Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) Reviews

We're a software company that uses a 1980s American product called Appgen, as an application generator. We've got accounting, finance materials, and information packages running under Appgen and we have a number of hospitals in Victoria, Australia using that for their finances. They tend to run on SCO Unix or UnixWare, but our own version of it, which we use for developing is SUSE Linux.

We've got an in-house virtual machine running there, but I was concerned about backup. My original reason for choosing Linode was it was an affordable Linux cloud node system that could run both Fedora and SUSE Linux.

I just chose on those grounds initially and we didn't do much else with it. But in fact, one of the services that we provide is called Medicare Online, for the Australian government health billing service. In this system, doctors and hospitals bill patients and then claim the expenses back from the government. That's been running the product's security system. Moving on to the web services, I thought when we started developing them, we'll try using Linode.

I think it's very affordable and although my initial intention was just to use it as a backup, I'm mirroring our machine with it. When we go ahead and develop the web services interface, we'll use Linode to do it.

The company got a lot more out of Linode than I expected. I thought that I was just buying a cloud-based backup, but I'm getting much more than that. I'm getting a really good Linux with technical support.

Essentially, the fact that we're developing web services interfaces and it is all fully supported, is 

Given our business model, it is very important that Linode offers a focused set of cloud computing services because it means that we can then mirror our software in the cloud. When we do want to do things like developing web service interfaces then the environment is available. We chose SUSE Linux but we could have chosen Fedora. They offer quite a number of Linux solutions.

Initially and at this point, the fact that Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centers is not important to us. However, our software is becoming obsolete and when they finally stop using it, we'll offer an archive, online inquiry for them. At that point, it will be an important feature.

We have accessed it using SSH on a number of different platforms and it works every time.

When it comes to marketing and exposure, Linode needs improvement because I just randomly found them by looking for Linux solutions. If we're in a position where we were trying to persuade our users to put their archive inquiries on to Linode, then perhaps their low profile might be a problem.

We have been using Linode for approximately four years.

Stability-wise, it is very good. It has never shown any sign of anything wrong and has never run out of space. We had one runaway process which was our fault and they reported it to us.

For the environment that we are in, it's scalable. However, I haven't really tested it or pushed it hard enough to be sure about the scalability.

Initially, we didn't have Apache running on Linode. I thought that it was a bit of a Hail Mary, but I asked for their assistance because I was having a bit of trouble loading it. To my surprise, considering the cost of the service, the assistance is not only prompt, but they're very good, very professional.

By contrast, we use Google for our email services, and they're nowhere near as good when you want technical support.

As far as I can tell, their support is available 365, 24/7. The one time I asked for support, I got it very quickly and correctly.

I don't know enough about major cloud providers apart from Google Drive. But if you're someone that is working with Linux, it's very good. You can choose which Linux you want and it's a fully implemented version of it, but I haven't tested it against other providers.

The exception might be that Gmail handles the email and I think Linode is far more satisfactory, and much less expensive too.

Using the instructions they gave us, we were given a choice in various things of Linux that we wanted to load and we chose SUSE because we knew that our software would work on that. 

It was fairly straightforward. Without really knowing much about it, it was up and running in half a day. It worked the way it was meant to work, relatively easily.

I deployed it myself and I am the primary administrator.

Linode's pricing model is very simple. When we started with the service, the cost was approximately €5 per month.

Considering the support response, uptime, and price, I find that the price to performance ratio is excellent.

I didn't really look at other options before choosing Linode. I was looking for a cloud-based backup service of our Linux system and it was called Linode, and it seemed to do all that and it worked for us.

Given that it only cost €5 per month, it wasn't a big risk so I decided to try the service. After that, I didn't feel the need to try anything else.

Generally speaking, I have not found any faults using Linode. For what we wanted, they provided a complete solution. We're running older versions of SUSE Linux, and when I wanted to download it and start using features, it was all available.

We are not using Linode to the full extent of its capabilities, mainly because we're just using it to back up our in-house Linux. I estimate that we are using only 5% of what it can do. Certainly, for what we're trying to do, which is to copy our backups every night and reinstall them on the mirrored machine, it does it very easily and very quickly.

I'm not sure that Linode supports Unix as distinctly as Linux. Certainly, I haven't tested that, but if it supported SCO Unix solutions as well as Linux, that would make it easier for us. It may well come up in the next year that we want to migrate customers that are running Unix, not Linux.

My advice for anybody who is considering this service is that if their software runs under Linux and they are a Linux solution provider then I would recommend it without hesitation. It supports all of the main flavors of Linux.

Starting to use this product, I didn't have to learn anything because I followed the instructions, chose my version of Linux to install, and everything worked the first time. My only snag was trying to install web services in Apache and I had to ask them for help, but the help came very quickly and was correct.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I have been using Linode since 2016.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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. 

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.

I was using it primarily for virtual private servers. But recently they came out with the Kubernetes platform and most of what I do at my day job is Kubernetes engineering. I'm very familiar with it. I had wanted to switch all my personal projects over to Kubernetes, and it was really great when Linode finally came out with it. Now I'm using Linode for Kubernetes clusters. I still do hold some VPSs, but most of my stuff is on Kubernetes now. I don't use Linode at my day job. We use Azure for the same thing there, but I choose to use Linode for all my personal projects.

I like it because it gives me scalability but, that's true of Kubernetes in general. But I do really like that it is consistent with all the stuff that I regularly do in my day job with Azure, using Kubernetes. It's nice that I can easily transfer that over to Linode using their Kubernetes.

Linode Kubernetes Engine is pretty great when it comes to the amount of Terraforming and manual integrations. Kubernetes does a great job of staying running and looking after itself. I find with VPSs that, every once in a while, something will go down and I will have to restart it manually. With Kubernetes, that tends to happen a lot less. I also find maintenance to be a lot easier.

When it comes to the Linode Kubernetes Engine and the amount of automation it provides, it's awesome, it's a game-changer. If a process randomly dies, it could take me a while to notice that it has died, if I haven't set up monitoring. With Kubernetes, it will just restart itself using Heartbeats.

