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.
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.
I am generally using them for bringing up websites and servers for customers. Oftentimes, a company will want their own mail server and/or web server, and I will use Linode for that. It is extremely convenient and easy for me to do this. I really like how they are set up. They just seem to do everything right.
It is a very cost-effective solution. It allows me to give high availability. Having it be a VM instead of a dedicated piece of hardware is extremely valuable in the fact that they are very proactive about their monitoring. There have been several times where I have seen them migrate a VM from a server that was having problems onto a new server. I have had that happen a couple of times over the years that I have been with Linode.
The service has helped our organization accelerate innovation because, in certain cases, I have wanted to try something new. So, I would just spin up a VM briefly for a short period of time to try some things on it and see how it worked, then I could just turn it off again. It basically made me a rapid prototyping environment so I could try new things and get stuff working pretty quickly.
Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centers, which is very important to me. I would like to see more European offerings. I know they have Frankfurt available right now. I would personally like to see more data centers throughout Europe or Eastern Europe available.
They could have more international servers. There are certain places throughout Europe and Eastern Europe which are very open to doing a lot of technology business, such as Romania. Romania is very open to technology. At other service providers, I have stuff in Romania. I think there are some Eastern European locations that would be more open to it. So, if they could have more European points of presence, that would be more helpful.
I have been using them for quite some time, at least five years.
They are very stable. I am very pleased. I have always experienced good stability with their stuff. For the servers that I have used, they have always been very stable. I have always noticed them to be very proactive when they do detect a problem. Migration from there to a different server has always been rather quick.
The scalability is very easy because I can pay some money, reboot the machine, and now I have the upgrade. It is done. It is very simple. I am always pleased with that.
There are about 10 machines or so that are currently running. I have some customers who have two servers and others with one server.
I don't often have to use their support because the machines are so stable. I may have to talk to support once a year, which is not very often at all. When I do deal with them, having it be 24/7 is not terribly critical to me because I usually only do this work during regular work hours anyway. I have noticed there have been times where towards the end of the day, I would create a ticket or be in a conversation with one of them, then they would answer me well after business hours and be available for that. However, in general, I haven't had to use their support a whole lot in the first place because it just runs and works.
I have used a company in Europe called IntoVPS. Some of my colleagues have used Vultr. So, my friends and I have used a couple other services, but I keep coming back to Linode.
IntoVPS had offerings that were just incompatible. They were using Zen Solutions for a while, and I found compatibility issues with it. When I used them, they didn't seem to have a mature product offering that did what I wanted. I felt like I was always working around one of their limitations.
My other friends have used Vultr, and they're pretty happy with it. I have not set up anything personally for my own customers on Vultr yet, but from what I see and heard, they seem to like Vultr a lot too. Vultr has a lot of European points of presence. If I was going to sign up for a Vultr account, it would be because they have more locations in Europe than Linode does. That would be my only motivation at this point, since I don't have personal experience with them.
Setting up with Linode is very easy. I will pick the size of the VM that I want and usually use a CentOS 7 distribution. Once I have that, I will usually just be able to run. If I am bringing something up that is sort of a cookie-cutter server, then I can run my Ansible scripts against it, then it is very rapid. In a matter of minutes, I can go from having nothing to having a functional server that I can log into and start putting the customer's data onto it.
The setup process is usually either:
It is extremely simple. One of the big things that I really like about Linode is how simple, quick, and easy the solution is to get working.
It takes less than a day to spin up an environment. I will go from having nothing to having a fully functional customer website or mail server. It takes less than a work day. In fact, it is usually about half a work day. I will do it in the afternoon. I will start the machine and configure it, then it will be done in a very short time. By the end of the day, it is done and working. I am ready for the customers' users to start using it. It is very quick.
Linode is a very high value for what you are paying. I have brought up a number of the $5 and $10 a month servers, and customers have generally been very happy with those. I am not expecting the world from the servers because they are only $5 or $10 a month servers, but I am not asking for too much from them. It really works out well. Even on low-end systems at $5 and $10 a month, it is very well done.
Because of the way that their pricing model is set up, I can scale up or down the size of a customer's server very easily. It makes life very easy for me when they run out of space, need more speed or RAM, etc. I can very easily pay the difference and reboot the machine, and now I have the upgrade that I wanted. That just makes it extremely simple.
It is important to me that the provider offers a relatively small, but well-focused, set of cloud computing services. I can start off a very small customer at $5 a month, then scale them up from there. I have done that numerous times. I started off a customer on a $10 month server, and now they are on a $80 month server. Being able to scale up like that is very valuable to me.
The pricing model is very simple. I like the simplicity of it, starting at $5, then doubling as it goes up from there. That is a brilliant idea, and it is not complex at all. It is about as dead simple as you can imagine. So, if you want to double what you have, then you double your price, pay the money, and reboot. It is done. It's that simple. You can't beat that.
At this point in the game, Linode is pretty much the only VM provider that I recommend for my customers to use. It is the only place where I put stuff that I have out there for different customers. So, I am pretty sold on Linode. I have tried a couple of other services, but Linode is the one that I keep coming back to right now.
Looking at IntoVPS and what they provide, Linode is saving me money. I have found that IntoVPS has some strange pricing because they have a diverse offering of different virtualization technologies; there is too much to pick from. I would rather just have one thing that works properly, like Linode, and just use that. Compared to IntoVPS, Linode is much better.
Compared to Vultr, it is pretty much almost exactly the same. The only thing that might be a difference is Linode has a range of compute servers where the Vultr offering for high-frequency compute nodes has a different pricing scheme. That is about the only difference.
A lot of these other providers out there really do not have their acts together. Linode has done a great job in simplifying everything to the point where it is just simple and easy. I learned to stick with what works, which is Linode.
