Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) Reviews

My use case for Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) involves using the servers, specifically for servers.

I am using the virtual server from Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode). I have more than one virtual server and use it for my own purposes. This is the main service I am using.

I use the backup features as my main benefit from Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode), and since my business is small, I don't need more than this. I don't use load balancing here.

I do not have any claims or complaints about the security features such as DDoS protection and encryption protection from Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode), and I am adding my own security features here.

I am not satisfied with the customization options from Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) because I still haven't tried any new capabilities provided by them yet. I am still keeping it as a virtual server because it is consistent and my business is stable using it. I didn't try the new features.

The main improvement I would like to see from Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) is the ability to duplicate the server as it is and initialize a new one with the same features. This is my main need, and I think this feature was published a few months ago, but I am not sure of this. I may often need to replicate the server and initiate a new one for some business and drop it again.

I have been working with Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) for around 15 years.

I do not have any complaints regarding stability or options for improvement in Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode). Things are stable, so I don't think there are improvements I need yet.

My business is small, so I didn't need to use any load balancing between my nodes for Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode).

For my usage, which is a small business, I rate the scalability of Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) around nine or ten. I haven't used the scalable load balancing, so I cannot evaluate that properly.

I didn't need to contact technical support for Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) except for one time, and they were very responsive to my issue.

Positive

The setup process for Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) is simple.

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) provides many features for server setup, but I didn't try them because my business is old and I just need to replicate the same features.

I began with Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) and had a look at Google and Amazon, but I still use Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode). For my small business, I didn't see any feature that may be better in those cloud services.

I have no comments regarding products to compare with Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode).

I use Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) as virtual servers, so I didn't automate any processes. I may increase or decrease the capability of the servers according to my business needs, but I didn't use any other features.

I do not install each feature separately for each server from scratch. I have my script, and this is what I did before when I needed to initiate a new Linode, new empty Linode server, virtual server, and run my script which is ready for me.

I have to run the script for each server individually.

I do not have to run the script from scratch each time; I just use my script when I initiate a new Linode server.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) a ten.

Neutral

I usually have no new system install issues.

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) is cheaper. The features are convenient with the console. Security is valuable, as I think all of the service is safe.

I would rate the use of the solution as one to ten.

The solution is stable.

I rate support as eight. They are responsive, but I need to wait for a moment.

Positive

I hope Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) cannot show my company name on the website.

I use a virtual machine. The speed is good. I would rate how easy it is to use as ten. My general rating for Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) is ten. Everything is nice. My overall review rating is ten.

We are using Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) in a BPO company, particularly within the IT department. Our primary usage involves virtualization and cloud management.

The most valuable features are the use of the virtual machine, the backup, and restore capabilities. Additionally, the suggestion firewall is useful. Reliability and scalability are other positives, although we haven't fully tested scalability. Overall, Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) is easy to use and has a fair price, making it accessible and straightforward, which is crucial when compared to other complex solutions.

The main area for improvement is the lack of a backup feature to the local hard disk or storage. It would be beneficial if Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) could add this feature.

I have been using the solution for two years.

So far, the stability of Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) has been good.

We have not needed to test scalability yet, so it's challenging to determine. However, based on research and existing knowledge, it should be good.

We initially used AWS and later evaluated Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) as an additional option. Now, we use both AWS and Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode).

The setup is easy, friendly, and straightforward to use. I would rate it nine point five out of ten for setup simplicity.

The pricing is reasonable, although I don't recall the exact cost as I need to check the bills.

We evaluated AWS before deciding to use Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) in addition to AWS.

I recommend Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) for its ease of use and fair pricing. It's easier to understand and operate compared to other solutions with numerous options like AWS. I would rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Positive

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.

The solution is neither cheap nor expensive.

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.

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

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.

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.

I have been using the solution for one year.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Linode is a service that hosts virtual machines for you.

It is important to me that Linode offers a small, but well-focused set of cloud computing services, and there are two reasons. I've got a lot of choices because you can do a lot of things with Linode, but the core of what they offer is the ability to host your own cloud.

The size of the applications that you can use is significant. For example, you can run some massive infrastructure through Linode if you need to. The focused set of services is important because if you compare with Amazon, for example, they have AWS cloud, and it has a lot of things that get really very confusing. I understand technology, but I'm a business person more than a technologist. So, for me, the fact that they're focused means that they are working on the latest technology.