In addition, the visibility that the Linode Kubernetes Engine provides is awesome. It's better than some of the other cloud providers', such as  Azure which is one I work with specifically. I find the Linode version to be a lot more user-friendly. It feels like the Linode interface is designed by someone who actually uses the product, whereas with Azure, it doesn't necessarily feel like that. It feels like some things are user-hostile.

Another feature that is quite helpful for setting up servers is the StackScripts. I've used it to set up game servers, previously. They have a library of instantiation scripts that will set up an environment for you on a VPS, from scratch, with one click. There's a pretty large library too, so that's quite handy.

And the fact that Linode offers a relatively small, but well-focused set of cloud computing services is the reason to go with Linode. What they do, they do well, and they're slowly adding stuff. They were a little bit late to the game on Kubernetes, but their Kubernetes is incredibly solid, in my experience so far. It feels very stable and well thought out.

It's also important that Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centers. I'm based around Toronto and they have a data center right in Toronto. It works very well for me. With other solutions, I often have to pick data centers in Chicago or the like.

One thing that I'd really like to see is auto-scaling node pools for their Kubernetes. I don't think that they have that. That's a huge one and would be very helpful. Specifically, what I would like is auto-scaling node pools that would scale down to zero nodes, which is tricky. That's very important for certain use cases. Azure does provide that functionality, although only recently, and it was quite buggy when Azure unreleased it.

I have been using Linode for about five years.

Linode is super-solid. I haven't really had any downtime in years. I may have had one drive failure, but that was a case where they just restarted it. They then sent me an email saying, "Hey, we had a drive failure. We've re-imaged, we've reloaded it from a backup and you're good to go now."

I haven't used Linode at scale, but I don't see any issues in being able to scale it, especially with Kubernetes. In addition, although I don't use them all that much, the NodeBalancers seem to be a well-thought-out solution for scaling.

If I could convert my whole company over to Linode, I would in a heartbeat. That's obviously a tough sell. Personally, I might use it slightly more in the future, but not on a significant scale. If I were to ever go off and start my own company though, I would totally use Linode.

Their support is great. It's probably the best support in the industry. I've barely had to deal with them because all their stuff is solid, but when I have interacted with them it has usually been them reaching out to me to let me know about an issue, rather than me reaching out to them. Usually it's them saying, "Hey, there was an issue, but it's fixed. We just wanted to let you know." That's pretty great.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. I was on Linode before I was a professional developer. I was on Google Cloud compute before I was on Linode, and I found the Google Cloud stuff to be incredibly complicated. Then I came to Linode and everything just started to make sense. The simplicity allowed me to build a lot of experience around server-hosting without getting bogged down at the door.

To some extent I have seen a return on my investment with Linode. The project that I have it's called Beerbase.ca, and it's a site that aggregates prices from the Ontario Beer Store. Here in Ontario, we have one company that handles all beer sales. My site crawls The Beer Store website daily, gets all the different prices, and then populates the database. Beerbase.ca displays them.

I haven't monetized the site, but the value that I get from it, is as a personal project, is that whenever I'm applying for jobs, it says a lot when I say, "Hey, this is my project that I've been running for years." People really like it. They think it's funny and it's gotten me in the door at just about every company that I've worked at. It has been the thing that has set me apart. The ROI there is huge, although it's intangible.

You could say that Linode has helped to accelerate innovation in beer pricing. I wouldn't say we're saving the world, but it's a fun, interesting project.

The biggest benefit of Linode is the pricing. It's the best deal in the business. When I look at the server bills from Azure compared to Linode, if I were to host a similar amount of stuff on Linode, it would just be a better deal, and it always has been. 

Another great aspect with Linode—and I don't know if they give this to everyone—is that they will often have discount codes, where you get $20 of free credit. That's the equivalent of four months of a Nanode (or nano node) which is the smallest server. That's incredible for getting something set up, and that is what initially got me onto Linode. Someone who I really respect was doing a sponsorship with Linode, but that person said he was using Linode even before he was sponsored by them. I thought, "Okay, I'll go give this a try. What do I have to lose? It's four months for free." But I never turned back. And even now, where I'm on Kubernetes and it would be trivial to switch providers, I have no intention of doing so.

I would recommend that people look at the Linode Kubernetes Engine because it allows you to better utilize all of the compute that you're paying for. With VPSs, you have to do a balancing game of having enough without paying for too much. But with Kubernetes, you can have all of your projects on one cluster and just add nodes as needed. That even improves the already good pricing from Linode.

Their pricing model is also very simple compared to Azure. I don't understand why Azure doesn't price things the way that Linode does. With Linode, it's very simple to get an idea of what something is going to cost you. By comparison, I regularly have to do estimates of pricing on Azure, and that is an exercise in futility. It's very complicated the way that Azure prices out their stuff.

That simplicity is very important to me because all of my personal projects are hosted on Linode. It does a very good job of giving you what you need quickly and getting out of the way; of not complicating things. It lets you just work on your thing so you can get it going quickly. With other cloud providers, there are all these configurations and "gotchas".

I save at least $100 a month with Linode. I don't host a lot there, but the Kubernetes clusters that I'd be looking at on Azure would be significantly more.

I tried Google Cloud, but I didn't really like it all that much. It was expensive and also quite complicated. I find Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud to all be a little bit over-complicated. Linode definitely feels like the best solution for someone who doesn't want to spend a lot of time dealing with their cloud provider. Sometimes it makes sense to go with Azure, especially if they're going to give you a ton of free credits to get you on their platform, in the startup stage. 

Linode's API is great, much better than the other providers' APIs. It's more convenient to use. I haven't used Linode's CLI, but I'm very happy to hear that they provide one.

For anyone who just wants a simple server host that does everything that the big companies do, but one where they actually care that their stuff is easy and convenient to use, and one whose pricing is good, Linode is definitely the way to go.

My advice to others who are considering using Linode would depend on what industry or what field they're in. I'm primarily a systems engineer and I end up being a cross between DevOps and a regular backend engineer. For anyone who is on that career path, it's invaluable to do a project and learn to use the tools before you're in the actual industry. It gives you a huge head start. Linode is definitely the best way to go about it because it teaches you the fundamentals and it's a lot more intuitive than the other providers. It will help you out when learning it. From there, when you start at a company, no matter what provider they're using, the fundamentals that you learned using Linode will definitely pay off. 