Go for it. I would recommend Linode. Don't be afraid to try out the cheaper, smaller systems for whatever you are running. Pick the system that meets your system requirements as best as possible, but you really can save. I would recommend it because you can save a lot of money as well as time and hassle.
I would rather pay just a little bit more and have a hassle-free operation than to pay less and be faced with support issues. I don't like having to deal with support. I don't like having to bring in anybody else to help me debug something. So, I look at Linode as everything just works. It is a very cheap price, depending on what you're getting. It can be scaled up and down very easily. So, it has exceptional value.
I would rate this solution as a 10 (out of 10).
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.
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.
We use Linode in our projects. We have one Linode, and it is quite straightforward. We have one Linode provisioned, which is running on the LAMP stack.
We are using the latest version.
It makes the LAMP stack easier to manage. We just send one command, then automatic updates and security patches happen. We then just use some source code control, like GitHub or Bitbucket, which has helped us because I feel their prices are quite competitive. Sometimes, we need a lot of test applications to show things, do PoCs, and have test sites. So, it doesn't make sense for us to go with the big cloud solution, which is expensive. This way, you don't need to spin up some test sites or test applications for PoCs for just some UAT type of things. This has helped.
I like how if you are an older developer and have some development experience, then it is very easy to get to the foundation, which is cool. Then, you have complete freedom to configure it the way you want. Also, Linode is fast.
It is very focused and doesn't have a lot of features. For example, it doesn't have the complete DevOps pipeline. You can configure it directly using UIs, configuring the entire pipeline and even your project management, which is what we get in something like Azure. It is good to have that focused approach.
For small businesses and people who have some technical skills and are good with Linux command line, this solution is great. I love Linode because it is very fast. Whereas, the same configuration on Azure and AWS will be so slow. The best thing is that their pricing and speed are great.
While Linode works well for people who have some technical experience, e.g., I am good with Linux and very comfortable with the command line, I can understand how people who are not so comfortable with the command line probably prefer a lot of feature-based cloud services.
I would like Linode (without cluttering things) to provide some type of DevOps workflow where people are configuring their pipelines from running their tests and deploying to their test server. Once approved by clicking a button, it just gets deployed to production. I would like something like Azure DevOps, which we use for large applications, and would be something nice to have in Linode.
I have been using it for the last two years.
It is very stable. We haven't had any issues.
Scaling up has been easier. We just scale up the node, then it scales up. One thing is if you want to scale up, then you cannot scale down. I have tried that a few times because we have certain seasons in the year where no one is using the application. So, I tried to scale down, but Linode doesn't allow that. However, scaling up was quite easy and fast.
Our applications are currently being used in Southeast Asia. Our clients are region-focused and very rarely will we have an application used outside this region. Performance-wise, it is more important how you build your application than having data centers everywhere unless it is a very high-end application. However, we don't have those kinds of applications, where thousands of users simultaneously work across the globes.
We are set for scalability because we have small businesses and don't need a very high scalability, where we have something like Kubernetes or one of those high-end, complex scaling pipelines. We have not needed those things. We just have to scale the node, going from two CPUs to four CPUs and upgrading the RAM.
We are using it for small applications and are happy with that. However, there are no new projects on the horizon, so we are just maintaining the solution.
The couple of times that I have raised tickets, they replied within a day or two, but I never had an emergency situation. Their support is good.
We came across the solution through Linode's advertisements. We used it for the free trial period, liked it, and purchased it.
I didn't have any problems with the setup. It was quite straightforward and easy. Basically, you select what you need, then they give you access and you go on from there. It took 10 to 15 minutes.
Once you set up Linode, then you have to install some basic things. You install your source code software, like GitHub, with your application source code. It was quite straightforward.
I did the deployment.
I am the only person who uses and maintains Linode currently. Someone else looks at the other cloud solutions.
I have been using it for two years. Linode compared with other solutions must have saved us around $300 to $400, max.
The pricing and licensing are good. It is very straightforward and simple. I would like more options, e.g., if I want to upgrade my Linode right now, then I have to double it. I would like another option than that.
Linode is not as expensive as Azure and AWS. I feel that Linode is able to give very competitive rates. I find other providers, like Google and AWS, expensive.
Its price-to-performance is better than other big cloud providers, like Azure, Google, and AWS. It has saved us money. While their rates might look the same, their servers tend to be slow. So, if you want the same speed as Linode in other big providers, then you need to go for a higher end solution and the costs will double. I think Linode's rates are good because the performance of their servers are good.
I just pay for the server and other things that I use, like their object storage. There are no hidden costs.
Once you open a new account, they give you some free credit. We used that free credit and liked the solution. So, we went ahead with it.
We use Azure a lot for our big business applications. Usually, we end up comparing and seeing things over there, determining how Linode would have handled this. I have tried out Linode analytics. Mostly, for innovation, we look for that in Azure with their side pipelines and DevOps.
We looked at DigitalOcean, but never used it.
They try to give you the basics, They try to remove complexities, keeping the platform as basic and simple as possible. That is why the system works very quickly. This is a good model to take forward and better than going with the shared systems, like GoDaddy, because you have total control of what you want to install, upgrade, and where you want to apply security. You have total control over the server. Other shared systems don't have this because they are slowing due to sharing your sources. So, I really liked this model of Linode.
If you have some confidence or experience using the command prompt, then this is the best thing to go for. If you have the technical expertise to manage the server directly, then this is the best thing because you will save a lot of money, not going for a higher end, like Google or Azure. You will save money and get better performance. However, if you don't know how to manage the server directly, then you might have a hard time and need better support from Linode to set up your servers. Other than that, it is the best choice.
I would rate Linode as a nine (out of 10).
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.
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.