They are also practical and don't just use a component because it's there. They've got specific paths, such as migration paths, and they understand what I call fundamental IT. They understand that very well and it's invaluable. For example, one time I had to contact support because someone on my end deleted something. I phoned them at two o'clock in the morning to open a support ticket and a human being answered the phone. They said, "Oh yeah, no, we can do that. All done." Ten minutes later, the problem was resolved and life was fine. Essentially, they understand the practicalities of IT the way it should be in terms of the fundamentals. This is something that a lot of people don't understand.

An example that I'm thinking of is where you have a large call center that is located somewhere else in the world and people don't speak English, which is always a problem. They've got scripts that they go through and based on what you describe, they try to tell you the problem or ask you more questions. You'll be forced to go through a poor process, whereas Linode doesn't do that. Linode is just human beings who are IT literate, for want of a better word, dealing with you at every step of the way. That's important.

To me, it's very important that they haven't lost their focus, even though their capabilities seem to have expanded quite a lot.

Another way that Linode has improved the way my organization functions is that I don't have to have the physical infrastructure, anywhere. This means that I can work from anywhere in the world with the same infrastructure. Whether I'm in the United Kingdom, whether I'm in South Africa, whether I'm in Costa Rica, makes no difference. This is a massive advantage.

Many people think that because it's the web, and it's all-pervasive, it is just "old hat". But to have infrastructure that you can access from anywhere is absolutely brilliant. So, that's one area.

I used to host all my own stuff but I've gotten to the point now where I think I've got one server in-house, and that is full of what I call pet projects. I don't even know if I've got backups of that.

On the topic of backups, human beings don't like doing them. Also, IT people set backups and never look at them again. At least at Linode, you choose their backups and you know you've got three backups a day that you could fall back on, in the worst case. It's brilliant for me from that point of view.

Because of the ease of use, I can offer it to more clients. It's a doorway for me to customers where maybe I would have had to have a much more technical staff. As it is now, I don't have to, and it's not a deal-breaker. The customer is not saying that I don't have a server expert because I do. It's Linode.

In terms of helping me to accelerate innovation, Linode has got a whole bunch of storage options now. They've got features where you can attach data in different ways, which is something that they have addressed in the past couple of years. You can have Amazon buckets, as well as other clever things. I don't know whether they were the first to support or offer things in this way, but they definitely made the accessibility to some of these more obscure storage options easier. If you want to attach to an S3 bucket, it's always been quite a challenge, whereas with Linode, you just put in your credentials and it'll attach to the bucket for you. From that point of view, I see them changing the underlying technology constantly because you see the upgrades as they come through. Without even having a strategy to remain on top of things, Linode has enabled that for me.

If I want to fire up anything that is attached to any of the common data types, it's not a difficult thing to do at all because that is what they're doing. For example, I've just seen something new on their site, which is called a cloud firewall. It's in beta testing. So, looking around, I can see that there's going to be a new service that they're going to add back on top of all of that. It means that if I've got a cloud firewall, I don't have to worry about other firewalls on my machines. I just stick them all behind one firewall. This means one setup, one cost, etc. That's innovation for you because, one, they're making life easier for me. I don't have to set up a whole bunch of things. Secondly, they make a new income stream for themselves, which is brilliant.

The ability to fire up a virtual machine, use it, and then kill it, is quite a valuable feature for me. They have a lot of startup scripts, I think they are called stack scripts, whereby you can install something at a click of a button. For instance, you can install a whole server at the click of a button. Linode gives the users a lot of control.

Another thing that I use quite a lot is their documentation. They have documentation on how to perform tasks and often, I use that to educate a client on how to do something or on how to maintain something, et cetera. This is because a lot of customers are used to simpler systems like an iPhone, where if you want an app then you just download it from a store, press a button and it installs, or press a button and it updates.

The truth of the matter is that with servers and things like that, whilst people like the push button idea, it's a lot more complex than that. With these stack scripts, the people at Linode have thought about all of the things that a new user would not think about. They do all of that stuff and then walk you through it, and that's where Linode's documentation is really good. They walk you through what you have to do to secure a server, what you have to do to run a patch, or whatever.

They've got all those sorts of knowledge bases of information, which I think is invaluable, especially for clients who are uneducated in these things.