Don't hesitate to try it and check out the Kubernetes, because that is very in-demand right now.

I run a small company as well as my own personal website. I am using their cloud servers for managing websites and the web applications that I develop applications. So, I use Linode both for development and hosting public applications on my website. I also use their object storage to store things, like backups and files, which I want to keep for safekeeping, but not on my personal laptops. 

I have benefited from their flexibility, the object storage particularly. I know that I have almost unlimited capacity there. I don't have to provision loads of storage, keep buying loads of hard drives, etc. It is just there and usable.

The fact that you can do any Linux distribution is great. You can try out any Linux distribution, even some of the more obscure ones, and they are always keeping them up-to-date. As soon as a new distribution comes out, it is on the platform pretty much the same day, which I find really helpful.

The biggest room for improvement would be the object storage, bringing that to more data centres. At the moment, it's only in three of their many data centres.

They are already working on the firewalls and VLANs, which need improvement, and are now in beta. I am on the beta program for the firewalls, but I can't use it yet because they are only in Mumbai and Australia, and I am not in those data centres. This is the one thing that I have been waiting for almost since the day that I joined them, so it is nice that they are doing that. The VLANs will be an improvement as well, and I am keen and waiting for that. 

Another improvement would be on the server side, e.g., if they could support non-Linux OSs, like FreeBSD or even Windows. I heard a rumor that they might be looking at doing this. I understand that they have been focused on Linux their entire lifetime, so this would be a big change for them.

I found out about Linode in 2015. I used them for a couple of years, then I moved to another provider back in the UK. I came back to Linode in April 2019. So, I have been back with them for a couple of years, but I have always kept up with them within that time, helping out on the community and things like that.

It is very stable. I have never had a problem with the system because they are in different data centres, which makes it a bit more stable. For example, if there is a problem in Atlanta, that is not going to affect me in the UK. In terms of their global network, I have never had a problem. So, I find them really stable and reliable.

It has server maintenance. They give you the virtual server and manage the hardware in the machines for you, but it is up to the customers to manage the patches, the operating system, and install the applications. This is no real maintenance needed other than managing the service yourself. Obviously, they manage the object storage, make sure there is always enough space, and that the network is performing well.

I don't see scalability being an issue. I don't use the full scalability yet, but I know that there is room to grow. The Linode plans that they have allow you to go up to really high amounts of RAM and CPU, so they must have a lot of capacity. On the object storage side, there is virtually unlimited capacity to use from our perspective. So, they are really scalable. They have built a good platform to take them forward. They do focus on a small, few features within the platform, giving them that advantage over other competitors, like AWS, who has just a massive sprawling infrastructure. Instead, Linode focuses on building their platform out to make it great.

I am using a dedicated CPU node for my production environment, website, and some other applications. Then, I have another smaller instance for development. I also have object storage and quite a bit of data. I have about 20 gigs worth of data on domains that I am using as well, so pretty much all my domains are on it in terms of DNS management. Therefore, the only thing that I am not using is Kubernetes, and I am just not at that stage yet where I need it. However, as far as the servers are concerned, I will be using those when the firewalls come in. When the VLANs come in, I will be using that as well. I would like to think that I am using quite a bit of their platform.

Their support team is just fantastic and phenomenal. They are always helpful and always there. They are one of the only cloud providers who give phone support, and even outside of the US. I know if I have got a problem that I can just pick the phone up and call them. The support team is probably the number one selling point for me. 

• I had a ticket the other day where they responded within about 20 minutes. 
• I have had them respond when it has been the middle of the night in the UK. So, they are very responsive and friendly. They know what they are talking about. 
• I have had cases where I have had tickets that have been resolved within the first update from the support team. 

They are brilliant compared to other providers. 

I was with DigitalOcean a few years ago, and I just didn't find their support team very helpful. I got the impression they were reading from a script. Whereas, the Linode support team understands, cares, and wants to help you get to a solution.

There is a company called Memset in the UK, who is now a part of the iomart Group, and I used them for a few years. I have used Azure and AWS as well.

The initial setup was very straightforward. It is just setting the server up, then you will have your server within a few minutes. They give you the IP address and all the network information. I don't think it could be any simpler. Even in terms of creating a new block volume for servers, it gives you all the config instructions on how to add them and use them. I don't think there is any room for improvement there. It is already pretty great.

The only bit that is a bit manual is adding the IPv6 address ranges. That is still a manual thing, where you have to ask the support team to allocate you a new range. That is only a minor thing. However, you get an IPv6 address with the server anyway, so it is not too much of an issue.

Pricing-wise, I find it simple in that they give you a monthly fee, but they also charge it hourly. So, if you are using the service for a small part of the month, then you are only paying for that small amount instead of a whole month, like with other providers. It is a flat monthly fee if you use the service for the entire month. It just makes things so simple. Because they are focusing on Linux, you don't have to worry about licensing costs of Windows and things like that. So, the price that they give you is the price that you need to pay each month. I just find it so simple compared to the likes of AWS and Azure. It is nice, easy, and predictable. I know exactly what I am going to be paying each month and what resources I get for that price.

They offer a Managed plan, which isn't of interest to me at the moment. I do all the maintenance myself. However, I know that is there if I need it. 

In my day-to-day job, I work with both Azure and AWS, which are just so complicated. There are so many different services. If you want to do one thing, then it is like, "Yeah, we have a service for that, but it's going to cost you," and if you want to do something else, "There is another service, and that is going to cost you." Whereas, Linode, which is my main virtual server, is $20 a month ($25 with backups) and that is all I will pay regardless of how much I use it. That is a massive thing for them - the fact that you know exactly what you are getting. You are not bamboozled with all the different service names, etc. I find that really good.

I wouldn't even touch AWS or Azure for my own work. I have only used them through my day-to-day company for my own personal hosting of my business. They would just be three or four times the price of Linode.

There is no other company that I have found which can match the responsiveness and helpfulness of the Linode support team. 

