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Managing Partner at Ilium Software
Real User
Has fantastic support and offers a well-focused set of cloud computing services
Pros and Cons
  • "The number one thing we like about Linode isn't necessarily a service, it's their support. We've found their support to be absolutely fantastic. They've been so outstanding with their support. Every single time we call them and we ask for advice or help, they go above and beyond and it's really made us appreciate what they do."
  • "It's not really an issue with Linode itself but upgrading Linux major versions can be challenging. It would be be fantastic if Linode developed a way to ease transitioning to a major new Linux upgrade."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use Linode for our company website. We run a pretty large knowledge base on the site for our products. We also use it for our order email processing. All that's done on a Linode-based virtual machine.

How has it helped my organization?

The biggest result is that it performs very well. Our website is quite responsive. Our knowledge base, which has a search engine, is extremely responsive. We do email order processing as well and there has never been an issue with that. We look to it to process things essentially in real-time, perform well, and give users using our site a good experience. That's what we get from Linode.

What is most valuable?

The number one thing we like about Linode isn't necessarily a service, it's their support. We've found their support to be absolutely fantastic. They've been so outstanding with their support. Every single time we call them and we ask for advice or help, they go above and beyond and it's really made us appreciate what they do.

Linode offers a relatively small but well-focused set of cloud computing services. We've never been able to stump support with a question. My experience has been that they're very knowledgeable on the systems they run. When we call and ask for advice on configuring something or setting something up, even though that's not part of their mission, they still are always very helpful and get us up and running.

It is important to us that they also offer worldwide coverage via multiple data centers. Having multiple data centers not only gives them coverage for backing up data across the world so we know that our data is not necessarily just in one place but it can be backed up in several locations. In addition, as so many companies now are international, we can get better performance in different parts of the world by having data centers spread around.

What needs improvement?

It's not really an issue with Linode itself but upgrading Linux major versions can be challenging. It would be be fantastic if Linode developed a way to ease transitioning to a major new Linux upgrade.

Buyer's Guide
Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)
March 2025
Learn what your peers think about Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
841,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Linode since 2016.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's all cloud. We have monitors on our site that let us know if the site goes down for any reason, which would include Linode having a problem. I can only remember one instance where a network segment went out. This occurred years ago. We had a little bit of downtime but they were on it and fixed it quite quickly. Linode is extremely reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

They make it very easy to add additional services if we need to. It could be either additional nodes or moving to another node that has more space, more memory, or whatever it is we want. There are quite a few offerings and they're pretty easy to set up. If we ever need to do that, it's certainly there waiting for us.

How are customer service and support?

We can call Linode and immediately be connected with someone who's very knowledgeable.

How was the initial setup?

We found the initial setup to be pretty straightforward. They have a fantastic set of documentation that will guide you through setting up almost anything. Between that, and then if something's not clear, you reach out to support who are very helpful. It's really pretty straightforward.

The setup took less than a month, and that was moving from dedicated hardware on a completely different type of Linux over to the Linode on a newer version of a different flavor of Linux. It took less than 30 days.

What about the implementation team?

We did the deployment ourselves but we got advice along the way from Linode.

What was our ROI?

We have definitely seen a ROI. The cost of running on virtual services, like Linode, is so much less than running on dedicated hardware.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is quite good. We are paying a fraction of what we did when we were running on actual hardware, where we had a machine dedicated just to us. Their pricing is quite competitive from what I've seen.

Their pricing model is straightforward. From looking at their pricing page, it's pretty simple to figure out what it's going to cost.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did evaluate other solutions on the surface. Although, at the time, we had a referral. Someone else that we knew quite well was using Linode and really liked it, so that gave Linode an edge. There are definitely other good providers out there. Linode's support was so overwhelmingly good that that's really what convinced us that we made a good choice.

What other advice do I have?

My advice would be to reach out to Linode, ask questions, and get comfortable with how they're going to support you moving over there. Check out their documentation, which is excellent. That will enable it to be a very smooth transition. They seem to be very willing to help people, even upfront. That would be the way I would do it.