It's extremely important to me that Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centers, for various reasons. One is that because we live in this global world, our customers are everywhere. Secondly, for people who need geo-redundancy, with for example a server in China and one elsewhere as a backup, it's great.

It's also nice because if they were just US-based, I wouldn't be able to use them because I would need to go through a whole process of trying to certify the data integrity in other regions. I'm sure that most people wouldn't bother with this because of all of the EU laws and the UK laws around data privacy.

The US's data privacy laws are far more relaxed than what they are on my side of the world. The fact that I can have a server in London means that I don't have to bother with all of that. My physical location of that server is in London and to me, it is really important.

When you compare Amazon, they claim to have infrastructure all over the place but I think that the bulk is centered in Germany. Even if it is in a few different places, everything gets backed up to the US, which is a problem for a lot of people.

Before they changed the dashboard, I found some of the more granular options easier to find. However, it was just a matter of getting used to the new interface.

I have been working with Linode for more than 10 years, since 2009.

I've got two use cases. The first one is that I use Linode to host my own personal servers that host programs and software. Some of the applications are things like firewalls, et cetera. Any offsite technology infrastructure that I need, I use Linode for.

My second use case is that when I provide my customers with solutions that are cloud-based, where it is customized software, websites, or something else that they want control over, I spin up a Linode for them and then hand it over to the customer. I'm constantly giving Linode new customers as I provide people with solutions. I normally spin the Linode up myself and then pass it on to the client. Once my relationship with that customer is over and my side is fulfilled, they continue a relationship with Linode as their infrastructure provider.

That said, the main objective is not to resell their product. What I'm doing is I'm including Linode as the hosting infrastructure in the solutions that I sell. This allows people to have a virtual machine in the cloud at a very reasonable price. For example, a lot of people use that for their bespoke websites, membership sites, or for hosting other services.

Our company makes some bespoke software for the music industry, for example, whereby they can manage contracts and things like that. When people purchase this, instead of giving them a physical machine in the office, I give them a Linode machine and my software is on that, which is how Linode gets bundled along with everything else.

I don't make any money on top of the Linode service. Rather, I just say to the customer, "You've got to pay Linode $20 or whatever it is a month to carry on using Linode." At that point, they say, "Absolutely," because they've got backups and all of the good stuff without any of the downsides, for literally a tenth, or in some cases a hundredth of the price compared to having to do it on their own site.

The overall stability is brilliant. I don't think I've ever had downtime that I wasn't in control of, for upgrades as an example. I don't think I've ever had an outage. 

There have been some DNS problems once or twice, but not a single one of my clients phoned me and said, "Hey, this is not working."

I use Linode daily. The machines serve all of my websites, some of my client's websites, some of my user applications, and some of my knowledge base stuff. I've got customers who've got critical data, such as their financial data stored on Linode. To me, Linode is like having your coffee in the morning or breathing. It is integral.

I think that if I had to do something massive, it would be easy. Scalability-wise, if you've got the money, the sky's the limit with them. I'm guessing that if you were to try and buy some of their massive offerings, GPUs, which are $4,000 a month, I'm guessing that'll take a little bit of time to set up, but I may be wrong because I've never done that.

Basically, if I look at the options that they have, you can move from anything from a tiny one-gig configuration to something that's got 125 gigabytes or 200 gigabytes of memory. That's ridiculous. There is more RAM than you've got hard-disk storage in some cases.

There are also a lot of articles that help people. If you want redundancy, for example, you're going to go and have a look and see, "Okay, that's how I do that.", and then you've learned something. That's the beauty of it, is that they're not like all these proprietary people, everything's under a hat and you don't know until you pay your money. They're quite open about everything.

I have customers who use Linode, but I am the only person in my organization who uses it at the moment. I have one other software developer who has access to it. At the moment I've got one machine on Linode, which I've just recently made slightly smaller. It runs about 40 or 50 websites and web applications for myself and for some of my clients.

Every time I get a new project, I fire up a new Linode. I use it for as long as I need it for the project and then I kill it again. So as soon as I get my next customer, I'll be adding another Linode to my account.

My current Linode that's running now, I recently down-scaled because a lot of customers have moved away, and also, we're trying to save money wherever we can. I didn't have to go to Linode and explain that I was suffering because COVID has taken away some of the customers. Rather, I went onto my dashboard, selected to make it smaller, and they warned me to ensure that I had taken care of three steps first. I went ahead and took care of the one that I hadn't done, and the other two were not applicable to me.