The availability of their hardware: Linode uses newer AMD processors. A lot of other clouds are only just catching up with that, but they have been using them for a couple of years. 

The quality of the hardware is a big thing. Linode offers everything in one place. They offer domains, servers, and object storage, and now they are bringing in firewalls. I can get all that from one provider. Whereas, with other hosting companies, you get the service from one company, but they don't do DNS. You need to get the DNS as well as the object storage from somewhere else. So, there is no reason why I would go anywhere else.

Quite simply, go for it. I don't think you will be disappointed. Linode offers everything in one go. The support team is on-hand, even if you are not a paying customer yet. If you are just on a free trial or the inclusive credit that Linode offers, you will still get exactly the same support as if you were a paying customer.

It is definitely important that Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centres. I am not taking full advantage of that at the moment. However, I plan to as my business gets bigger, putting service closer to customers wherever they are in the world. It is definitely a plus point that they are worldwide.

I have looked into the Linode Kubernetes Engine. However, at the moment, the virtual servers are a better fit for me. I am just not at that scale where I need the containers.

I absolutely can see that they will help us to grow and progress.

I would rate Linode as 10 out of 10. There are things for improvement, but they are working on them. I think they are only going to get better than what they are now. For me, they are the leading provider for the typical, everyday hosting needs.

I have two use cases. I work mostly by developing e-commerce sites for companies and the first use case is to develop the infrastructure, the hosting solution for those e-commerce platforms. This is done mostly in Magento, WordPress, Drupal, and other open-source platforms.

We also have our own solution, which we host in Linode. It is a software as a service platform that connects Mercado Libre with Zendesk, which are two separate companies, and we join them through middleware.

Linode offers a relatively small but well-focused set of cloud services, which is important to us because while they only offer the basics, they do it very clearly and very easily. They have simple pricing, good support, and good guides to help you. Most small companies like ours don't use most of the features that other cloud computing providers offer, so having a simpler set of features makes it easier for us to handle.

Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centers, although it is not very important for our use case because we work mostly in Latin America. There is not much coverage here, so we use the USA data centers. We don't have any customers in other parts of the world, such as in Africa, Asia, or Europe, so coverage elsewhere is not really important.

Having a reliable partner like Linode has helped us to rapidly grow our infrastructure, and they were able to focus when we have had any kind of problem.

This product has absolutely helped us to accelerate innovation, for example, when we had to migrate the architecture of our SaaS solution. It was really easy to deploy new hosts and make the necessary changes to our infrastructure so that they could communicate between themselves and the outside. Whenever we had a problem, we were able to contact Linode and they helped us. For example, there were some technical specifications that we were missing. We also used the guides that they provided to secure the servers and to communicate with them. I believe it was done quite quickly, in fact, because of the help that they provide.

The simplicity by which you can handle your inventory is one of the things I like the most. You can easily create new hosts, destroy existing hosts, or do migrations.

I like the statistics that they provide, such as usage.

They have a good solution for accessing the servers if you accidentally get locked out.

The support they provide if you have any type of problem is great.

It would be nice if they had more data centers in Latin America.

Although not for our use case, I believe others would benefit from having support in other languages. For example, in this region, there are people who speak Spanish and Portuguese. This is the same for the guides, where having translated versions would be helpful.

I have been using Linode for approximately six years.

We use Linode on a daily basis, or at least very often.

The stability is quite good, although it's not perfect. We have had perhaps two problems in the six years that we have been using it. In these cases, the whole data center was down for a short time. I don't remember how long, but it was perhaps an hour or two. For us, its stability is acceptable.

For our very small company, it's completely elastic. I don't expect that we have much growth ahead but I think it will be completely flexible. At this point, I have tested having more than a few servers at a time.

At this time, it's only me who is working with Linode.

The fact that Linode offers 24/7/365 no-tiered, human support is very important to us because our services run 24/7, and like most technology, problems can arise at any time. If you have the type of problem where you believe that there's something wrong with an upper level of the infrastructure, it would be very difficult if you couldn't access support on their end, for example during a weekend or at night. For situations where you have a critical event going on, 24/7 assistance is obviously very important.

I have used other cloud platforms in the past, although I have never contacted support for them. The services that I have used are GoDaddy, DigitalOcean, LatinCloud (previously known as EL Server), and Amazon a few times.

I switched to Linode for simplicity and pricing. Also, I believe in open-source software, which is what I primarily use, and I believe that Linode is aligned with that vision, as well.

Now that I have been using it, I am very happy and don't see any reason to change.

I believe that Linode has saved us money compared to other cloud providers, but I haven't studied the figures to see how much this might be.

The initial setup is straightforward. It was just a few clicks to get started.

The first time we had to create an account, we filled out a form and put in our information. It included our name, email address, password, and so forth. Then, to deploy Linode takes another two or three clicks. It couldn't be easier.

Of course, then you have to configure it, but the actual deployment is as easy as it gets and it takes only a couple of minutes to complete. For configuration, the length of time it takes depends on what it is that you want to do. However, for a basic setup, it might take 15 minutes. You can also save templates for cases where you want to use the same type of configuration. Often, you can configure very quickly with no time for configuration, because the saved configuration can be deployed.

There is support for deployment using the API, although we have never done it that way. I expect that using the API would only mean that it takes a few seconds to deploy.

We have seen ROI because this is a cost for us, and compared to other solutions, it minimizes the cost and generates a positive income.

The pricing model is simple and that's important to us because, for example, Amazon is really complex and you have to spend a lot of time to understand how much you are going to spend on a certain solution. It's great for us to be able to simply add a few numbers and know how much we expect to spend.

There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees to include things like extra public IPs and backup services. I believe that additional public IPs cost $1 each. As I recall, everything is documented on their pricing page and there are no hidden fees.

My advice for anybody who is considering Linode is to try it out. It worked for us and I think it would work very well for any users that do have the technical knowledge to take care of the system administration. If you're technical and looking for a stable solution then you should try it because it's easy to use. They do offer a managed solution as well, although it's not as easy as utilizing a web hosting company.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using Linode is the importance when it comes to thinking about all of the points of failure. In particular, which ones you control and which ones you don't, and whether you have to rely on a partner, like them. We did experience downtime on a couple of occasions and it was really bad for us, so pay specific attention to that and be aware of the risks.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

I have my own social media system called bolixo.org, and I am hosting it using Linode.

