PeerSpot user
Founder at Atmosphere
Real User
Nice cloud management panel and easy to create new servers, but there is no managed database feature or role-based access control
Pros and Cons
  • "The cloud management panel is nice."
  • "They don't have role-based access control, which is problematic for us."

What is our primary use case?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Linode for approximately 16 years, close to the entire time that they have existed.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and support?

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.

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

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.

How was the initial setup?

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. 

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

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.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
AliRaza4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate MERN Stack Web Developer at Bikter Tech
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
A low-cost solution, easy to deploy, has latency issues
Pros and Cons
  • "Linode has many other cloud servers across the globe."
  • "Our primary concern is always the latency."

What is our primary use case?

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

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

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

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

How are customer service and support?

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

How was the initial setup?

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

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

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

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

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution seven out of ten.

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

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

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

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

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

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

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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President at Lone Star Technologies
Real User
Great service and support, easy to resize and scale, and easy to manage
Pros and Cons
  • "The fact that you can get a person on the phone has just been fantastic."
  • "I've had some difficulties with some of their IP addresses being banned by certain mail servers."

What is our primary use case?

We're a hosting service, as well as a software development and website design company. We use Linode for virtual servers to host the websites that we design and maintain.

How has it helped my organization?

The relatively small but well-focused set of services is adequate for our use. We install our own software and run our own servers, so they're providing the base system for us.

It is important that Linode offers worldwide coverage via multiple data centers. We don't utilize overseas currently, but that's definitely a plus in the event that we have a client that needs a local server overseas.

Implementing Linode has helped us to accelerate innovation. We moved from having servers in a colo where they were our servers and we maintain the hardware, to virtual servers with Linode five years ago. The ability to move between servers in the event that there's some hardware issue, and the ability to rely on them to maintain their hardware, was a real plus. It took a load off of us having to be concerned about the hardware the systems are running on. Plus, the connection that they provide is high bandwidth and has considerably more than we were being offered by the previous provider.

What is most valuable?

What we find most valuable about Linode is its service. The fact that you can get a person on the phone has just been fantastic. I've gotten to where I just won't use a company that doesn't provide somebody on the phone. There are some issues, especially when you're dealing with something as timely as an issue with a server, where communicating in any other fashion is just not adequate. You need to get somebody on the phone when you have a down issue, and they're very good. You don't necessarily always get the person that knows the most about the issue when you first call in, but they're pretty good about getting it to somebody who can help you.

What needs improvement?

It would be wonderful to have the person that is most familiar with an issue when you call up available on the phone immediately, but I understand that can't always be the case. There are too many different kinds of issues and you need a hierarchy for people to handle concerns.

I've had some difficulties with some of their IP addresses being banned by certain mail servers. I think it's based on the size of their network that they manage and the fact that they have different users within C-blocks of IPs that might be spam sources affecting anybody else that's on that same network. It's a difficult problem to address, but it does affect us occasionally, and having your email rejected is not something any of us like dealing with.

Typically, we try to reach out to the party that is blocking the IP address. On occasion, it takes contacting Linode and having them also reach out and request that the IP be unblocked. So far, that's been adequate.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Linode for nine years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Linode provides the servers for all of our clients, and the stability and availability are extremely good. I think in the five years that I've been with them, there was just one issue where there was a DoS attack. It's been quite some time but from what I recall, it took at most an hour to resolve the problem.

The rest of the time, there have been a few occasions where somebody on the same virtual host as us has been overusing the CPU and we've needed to move the virtual host to another physical server, and that's always been handled promptly. Most of the time, it has been really good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Resizing Linodes is easy to do. I've not hit the boundaries of the capabilities of their system or even come close to it. There is plenty of bandwidth, plenty of CPU, plenty of memory available, and plenty of disk space. I've had no problems.

Nobody in the company really works with Linode on a regular basis.  Most management tasks can be handled online.   There's probably over the past five years been 10 or 15 occasions where somebody needed to do something over the phone.

There have been two of us that have dealt with Linode, including myself and a programmer that I have working for me. At this point, we don't have a plan to increase our usage.

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

The company has been operating for more than 20 years and prior to Linode, we did not use a similar product. Rather, we were using a colo facility with our own hardware.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is extremely easy to manage. It doesn't require anything complicated. It's all online through their interface. You add Linode, delete Linode, pick where you want the Linode to reside, size it, or resize it. It's quite easy.

You can add Linode in a couple of minutes.

Our network layout hasn't changed in years. It's a setup that we've had in place over time and it's not like we're strategizing changes to it all the time.

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

The pricing model is simple. They don't make things complicated, which is important. We've had to deal with Oracle's crazy pricing, which is based on how many CPUs you're running.

When we consider everything including support, response time, uptime, and price, it makes all the difference to me that you can call and get somebody on the phone, pretty much immediately. Dealing in chat and email is just not adequate when you have an issue.

