Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Astound Managed SD-WAN comparison

"It has helped to minimize the risk and scale services at large in virtually no time."

"The most valuable feature is that they are flexible and easy to get ahold of if I need something."

"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."

"The solution integrates easily."

"The most valuable features are the simple scalability and ease of starting a new virtual machine."

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

"The cloud management panel is nice."

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

"It's just a huge improvement compared to where we came from. I can get in, configure, identify, and reconfigure, and I don't have to troubleshoot anything. It's all very easy and flows really well."

"Astound is adequate, sufficient, and gives us room to grow."

"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."

"When it comes to marketing and exposure, Linode needs improvement because I just randomly found them by looking for Linux solutions."

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

"The network between different servers isn't very good. I have to install additional solutions to link the servers with each other."

"The Cloud Manager interface sometimes feels slow, particularly when accessed from Asia."

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

"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."

"As a church, we don't employ a typical IT person, so it would help if they could set up a more user-friendly layman's type of profile and settings, where everything is simplified into layman's terms. For example, it could say, "Turn internet speed up for guest use," or "Turn it down," or "Turn it off," or "Reset it.""

"As a new customer opening our first worship center, I would have liked for Astound to provide examples of products other churches use."

"is a little cheaper than Google or Amazon, more or less on par with the other competitors."

"Overall, it is cost-effective. They offer flat, no lock-in pricing. We also get discounts. As compared to its competitors, it is costly, but at the same time, it has many features."

"Currently, we are at $40 a month but they have costly solutions as well."

"At this point, I'm paying more like $35 per month for a slightly bigger machine, and the backup, and the object service."

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

"The pricing model is simple."

"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."

"The biggest benefit of Linode is the pricing. It's the best deal in the business... 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."

"Financially, it was a big jump. We went from just shy of a couple of hundred bucks a month to close to $1,200. It's an expense that, although it's significantly higher than what we were paying, is worth it."