For smaller companies, it is very important that they have a small but well-focused set of cloud computing services. They are very inexpensive and very reliable. I am a light user and do not use all of the services, but I'm a serious user. In the cloud business, there is another kind of entry-level service, where they provide you, for example, a web server and you only have to provide content. Linode is another side of the cloud business, where they're providing you a full solution. This is your server so you're managing whatever you want to host on it.

Using Linode helps me for a simple reason, which is that I do nothing with respect to the servers. I don't have servers and I do not want to have servers. I managed servers for four years and I know how it's done, but, I don't want to care, for example, about power. Where I am, we have a lot of power failures. This week alone, I have had 16 hours of power failures. Clearly, I don't have the technology in-house to support that long without power. I know that it exists, where I can put in a generator or come up with another solution, but I don't want to do that. Instead, I want to concentrate on what I'm doing. Linode delivers an inexpensive service and it's completely reliable.

I am a long-time believer in the Linux operating system and have been using it for approximately 28 years, and the fact that Linode provides me with Linux Nodes is something that I like. Linode got its name from "Linux Node".

They have a very nice web interface to allow you to manage and reorganize your server.

Having data centers in different regions is good for latency. They have a presence in Japan, Europe, the US, and Toronto, Canada. If I install a server in Europe and people from that area are using it then it will be faster for them. There is a visible difference between my servers, where one of them is in New York and another is in California. It's basically a continent away, but I see a difference. There is great value in the fact that I can have European users served by a European server.

They have a lot of features that I am not yet using, but I will have to use them at some point. For example, it's possible to create a server and keep that as a standard image. Later, when you create a server, instead of selecting one of their pre-configured images, you select your own.  This means that you can deploy more servers quickly. If at some point my project grows, and I expect to deploy many servers per week, I will need to use this feature.

Also, my understanding is that they have a full set of APIs, so I can interact with them by using programs. I've not used that, but I intend to check it at some point. With only three servers, this is a non-issue, but if I grow to 100 or 200 servers, at some point, I'll need some way to automate my interaction with Linode.

The network connectivity is very good. With the entry-level service that I am using, I am getting one terabyte of data transfer per month. This means that with three servers, I have three terabytes of aggregate, which leaves me a lot of room to grow.

It is important to me that Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centers, although it is also an issue for me. In running my social media site, I am not spying on users or reselling their data. For many users, it is really important to know that their data will be handled according to the law in their country.

I am located on the East coast of Canada but have my node at a data center in California. You can decide where you want to create your note. For example, I know that they have a data center in Europe, so at some point, I will create a node there. Because it's a distributed system, when the user creates their account, they can choose to have it there if they want the data to be stored according to European regulations. The data will remain there forever.

The issue comes about because Linode is a US company, so my users have to wonder how shielded they are from US law. I know of a situation involving Microsoft, which is a very large company, and they were fighting the US government because they have a data center in Ireland. The US wanted to retrieve data from it and Microsoft declined because it was out of their jurisdiction. Some people are concerned with having their data shielded from US law and I spoke with Linode about this, and they don't have an answer. In fact, if the US government asked Linode for help spying on a customer in Europe, Linode would not even be allowed to tell anyone about it. It is clear that Linode has the technology to spy on usage, although that is not to say that they are doing it.

I have been using Linode since 2017.

Linode is a very reliable product. There have been issues over the years but they have always been solved by the support team. They have done maintenance on their side over the years. so there were some service outages. However, they were planned and very short. There have not been very many of them, with perhaps a frequency of once a year. It's very light. I would expect this from any type of company that hosts a web server or something similar.

I'm not their biggest customer, by far. They have an entry-level product called the Nanode, which is a minimal server that costs $5 per month. Linode was the first cloud service to offer such a low-priced, entry-level solution.

This is the only solution I'm using. I have three Nanodes and I started with one in 2017. By the end of 2018, I had moved to three. I hope I will grow because I'm working on a social media system that is not really well-known, called bolixo.org.

I can't comment greatly about scalability because I'm not using it to a great extent. However, I can say that in more than three years that I have been using it, I've never noticed that I wasn't alone. I certainly know that on a physical server, there may be perhaps 60 customers running on it at the same time. This is a guess, as it could just as easily be 30 or 100 users, but the point is that I've never noticed that there was a slow down I could not explain. Essentially, it means that it's well managed.

I know at some point, when I had this problem where I was using it for 12 hours, my server was running 100% of the time. Their first proposition was to move me to a different server, which was less busy. But the problem was me, and we fixed that. At the same time, I think they do a nice job at making sure that they don't put all of the users on the same machine. They balance the load, which is the best I can say about them in terms of scalability. From my perspective, it always looks fast and reliable.

The support has been great, even though I am not their biggest user. I have asked for service two or three times, and it was immediate.

At one point, when I had just rolled out a new version, they called me to say that for the past 12 hours, my system was using 100% of the CPU. According to the terms of service, you are not supposed to do that. I did not expect it because my server should be using very little in terms of CPU resources. As a result of this call, I checked my server.

I knew that the timeline fit because it was 12 hours earlier when I had upgraded, but I checked my server, and it was not busy. During this interaction with support, it was great because they provided me with many key points. Finally, we found that on my side, the tool I was using meant that my server was not busy. However, on their side, it was busy all the time. In the end, we both learned something new about virtualization and cloud computing. So this was my biggest interaction with them and it was nice because we both learned something and I fixed my problem.

In my previous job, I worked with similar solutions from Microsoft and Google. We had a problem where one of our servers at Microsoft stopped working. We couldn't connect and called support to find out what was going on, only to find out that they had deleted it because they thought it was no longer in use.

I find the problem with Microsoft and Google is that they are too big. They are so big that it's like the smaller customers like me don't exist. You're a paying customer but you can't talk to anyone. In our case, we were dealing with Microsoft resellers and I don't know whose mistake it was, where they believed that we were no longer using it, but this would not happen with Linode.