I would rate Linode a ten out of ten. 

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Operations Management Specialist at ACS Technologies Ltd.
Real User
The cost is more affordable compared to other cloud solutions
Pros and Cons
  • "Service availability is the most valuable feature. It gives every user 100 percent uptime."
  • "Right now, they don't have multiple data centers. They have limited data centers. I am currently using the Singapore and Mumbai data centers, but I am looking for data centers in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. They need to improve the availability of their data centers and partnership engagements with cloud Panda solution providers, like us."

What is our primary use case?

I am using Linode for our cloud platform to host our enterprise solutions.

What is most valuable?

Service availability is the most valuable feature. It gives every user 100 percent uptime.

It is like in a single store for cloud solutions, which is important for us.

What needs improvement?

Right now, they don't have multiple data centers. They have limited data centers. I am currently using the Singapore and Mumbai data centers, but I am looking for data centers in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. They need to improve the availability of their data centers and partnership engagements with cloud Panda solution providers, like us.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It does not require maintenance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It takes two to three minutes to upgrade my plans or downgrade my services.

Right now, three of us are working on this server to manage things. However, our user base is around two million.

How are customer service and technical support?

I sent two or three tickets for support, but I have gotten the appropriate resolutions. I would rate the support as a nine out of 10. They could improve the response time compared to AWS. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used AWS before Linode. 

Right now, we have four to five accounts. We are also closing our subscriptions with AWS, GCP, and Azure to save costs.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. In less than 30 minutes, I can set up my server and VM.

What was our ROI?

You save on your private or public cloud costs when using Linode.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Compared to other service providers, like AWS and Google, the cost of services are much less and more affordable. We are saving about 90 percent by going with Linode versus other cloud providers.

We didn't require any knowledge to host our enterprise applications on Linode. If you want to go with AWS, you need to learn their ecosystem first.

I also tried DigitalOcean. Linode is better than DigitalOcean. Linode is better in terms of creating and updating VMs. 

What other advice do I have?

Even though they don't have many data centers across the globe, the speed has been good. With the help of the CDN, the speed has been good. It has a good user interface. Also, the community documentation is good.

I would rate this solution as a nine out of 10.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode)
March 2025
Learn what your peers think about Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
841,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Software Engineer with self employed
Real User
Easy to use, well documented, good support that is responsive
Pros and Cons
  • "I very much like the support that you get, and I think that it's excellent."
  • "It would be helpful if they offered a service where they handle the Linux security."

What is our primary use case?

I used to work as a software engineer for many years and when I retired, I wanted to carry on writing software. I wanted to work on my own vanity projects, rather than anything commercial. My particular interest and hobby is traditional music, so I wanted to develop tools, such as browser applications, websites, and so forth to help people learn and to promulgate traditional music. I needed a server for that, so I decided to use Linode.

I am using a cloud platform that is running Linux.

How has it helped my organization?

My main benefit is that I did not want to maintain my own server. Rather, I wanted to rent server space. In particular, I didn't want to do any of the administrative tasks because it's really boring and I'd have to take care of things like upgrading the physical hardware. It's been eight years now, and I just don't want to do that.

Linode is running virtual machines on relatively high-performance racks and because they actually are upgrading their racks quite regularly, all that's done for me. It's wonderful.

What is most valuable?

I very much like the support that you get, and I think that it's excellent.

I like that the virtual servers are kept up-to-date and they apply security patches immediately. They're very forthcoming when they need to tell you that there's going to be some downtime.

The fact that they offer a small set of computing services is very important for me because I don't want anything extended. I only require basic Linux facilities, and nothing else.

Having worldwide coverage is quite important because they've got their American datacenter, but they also have a good datacenter in London. This is the one that I use because it's more local, and I prefer to have a local server than to have to use an American one. It's well resourced, and they have a lot of computing power there. Also, I've had no problems with it.

What needs improvement?