Once that was complete, I pressed the button and my Linode was half the cost in less than 10 minutes. I have got control of everything that I do. If at the end of next month things are back to normal, then I'll press the button and double my usage again. I expect that I'll be adding customers to it after that. In the meantime, I have the freedom to do what I want and I'm not captured by any sort of contract. I trust the people at Linode explicitly.

Linode has 24/7, no-tiered human customer support, and its flexibility and overall responsiveness are why I don't use the other major providers. They are very responsive and are quite happy to listen to what you have to say, rather than trying to rush you through the process. You get a very real and very human interface, even with their email systems and through their ticketing systems. All of that appears to be very considered and it appears to be unique to you. You're not just getting a knowledge base thrown at you and told, "Go and sort through that and figure out what's going on."

I also have some experience with Amazon AWS, and it is more complex than Linode. I know a little bit about the AWS pricing, where they bill according to time, at perhaps the millisecond level. I did use them in the early days but I got burned a few times where I suddenly had a bill of $1,000 when I didn't even realize that the machine was on. Amazon was quite unforgiving, at least in those days, about such things.

Linode, on the other hand, has a maximum cap that you can pay. If you use less, you pay less. I think that they're quite smart in that they worked out that cap quite well because you never really pay much less than that. It's a fixed price and whoever did those calculations has done them well.

I have no idea how much I have saved over the years by choosing Linode, but just from a management point of view, no one's time is spent having to double-check how much your bill's going to be all the time. I would estimate that would be one or two hours, of someone who knows what they're doing, a month having to do that. If you take a support person, earning, for example, $5,000 to $8,000 per month, if you consider what two hours of the month would cost, that's probably the cost of the savings. If you manage these things properly, obviously, you can keep the costs the same. Honestly, I haven't put much thought into it or wondered if anybody had better pricing because Linode does everything that I need, nicely.

Generally speaking, as I have been a customer of Linode for a long time, I don't have a lot of experience with other cloud providers. I don't even bother with them. But, I can tell you from seeing customers that have had other providers that I've got absolutely no problems with response time, in comparison.

I don't ever run anything that's mission-critical to the point where I need support in five minutes with someone. I don't have anything like that. None of my customers do because we build our systems so that there's redundancy. If something goes down, it's much like having a backup for your electricity. It doesn't really matter if it's down 5% or 2%, because you've got a backup.

That's the same with the way that we design solutions for our customers and for ourselves. If Linode does go down, normally, they're not down for long. When I say not for long, it's minutes. They communicate well and for the maintenance they do, they let you know months in advance. So, it's only your own fault if you suddenly find yourself caught in a situation where you're not prepared. Ultimately, they've got a very good balance and I think that they have got a very good future.

An example of this is that one of my machines needed to be moved to Tucson. It was a virtual machine that needed to be moved to some other hardware, which is a process that they said could take up to two hours. They said to me, if you do nothing, we're going to move it in April or whenever it was, but you can click here and move it at your convenience. I know when the US is not so busy because I'm half awake when they're still sleeping, so I pressed the button one morning and it took less than 20 minutes to move.

My machine was back up and running. Nobody knew, in terms of my users, that it had even happened. So, their response times and their options, because they allow you to manage so much yourself, are great. It's a very good balance between moving forward and balancing that with the needs of the customer.

Linode is a virtual machine, so I'm often setting them up for the first time. I have images that I set up to be Linode in a particular format, and I can run them by hitting a button that says Deploy New Linode. It asks me what size, where, I press a button and it deploys that machine that I had deployed two years ago, exactly the same way. It means that if you're doing repetitive stuff, you shouldn't have to be doing it from scratch every time. You can just make an image and deploy your Linode from it. They've really made it quite easy.

Setting up a Linode from scratch is child's play. It's literally easier than updating your iPhone. But, it's what you have to do after that you need to consider. Depending on your choice of what you want to do, such as installing Ubuntu or some other software, that's where the complexity comes in. However, that's not Linode's issue. That's an issue with whatever it is you're doing.

The actual acquisition of a machine takes just minutes. I've got six questions to answer and when I press that button that says create, it takes approximately a minute and then you've got a machine that has an operating system installed. It's a basic operating system, whatever you choose, and a root password. It is at this point when the complications start because that's when you then have to do all the stuff that you do to set up a machine, but that's not a Linode function. That's a user function.