One thing that I learned recently about Linode is that if my account goes unpaid, for whatever reason, then they will not immediately delete my server. Instead, my server will continue to run up to three months, with the balance in the negative. If after that time they hear nothing from me then it will be deleted. They are professional and this is something that makes sense, yet it seems lost on the bigger companies.

The initial setup is very simple, although I am a techie, so it is expected.

This is a very inexpensive product. I pay $5 per month for each of three servers, for a total of $15 per month, and I normally prepay a few months in advance.

I recommend Linode for any company that wants to host a web server or other similar things.

Linode provides a lot of services that I don't use. For example, they provide backup functionality, load-balancing, monitoring, and other features that I do myself. In this regard, I am not a heavy user of their service. That said, I consider myself a very serious Linode user, but I'm using their product very lightly.

I'm glad that they do offer more services because as I grow, I may want to use them. For example, when it comes to something as simple as a backup, it can be a nightmare. I was an IT manager and I found that performing backups was very simple, but it was a nightmare at times. Ultimately, as I get larger, I may rely on them for this instead.

The backup feature is something that they will do professionally. I had an issue when I was working many years ago, where the person in charge of backup was supposed to do it every morning. However, there was an error in the backup system and he was not reporting it to anyone. This went on for months and when they needed the backup, it was not available. This is why it has to be done reliably.

The suitability of this product depends on your use case. If a very small company wants nothing other than to have a web presence, they might want to use GoDaddy, for example, where they're providing that kind of solution. They give you a web page, they run it for you and they do everything. But if you go to some custom solution, you need to provide your own web application and so on, then you have to go to the other side of the cloud, like Microsoft, Amazon with AWS, or Linode.

I don't know how all of their services work, but my understanding is that they're not offering the entry-level machine for someone who just wants to own their own web page. This is a situation where somebody might be using GoDaddy. But if you know how to manage a server, then they have a reliable solution for you that can scale internal offerings. If for example, you want a load-balancing then they have it, although I haven't tried it.

My recommendation is that if you are comfortable managing a server, you want a reliable solution with battery backup and features like that, as well as good network connectivity, then you should try Linode. This is a good product for techies and it allows you to offload many of the core aspects of managing a physical server.

Overall, I can say that what I am using works great. At this point, I am very happy with Linode.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

The primary use cases involve renting virtual private servers for our infrastructure, which is used for the development of software, website databases, websites, and some infrastructure such as for audio and video conferencing.

The main purpose for using their virtual private servers is for our in-house development program.

We use a Linux environment for our website database applications.

Linode has done a lot of help to us when it comes to streamlining anything where we need a server. Whether it is development servers or even servers for clients, Linode has helped us a lot.

It has helped us to accelerate our innovation, although there are similar services available so we didn't choose Linode mainly for that. Nonetheless, it certainly has helped because we don't have a core infrastructure. Obviously, all of the development that we do internally is happening on their server. This means that it's very important for our innovation and development, but other services would be able to compete with them, so it's not an exclusive advantage.

We choose Linode because they are very Linux-focused with their operating systems. It is very Linux-friendly and Linux-oriented. Mainly, in the end, it's all about vendor lock-in. If I compare it to Amazon and Google Cloud, they have a vendor lock-in, and we want to avoid that. This is something that Linode is very helpful with. They have a very standardized open system, which is easily configurable.

It is difficult for me to assess the price to performance ratio of Linode compared to other product providers because I don't have much experience with them. But, at least compared to our self-hosted servers, I think they have very good uptime and response time.

The DNS management tool is helpful. 

The virtual machine configuration tool is very helpful for setting up a new server or for modifying an existing server. It works very reliably.

It is very important that Linode offers a well-focused set of cloud computing services. They have a lot of options for different products which work well together. I saw the extended steps that products provide in the past, but I don't see a need to expand it anymore. I think it's perfect as it is right now.

I find it important that they offer worldwide coverage using multiple data centers, but from my point of view, they already have very good coverage. For example, here in Thailand, which is in the Asia region, it could cover Singapore, Japan, and also a little bit of Europe. It's important because we deal with a lot of international clients, but there is no need to extend these exhaustively. They are very well set up already.

They recently changed the web interface and although the older one did not look as good, the new one is less responsive. For example, when you changed something, it was instant. The new interface was really bad when it was first released, and it has improved, yet it is still not as responsive as the older one. I have considered whether being in Thailand makes a difference, although it is still a relative comparison. This is something that I have written an email to them about, and they are working on improving it.

I have been using Linode for two and a half years.

We use the Virtual Private Server (VPS).

In general, the stability is very good. However, there was recently a nasty problem in Singapore, and it seems to have service interruptions more now than in the past. I think that at some point in time, they will upgrade the Singapore data center and the stability will improve. For us, it's not really relevant because we don't have large scale, or clients in large numbers, and not around the clock. Ultimately, the interruptions don't affect us too much.

Our company's scalability is perfect because we can just upgrade to the next level of server available. Within 10 to 15 minutes, it will upgrade and everything is there. Even if we grow a lot over time, their servers are still big enough for our requirements. We wouldn't need anything on the level of Amazon or Google Cloud.

There are only two people in the company who are involved with the servers.

We use Linode for all our servers, with respect to ones which we host in-house or host for clients in-house. So if we need a commercial VM, we will set up a new Linode. From that point of view, it is sufficient for our use case.

In the future, if we increase usage it will be mostly for new clients that need database applications, cloud space, servers, or more resources. I expect it would be a steady but low increase in the resources that we need.

In terms of end-users, it is difficult to estimate how many use it because there are several websites and databases. There are probably no more than 100 in total, which includes all of our customers.

I have been in contact with technical support a few times. It was always via email and they were very responsive. There is nothing to complain about when it comes to their support.

I'm certainly thankful for their support, which always has a human answering my inquiries. I find that Linode is very good because when I've sent an inquiry, it's almost always dealt with by a human and it doesn't involve working with FAQs or automated responses. I find that very good. It is important because, with most issues, I can resolve them myself. It is only the very high-level technical issues that I have no idea about and need support for. It is very good compared to other services, especially Google. With other services, it is sometimes very difficult to get a human to respond to your inquiry.