It would be helpful if they offered a service where they handle the Linux security. Securing your own server is very difficult when you think of denial of service attacks, man in the middle attacks, and other such threats. They have documented it really well, and the documentation is very good, but I struggle to maintain a really secure server because I just don't have the expertise. If there were help available that could be provided, I would definitely pay for it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Linode for between eight and nine years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I've had my service continually up for eight years with only very tiny outages, which they have warned me about because of upgrades. The upgrades are done very quickly, so I would say that I've had 99.999% availability in eight years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is not an issue for me because I've got a very tiny application with a very small number of users. As far as I understand, scalability is very good, but I don't really need it.

At this point, I don't plan to extend my reach. I've got enough capacity and processing power in this server to do everything that I want to do.

How are customer service and technical support?

Whenever I've contacted support, I've always been connected with somebody in America and I've always had a very good response from them. I'm not sure how they are set up, but it seems that they're always available. I have only needed to contact them a few times.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward, apart from the security, which I find very difficult.

It takes me quite a long time to spin up an environment because I'm not using Kubernetes or Docker or any of these kinds of tools. I do everything very slowly, manually using FTP. It took me about a month to set it up to the point where I was happy with it. This is not a criticism of Linode. Rather, just because I'm operating as one person on my own, I don't have the infrastructure to do this sort of thing with a pre-packaged solution. Instead, I have to do it the hard way.

What about the implementation team?

As a managed solution, they provide the documentation, good IT support, and upgrade the kernel when it needs to be done.

What was our ROI?

ROI is not applicable because it's entirely a vanity project and I'm not being paid for it. It's just for the little community that I am involved with.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I like the level of resources that you get for the price that you pay and feel that it's good value for the money. I pay just over £20 per month and have done so ever since I started eight years ago, which to me is good value.

The pricing model is very simple for what I want, and I've never actually looked at their pricing model in any depth. As far as my own limited view is concerned, it's very simple.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I did not evaluate other options before choosing Linode. I looked around to see what solutions the people I respect were using, and I copied them.

What other advice do I have?

Other than the issue with setting up my own Linux security, everything has been straightforward. What I'm contemplating doing, and the one thing that I will have to do at some stage is upgrading my version of Linux. I'm still running a very old version of Linux Ubuntu, as I had it installed when it was Ubuntu 14.

It is now Ubuntu 20, and I just don't want to go through the set of steps required to upgrade it. What I might do instead is rent another server, which is pre-installed with Ubuntu 20, and just reinstall what I need. It would be quicker for me to do that, as opposed to the laborious upgrade.

My advice for anybody who is considering Linode is that if you want to have a cloud solution, based just on the raw Linux platform, with nothing more and nothing less, then this is ideal. It is really simple and bare-bones, straightforward, very well documented, and very easy to use.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
AjeetJain - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Head Cloud computing & Cloud Security at Secure Network Solutions India Pvt Ltd
Reseller
Top 10
The tool is not stable and secure, though it enables users to scale up and down with ease
Pros and Cons
  • "We can scale up and down as we require."
  • "The product must improve its security."

What is our primary use case?

Our customers use the product for non-core critical applications, email applications, and for catering to internal IT teams.

What is most valuable?

The product is a simple, scalable Linux environment. We can scale up and down as we require. It fulfills all the basic requirements and functionalities that Windows Server fulfills.

What needs improvement?

The tool is not really stable and secure compared to Windows instances. The product must improve its security.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been reselling the solution for the past six years. We are selling the latest versions of the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the tool’s stability a five out of ten. We face challenges with large-scale deployments, integrations, and management from a single point. It requires a lot of customization.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the tool’s scalability a ten out of ten. Our clients are small, medium, and enterprise-level businesses.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good, but not up to the mark.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

I rate the ease of setup a ten out of ten. Most of the time, the product is deployed on the cloud because people use it for quick use. Some large enterprises also use on-premise services. The deployment takes a few minutes.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is neither cheap nor expensive.

What other advice do I have?