For what I do, if I start from scratch, without my pre-installed stuff, it could take me anything from 15 minutes for a basic system to about four hours for a complicated one. But, that's after the Linode set up. For example, setting up a Laravel dev environment probably takes me about three minutes, because I just pop an image and I say, "Deploy this image," and it just goes and does it. If you take a look at their marketplace, they've got apps that you can use to set up various machines.

In the marketplace, there are apps available to help you set up a cloud server, an open VPN, Jenkins, LAMP, or anything. You just say, "This is what I want," and that script runs for you. Another example is Minecraft; if you want the Java edition of Minecraft, you can go and set that up and it'll take you five minutes. Any customer can do this and you don't have to be a tech guru.

It is tough to determine what my return on investment is. I think there's a cost benefit more than a return on investment. When you look at an organization in terms of infrastructure setup, I've had a much lower cost than I would have, had I used the traditional bare metal or hardwired approach.

Compared to a traditional method with a server, plus someone running it, and all of the administration that comes with it, my cost savings are literally a hundredfold or a thousandfold. Moreover, without Linode, I probably wouldn't have been able to offer some of the services to some of the markets that I have in the past because of the pricing.

The monthly cost depends on your requirements.

The pricing is absolutely spot on. I think whoever thought about how their pricing should work and how their sizing should work, clearly understands the use case of their customers. I'm a tiny customer of theirs, but, I'm loyal to them because they constantly deliver and they do things that make sense.

I'm not paying any more now than I was paying in 2009. As a matter of fact, I think I'm probably paying less now than I was then, yet I've probably got 20 or 30 or 40 times larger resources available to me. Every time they upgrade their infrastructure, they don't say, "Oh, we've got new equipment, now we're going to charge you more." Instead, they say that they will carry on charging you the same or less, yet, we have better stuff for you. That is just a good business model, which has stood them in good stead.

Because I am such a happy customer, it is difficult to point to an area that is in need of improvement. I've not had a use case, and none of my customers have said, "Oh, we would have loved to have used Linode, but they don't do X." What they do is more than adequate for what I need. In my view, you'd have to go a long way to find something. I don't use the API, although I've seen a lot of documentation on it. I'm guessing that the API is an area where people would want different accessibilities, but I don't know enough about that to be able to comment.

They changed the dashboard quite a while back, but there was a while when you could switch between the classic and new one. The classic one had some different granularity, which was nice, but I've now found that with the new one. It had looked like some of that granularity had gone away, but it's just in other places. Ultimately, it was just a matter of getting used to what it looked like.

I think the new interface is more modern-looking and probably a little more user-friendly. However, when you've used something for a long time and then it changes, you think, "Oh, what's going on?" But I've not found myself sitting and wondering what is happening in different parts of the solution. I would say that now, it's fine.

Quite a while ago, they moved away from one particular underlying technology that is used for the virtualization of machines. There are two types of virtualization, and they moved from one to the other. I'm not sure of the details but there was a massive improvement as a result. I could tell because I only moved some of my machines at the time, and left some of them on the first platform. There was a noticeable difference and it was big. Whatever they did in terms of the backend of their virtualization, when they moved from one of the main ones to a better one, that was a good move.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using Linode is that you can be human and still provide a good service. I don't know anybody in the company and I don't particularly follow any of their leaders, they're not even on my radar. That said, every single interaction I've had with Linode has always had all of my core values in there. Integrity is an important one.

I find that often with tech companies, they lose humanness for the sake of efficiency, or other reasons. Banks have also lost it. A lot of people have lost that human touch and whilst I don't think Linode in any way have ever said, "Oh, we're the company with a human touch.", I can tell you that they definitely, you can feel the love and the fact that people know what they're doing and they care about what they're doing.

My advice for anybody who is thinking about using Linode is to know what you want, and if you don't know what you want, ask Linode because they'll know what you want. Often with these sorts of things, you tend to do your research first and then go to a vendor and ask them, based on your research, what you want. I would be very comfortable suggesting to any customer of mine that they ask Linode.

I am confident that they are not going to try and figure out how much you can afford and then nail you with that. They'll give you the options. They're very transparent. That way, you end up buying what you need as opposed to buying what someone's trying to sell you or what someone thinks you need.

In summary, Linode is a good product and I love them.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

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.