Prior to Linode, we only had in-house servers. I started using Linode more intensively when we opened the company in Thailand, almost three years ago.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It is perfect, although I might ask for more configuration options, making the setup a bit more complex. For now, however, it is fine.

Normally, the initial deployment takes between five and ten minutes. Using the web interface, it is very fast to deploy. However, afterward, I need to check the parameters. This is something that I think could be improved if they allow a few more options through the web interface.

In terms of an implementation strategy, we didn't really have one because we don't have many servers. We only have a handful, so at this point, we just get a new Linode when we need a new one because our capacity is full. There are a few things that need to be done such as changing the root password, setting up additional system users, installing a few packages, and setting up standardized software for our company. However, we don't have any official documentation for the steps we follow.

I take care of the deployment for each Linode, and I have another person who supports me with the maintenance. We try to optimize everything as much as possible, especially in the maintenance phase. I also set up the updates as part of this effort.

The maintenance involves just logging in, doing some checks, and running some maintenance scripts. It's a new product, so this is part of our manual monitoring.

We see a return on investment in terms of time saved for managing our infrastructure.

If I compare to in-house servers, we don't save a great deal of time. I would estimate a 10% time savings in general and slightly more for setup and maintenance. Over time, it would become pretty substantial.

Linode has very good pricing. There might be something a little bit cheaper but I find it very fair and competitive, and nothing to complain about. Given the broad set of choices and options, I wouldn't ask for cheaper prices.

I find a simple pricing model important, and I think that's also one of the reasons why we decided on Linode. I'm paying a simple, per-hour rate for the service, with no automatic scaling-up of the pricing. This is extremely important because, with Google Cloud and Amazon, part of their infrastructure does bill based on usage. We didn't want this but instead, wanted to be billed on a fixed monthly rate. This allows us to keep an eye on the monthly fixed costs. It puts us more in control.

We have a few instances where we use a lot of resources on a few servers, and with the fixed price, I think that we save money compared to other cloud-hosting providers who bill according to usage. Even if we don't save much money, it allows us to plan very well ahead.

When we set up the company, we took a look at the options for commercial providers and we decided on Linode. These included Amazon, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, and a new, smaller local one, based in Switzerland in Europe, which is where our mother company was created. The one that compared most closely was DigitalOcean.

I don't recall all of the details but we found from reviews that Linode had better support for Linux, and it is more developer-friendly. This may have changed over the past three years, but when it was time to choose, these were deciding factors.

We also knew about Microsoft Azure, but they didn't have good Linux support at that time. As such, we didn't look at them further.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using Linode is the importance of stepping up production-ready infrastructure.

My advice for anybody who is implementing Linode is to start with a small server, work with it, and then scale up later. This works well because scaling up is really easy. If you plan on very large infrastructure, conduct a PoC first. In the case where you are just hosting websites, you can start with the resources for 100 or 200 users, and then scale up as the demand increases or the size of your company or user base increases.

In summary, this is a product that meets all of my expectations for a cloud service in terms of functionality, scale, and pricing. It is perfect for our scale.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

I have a single 4GB model Linode and I use it as a personal server. I originally set it up to act as an email server, just for my own personal vanity domain. I don't use it for that anymore, but it's proved to be useful for many other things.

Right now, I run a Minecraft server on it and I also use it for a little bit of software development. I also use it as a jump host, if I need a stable place to SSH from my laptop to get to other online resources. It means that I only have a single point that I go through to get to the other stuff that I need.

I would say it's very important that Linode offers a relatively small, but well-focused set of cloud computing services because it differentiates them from AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud by being focused and by having a more personal touch. I could probably get the same compute power for a little bit less from other providers, but the value of the continuity and the high quality of support is worth it. It's rare that I need to reach out to support, but when I do, the support is great.

Even though I use it for personal use, some of the things that I use it for are in a software development capacity. For example, the ability to experiment with running my own Mercurial server, Git server, and source control servers on this machine have leveled up my own knowledge of those products in a way that I think a more managed solution wouldn't. Having the tools in-hand of just a Linux box that I can play with, and that I can wipe and reimage at will, is more useful than a physical machine by virtue of that virtual rewriting. It is also more useful than a more abstracted managed service, just in that I can get my hands dirty and do rapid experimentation.

Linode has helped me to accelerate innovation and even though I'm not using this in an enterprise way, it has improved the way I innovate with respect to personal stuff. For example, it has helped with the things that I'm trying to learn and the things that I'm trying to do. Setting up a Minecraft server is a good example of that. Being able to read some of the documentation that Linode has about setting up a Minecraft server on your VPS, and just learning and figuring stuff out, has been valuable.

The most valuable feature is the static IP address, which has been very helpful for being able to log into the same address over the course of more than a decade.

Another useful feature is being able to have multiple system images that I can play with. I mostly use Ubuntu Linux, but if I want to play with a new version of Ubuntu, I can pretty easily add that. It's been super useful to upgrade my system over the years.

I just recently started using the Object Storage and Backup features, as well. Having good backups for peace of mind and disaster recovery is very nice as well.

Object Storage has been key, for me. I don't have a strong notion of exactly when Linode introduced Object Storage, but it's been very useful for me, for instance, in backing up my Git server, in addition to the whole node backup. The fact that I can interact from the command line with the Linode Object service to back up specific datasets, is super cool. I know they didn't have it when I first started using Linode and I think it's been introduced fairly recently, within the last couple of years.

The Linode documentation is superb. 

I would like to see more seamless integration with backup, although it's pretty easy to do.

Having more on-demand features would be helpful. For example, if for a little while I wanted to have four Linodes instead of just a single one, it seems like it's a little bit more difficult than spinning up an EC2 instance in AWS. It isn't a lot harder, but it could be improved nonetheless.

I have been using Linode for more than a decade, since 2008 or 2009.

The stability is excellent. It's very rare that there is an interruption in the service. I think that the reboot notices that I get, that aren't related to me doing stuff, are less than one a year. I think, in some cases, it's been four or five years between needing to have any kind of stability-related events on the machine. I can't think of any outages in the entire course of me using it, that anything with any kind of significant impact.