I've been reselling the services to various enterprise customers in South India. We sell it to customers with a public cloud requirement on AWS of a Linux instance. People can choose to use the product depending on their requirements. Overall, I rate the solution a five out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user
Founder and Developer at Little Bird Tales
Real User
Reliable stability and customer support, simple to use, easy to get started with and to scale
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the domain settings page."
  • "The suitability of this solution depends on the features that you need. If you're an Uber-sized company then you're probably not going to want to start using Linode. If you are a large-sized organization then you're going to want to start using one of the bigger providers that gives you the scalability and the feature set that you are probably going to be needing in the future."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Linode for hosting a website.

How has it helped my organization?

Linode has given us free upgrades as far as memory and storage space, so that helped us to be able to expand without any extra cost. Also, their support and stability have made us feel reliable.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the domain settings page.

The documentation is good.

I like the overall simplicity of their interfaces and their website. Everything worked as I expected and it's easier than I thought to get started with.

The stability and customer support have been very reliable.

What needs improvement?

The suitability of this solution depends on the features that you need. If you're an Uber-sized company then you're probably not going to want to start using Linode. If you are a large-sized organization then you're going to want to start using one of the bigger providers that gives you the scalability and the feature set that you are probably going to be needing in the future.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Linode for approximately 14 years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

They made it easy to upgrade the server to migrate to a bigger one very easily. Basically, there was no work on my end. I just had to choose a server to upgrade, then they automatically did it. That aspect was really good.

It is only me that works with the product. I have one server for the website and then I have another server for the database. At this point, I don't plan to increase my usage.

With respect to features, I see Linode as a better provider for smaller companies. I don't know how scalable they are compared to AWS, or whether they can scale with a faster-growing company.

How are customer service and technical support?

The support has always had a pretty fast turnaround, they have good security, and they are very descriptive in their documentation for the resolution of solutions or problems.

Support has exceeded my expectations versus AWS.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have also used AWS and I feel like if I had a problem, I don't have to worry about waiting for a response. This is unlike the case where I need help from AWS. With Linode, they have more personal support.

I have also worked with Google and Microsoft Azure. The large providers have a lot more features, compared to Linode. Linode is good if you just have a smaller setup or just need a few servers, but if you need to do something like offline storage, then AWS and Google have a lot of special features that not everybody needs. I see Linode as a solution for smaller companies.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. I recall reading the documentation on how to secure a server and getting set up was straightforward. They had really good documentation for that, so it was fairly easy to use. The deployment took about an hour.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The value for the price is really good.

The pricing model is simple compared to AWS, as you know how much you've got to pay every month.

My impression is that I save money compared to what I would pay for other cloud providers, although there is no way for me to approximate a dollar value. I pay the same amount each month and I don't have to worry about getting a surge of traffic and having to pay extra for it.

What other advice do I have?

My advice for anybody who is considering this service is to do their research, as it depends on what you need. They offer Linux in a way that's similar to DigitalOcean. Linode is one of those companies that's fairly easy to get started with, but if you have a bigger company or you're going to grow faster, you might need to consider a bigger provider. It just depends on your needs.

In summary, this is a very good product but nobody's perfect.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
CTO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
We are able to configure and deploy virtual machines on-the-fly, and the setup is straightforward compared to the big providers
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

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.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and technical support?

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.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
AliRaza4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate MERN Stack Web Developer at Bikter Tech
Real User
A low-cost solution, easy to deploy, has latency issues
Pros and Cons
  • "Linode has many other cloud servers across the globe."
  • "Our primary concern is always the latency."

What is our primary use case?

We have a product named StarBazaar, so we are using it for that. It is a B2B e-commerce platform.

What is most valuable?

Linode has many other cloud servers across the globe. We were hoping to get the fastest cloud services. 
The most valuable features are the speed and pricing which are comparatively less than Google Cloud and other clouds.

What needs improvement?

