when you have an additional user account on your panel, that user will have access to everything. They will be able to reboot servers, modify DNS records, or do dangerous things that you don't need them to or want them to. Role-based access control is something that Amazon provides, Google provides, and Azure provides, and it's unfortunate that it is not available as a feature.

I have been using Linode for approximately 16 years, close to the entire time that they have existed.

Linode has been very reliable for us. We have had no downtime in the past year and during the past ten years, I think that we have had less than 20 minutes of downtime in total. Stability-wise, it is awesome.

Linode is not very easy to scale.

The Kubernetes cluster feature is nice and I suppose that it is easy to manage, but we don't use it.

In the case we need some performance, we have API access and we can create servers on-demand, but Linode's cloud doesn't really compare to Amazon's offerings. They don't have anything comparable to Amazon's Lambda. It's a function as a service. It's a new paradigm, basically. It's called serverless computing. Linode doesn't provide this or anything close to this. It's a leap forward in the industry, and it's another thing that is missing from Linode. It could be a problem for some people but not for us.

In terms of scalability, we're happy with what we have because we usually scale slowly. It's not like we're going to have a few million more customers on our doorstep in less than an hour. It's going to go up slowly for us, so we can anticipate and plan against it and we can create new servers or scale-out infrastructure by keeping track of it and doing much of the work manually.

Ultimately, Linode does not help us scale up. We do most of the work manually. If, however, they provided a managed database, we could scale more easily, which would be nice.

Linode provides 24/7, 365, no-tiered human customer support, but it is not important to us at all. We're mostly self-sufficient. Also, in case something goes wrong, I understand that they have a team that tracks downtimes, outages, and other problems. They usually respond to problems before we need to talk to someone.

The support is proactive in this regard and so far during the whole time, the 16 years we've worked with them, we never had to talk to a human being, not even once.

Depending on the project, we still use servers by other providers. For example, we have a small number of servers on Rackspace and DigitalOcean. We have a number of servers on Google Cloud, as well.

In our previous projects, we used Amazon a lot. We don't use them anymore, however, because we don't need to.

The initial setup is very straightforward.

You start by creating a user account, then you enter a credit card number and you create a server and you're good to go. For anyone in their target customer base, they would find it very easy to become a customer or create a user.

The last time I did this, it took three or four minutes. 

The pricing is nice for us. It is a little cheaper than Google or Amazon, more or less on par with the other competitors.

The pricing model is very straightforward and it suits us. It may not suit everyone, but it suits us. The pricing model is easy to understand.

At this point, the pricing is not very important for us. We would be happy to pay between 20% and 50% more if there were a number of features available. Unfortunately, they're not available and have not been so for a very long time.

We don't use Amazon or Google or Microsoft Azure, but if we decided to use them, Linode would have saved us a significant amount of money. We're probably paying 30% of what we would have paid to Amazon or Google.

The other providers do have additional features but we choose to stay with Linode because it's slightly cheaper. Also, we are used to Linode. When we first started doing business, everyone was building their own database servers and we got used to this model. We don't want to change providers for this alone but if Linode provided this feature, we would definitely use it.

We don't use these Kubernetes or Docker deployments and we have no intention to use them. They are recent features, available for perhaps the past three or four years, and we don't plan to use them.

My advice for others who are looking into Linode is that if they only need DNS and VPS and maybe self-managed Kubernetes, Linode is one of the best because it's so reliable. To me, it's like a bridge. You buy it, and you don't think about it for years. For us, that was the experience.

We're technically capable of managing our own hardware, so Linode is just taking away the burden of managing hardware by ourselves. This leaves us to manage our own service and software. If people are basically looking for VPS solutions and Kubernetes, they're like a bridge. Linode is so reliable that you won't need to talk to any customer service agent, and they are one of the best globally.

In summary, Linode needs to expand its portfolio of features. It's pretty basic currently, and while it's nice to be basic, some people like us need more features. We actually need them and if we had the incentive to move to somewhere else, we would consider it. We currently don't have an incentive, because our business is not growing explosively. However, if we had to grow quickly and have a huge number of users, of course, we would have to think about managed databases and load-balancers and firewalls and role-based access control, and the other features that are missing on Linode. We would have to migrate to somewhere else. Currently, we don't have that problem.

We have been a happy customer, most of the time.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.