Part of the thing that I value about the single Linode that I have is that it is a very steady, stable known quantity. I don't have to worry about all the institutional weight that I do with interacting with AWS, which I do a lot from work.

Thinking about it from an operations point of view, I think that I would have a bit of a harder time scaling in Linode than I would in AWS, but not a whole lot harder. Given the Kubernetes support, I would imagine that that makes the process even easier. That said, I have not tried Kubernetes so I really have insufficient data to be sure.

It's not likely that I'm going to significantly increase my usage in the future. I might bump up to a higher size if I find that I need more CPU or RAM. Or, I might play around with having two to four Linode nodes. But beyond that, it's unlikely that I'm going to expand much.

I will definitely keep using Linode for as long as it is as stable and reasonably priced as it is, but at a steady one machine for my personal purposes.

The support from Linode is great. All of the times that I've reached out, it's been through email or through the web portal. It's always felt good and it felt like the person responding understood what I was asking about and solved it very quickly.

In terms of flexibility and overall responsiveness, the support is very good to excellent. Certainly, everyone that I've interacted with, in the fairly rare occasions that I do need support, have been very knowledgeable about the product and very good at understanding what issues I'm having and how to solve them.

I would say compared to AWS, AWS support varies a lot in terms of responsiveness and whether you've got a paid support plan. Sometimes, it does take a fair bit of back-and-forth with AWS support to get to the crux of the problem. I've never felt that back-and-forth was as necessary, that we get to the crux of the problem and solve it much more quickly with Linode.

Prior to using Linode, all of the machines that I had managed were all physical. I had my own personal machines and machines that I built for work, but they were all physical PCs or other architectures that I had to actually open up a case, and if I needed more RAM, I had to put the sticks in myself.

In comparison to a physical server, Linode has definitely saved me money. I never want to build a server again. Basically, if you build a physical machine and it is obsolete within two to five years, you've got to buy and recreate the whole thing again. Generally, the hardware is going to get cheaper over time, but I think that unless I were really putting a microscope on getting the cheapest components for building, Linode will cost less.

In some contexts, albeit not mine with just one or a few machines, it would make sense to build them. However, not having to worry about it and just letting Linode take care of the hardware upgrades is probably saving me money. I don't know if it would save a very tightly tuned hardware IT team money, but that's a completely different scale than what I'm looking at.

Linode was my first experience with virtual cloud servers and virtual machines, in general. Not too long after I started using Linode, I did start doing more with VMware, with an on-premises, physical server hosting multiple virtual machines. It was not too long after that when I got into AWS for work.

I found the initial setup to be fairly straightforward. It's so long ago that the details are fuzzy but I recall that I set up the account, chose names for things, picked which size I wanted, and then launched it. Within, what at that time, was an astonishingly short amount of time, I was able to log into it. It's just gotten better from there.

I didn't require an implementation strategy, although I think that's peculiar to using it as a single thing for personal use. I had the notion that I wanted a persistent Linux machine that was always on, and that I could get to from anywhere, and Linode seemed to fit the bill.

Over the years, I've used it for a lot of different purposes and it's adapted well to that. So I would say in this case, I didn't need a whole lot of planning. If I were to use Linode for a more complex deployment, I would want to plan it out, figure out what the costs are, figure out the network topology, and the other relevant details.

Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centers, although I don't personally need that. It's a very attractive feature for sure, but since I just have the one virtual private server and it's just for me and for my friends connecting to it, I want it to be geographically close to me to have a low ping. I think it's located in New Jersey, and that's good for me, being in New England. While global coverage is not super important to me, in so far as it contributes to the health of Linode in general, I'm all for it.

The pricing model is simple, and that's one of the reasons that I've stuck with Linode for so long. When I was on the $20 Linode, I knew for a fact that on the first of every month, my credit card would get charged $20. That meant my Linode was available constantly.

At this point, I'm paying more like $35 per month for a slightly bigger machine, and the backup, and the object service. But again, I know that it's exactly $35 every month and I can budget for it. The simplicity and the consistency of that billing and pricing are quite valuable to me. Whereas with AWS, it's a crapshoot. The on-demand pricing means it's flexible and I only pay for what I use, but it's also much less predictable.

It is tough to determine whether using Linode has saved me money compared to what I would pay with other cloud providers. I don't think it has on a pure numbers basis, but in opportunity cost and higher-level budget planning, I think that the consistency probably has saved me money. I would have spent more time trying things, allocating things that I might not need, and so on. Ultimately, it saved me capital in the long run but it is not necessarily something that I can put a dollar figure on.

In comparison to everything else, predictability is the key aspect of the pricing model. With it being a known quantity that I can budget for every month, it frees up brain cycles to do everything else.

In my personal capacity, at this point, I have my Linode and I have a personal AWS account, and I use them for different purposes, but to similar degrees, or similar magnitudes. I find that just looking at it from a strict CPU and RAM horsepower perspective, EC2 is just marginally cheaper, but there are different features that I value in different places.

I took a brief look at some other things like Azure, Google Cloud Engine, and DigitalOcean, and I found that when I was looking, and this was probably about five or six years ago, that a lot of things that I wanted were pretty comparable in terms of capabilities and pricing. A lot of it came down to what I valued, in terms of the positioning, and support, and documentation, where I very much like Linode's documentation, especially, and support.

Of the others that I evaluated, DigitalOcean seemed the friendliest. And then, AWS and Azure were the behemoths, the 800-pound gorillas in the room.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using Linode is the oldest lesson, which is just that a virtual cloud server has the availability and the flexibility that I couldn't get from physical at the time, or even now, for that matter. It's a key component in having something that's useful, having a machine that you can log into and do things on, in a consistent way, regardless of where I am or even what machine I'm connecting to it from.

My key advice for anybody who is looking into Linode would be just to dive right in. Pick it up and play around with it and if you find that it's not for you, try something else. But if you find that you love it, keep going.

In summary, Linode is a good product and I've been extremely satisfied with it for exactly the purposes I use it for. I have been pleased with it since I started using it.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

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.