Our primary concern is always the latency. We were having latency problems for quite a few days now. The solution can improve by deploying better servers.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Sometimes the solution gets a little slower and sometimes it's out of coverage as well. That's the reason we lost some of our potential customers and I was searching for other clouds.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

For now, it's scalable for our product, but basically, we are moving towards bigger products so we want to have bigger servers and more storage.

How are customer service and support?

We haven't encountered any problems or issues on the server and have not required support.

How was the initial setup?

The solution is easier to use and easier to deploy. I give the deployment an eight out of ten for ease.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution has many plans. Currently, we are at $40 a month but they have costly solutions as well. We are on a shared server for now. 

I was just given the price for the solution and it was less than the other solutions on AWS and other servers.

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution seven out of ten.

We were hoping to get the fastest cloud services so that's the reason I was searching around for a better platform to deploy our application.

The faster the website is the more the customers stay on our website or the web applications, The higher the speed the more secure the network with the latest tools and technologies. So we were trying to move our team to some other cloud and learn new tech stack and technology.

Linode doesn't require maintenance but our apps require maintenance. We set up the server a year ago and are still using the same one.

For now, the solution is suitable for our enterprise but we are hoping to improve the servers and that is why we are looking at other options.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1511274 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Director at HMW Computing
Real User
Easy to set up and scale, cost-effective with a flexible pricing model
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are the simple scalability and ease of starting a new virtual machine."
  • "The only improvement in this aspect of the service which I can think of is perhaps a pool of developers who could be hired for those cases where the need goes beyond the support offered."

What is our primary use case?

The Linode servers we have are all running Ubuntu.

We have several client websites, including several with active eCommerce options, that act as large document management systems for academic journals.

For our own use, we have a major business wiki, which we use for project planning, ISO900 compliance, and contact management, etc.

For all the sites, we also run email services, which are so simple to set up that we don't charge our clients extra to use as many as they like. We offer a webmail system with calendars, address books, etc.

How has it helped my organization?

Putting everything onto Linode has streamlined what we do, but with minimal risk, as we have a "clone" virtual server ready for action. We have developed scripts that make the monitoring and maintenance of the Linode virtual machines very easy, with statistics and other reports regularly emailed to a support desk throughout the day. Often, we know of any issues before the clients have noticed.

We don't make use of Linode's own backup, as we have overnight jobs that use SFTP to download essential data to a RAID array on our local network. However, we also use the Linode servers themselves as off-site storage for data generated on our local machines.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the simple scalability and ease of starting a new virtual machine. Before we kept a backup, we did damage to an existing installation. We created a new machine and had the basic services back up within a short time. Now, we keep a powered-down server as a hot backup, although this does mean that we occasionally have to power it up for updates. We are looking at means of simplifying this task.

The procedures to upgrade between Linux versions are reasonably simple, but those could be a result of using Ubuntu rather than being specific to Linode.

What needs improvement?

The support service and knowledge articles supplied by Linode are very comprehensive but inevitably there are situations where a user, particularly is a "newbie" is left on his or her own.

The only improvement in this aspect of the service which I can think of is perhaps a pool of developers who could be hired for those cases where the need goes beyond the support offered. Offering this as a service would enhance the product.

All of our servers have been configured and upgraded by our own staff, which has been a good training exercise, although at times on very tight schedules when a little guidance would have helped. I do realize this is beyond the normal remit of support, which is why I am suggesting a separate pool. Perhaps Linode could approve third-party providers and take a commission of the work provided?

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Linode for more than seven years.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did use another solution prior to this, but the provider was forced to close down. It was a small organisation and didn't have the proper resources to upgrade all of its equipment when needed. The effort of maintaining a mixed server room proved too much. In fact they recommended that I moved to Linode after they announced they eventual termination of their service. 

How was the initial setup?

All of it is very easy to install.

What about the implementation team?

We have an in-house team for deployment and maintenance. They are responsible for the configuration and upgrades.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing is very good and flexible, according to the resources required.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did evaluate other products, however, at this remove, I cannot remember the alternatives that we looked at.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Updated: March 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.