Using Linode has saved us some money compared to other cloud providers, although it is not our primary concern. Availability of support is much more important than pricing.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at other solutions including, for example, Amazon, as well as other virtual server providers. We had some feedback from some of the people we reached out to in making the decision that had provided some good feedback on Linode, so we thought we'd give that a try.

We set up a couple of servers, then I moved some sites over and had a good experience with them. So, we migrated the whole setup.

One of the significant differences between Linode and the other products is the support. We also found their pricing quite competitive, which is another reason that we opted for Linode.

What other advice do I have?

My advice for anybody who is looking for this type of service is to seriously consider Linode.

In summary, this is a good service and something that we benefit from every day. Really, in my experience, they've done a fantastic job and there really hasn't been anybody dropping the ball over there.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1511274 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Director at HMW Computing
Real User
Easy to set up and scale, cost-effective with a flexible pricing model
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are the simple scalability and ease of starting a new virtual machine."
  • "The only improvement in this aspect of the service which I can think of is perhaps a pool of developers who could be hired for those cases where the need goes beyond the support offered."

What is our primary use case?

The Linode servers we have are all running Ubuntu.

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

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

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

How has it helped my organization?

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

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

What is most valuable?

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

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

What needs improvement?

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

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

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

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Linode for more than seven years.

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

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

How was the initial setup?

All of it is very easy to install.

What about the implementation team?

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

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

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

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Associate VP Projects at ACS Technologies Ltd.
Real User
The cost is more affordable compared to other cloud solutions
Pros and Cons
  • "Service availability is the most valuable feature. It gives every user 100 percent uptime."
  • "Right now, they don't have multiple data centers. They have limited data centers. I am currently using the Singapore and Mumbai data centers, but I am looking for data centers in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. They need to improve the availability of their data centers and partnership engagements with cloud Panda solution providers, like us."

What is our primary use case?

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

What is most valuable?

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

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

What needs improvement?

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

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It does not require maintenance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

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

How are customer service and technical support?

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

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

We used AWS before Linode. 

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

How was the initial setup?

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

What was our ROI?

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

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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

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

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

What other advice do I have?

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

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

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Principal Engineer DevOps at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Minimizes risk and helps to scale services in no time
Pros and Cons
  • "It has helped to minimize the risk and scale services at large in virtually no time."
  • "Its cost can be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We are hosting Linux virtual machines and load balancers over there. This is the infrastructure we have over there. Apart from that, we are using a firewall from the Linode side. These are the three Linode components that we are using.

We have not explored Linode too much. We are just restricted to VMs, load balancers, and the firewall. We are currently not hosting a lot over there. We are not facing any challenges with it. We are looking into hosting some replicated storage there.

What is most valuable?

It has helped to minimize the risk and scale services at large in virtually no time. This is how the cloud supported us. Earlier, we were in our own data center. It was in-house infrastructure, but we moved over to the cloud. It allows us to scale services as the demand increases over time.

What needs improvement?

Its cost can be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Linode for almost four to five years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We never had any problem with scalability while using AWS, Azure, or Linode.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate their support an eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

Before Linode, we used Azure. We have used AWS. Both Azure and AWS have too many offerings. They have different types of offerings in terms of PaaS, SaaS, and many other solutions, but Linode focuses more on the open-source technology side and the infrastructure as a service side. It has less capability when it comes to the PaaS and SaaS Platforms.

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

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. In terms of functionality and features, it offers more capability, but it is also costly.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

With any cloud computing product, the foremost requirement is performance, and along with that, there should be cost-effectiveness. These are two major factors for us to decide whether we should have the service of a cloud service provider or not.

What other advice do I have?

Go for Linode if you want to host the infrastructure as a service. It is much cheaper than AWS and Azure. For SaaS and PaaS services, you can explore AWS and Azure. For infrastructure as a service, Linode is a lot more cost-effective than AWS and Azure.

I would rate Linode a nine out of ten. It is a leader. We have used other products as well, and it has much more capability as compared to them.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Senior Software Engineer at a computer software company
Real User
Top 20
A cost-effective solution that offers user-friendly interface
Pros and Cons
  • "Linode offers cost-effective pricing, and it enables me to swiftly deploy my services."
  • "There is room for improvement regarding customer support."

What is our primary use case?

Its user-friendly interface and convenient administrator panel allow me to quickly and easily manage my services.

What is most valuable?

Linode offers cost-effective pricing, and it enables me to swiftly deploy my services. Its simplicity makes it a more straightforward choice compared to AWS, which can be more complex and costly.

What needs improvement?

There is room for improvement regarding customer support.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with it for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It offers good stability capabilities.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution.

How are customer service and support?

I am not satisfied with their customer support services. They should improve the effectiveness of it by enhancing the response time.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was easy and quick.

What about the implementation team?

Over the past two years, I installed a total of seven machine instances on Linode. It has been easy to manage them.

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

It is quite affordable, which makes it a great choice.

What other advice do I have?

It is superior to other services offered in Taiwan. It can operate swiftly and allows us to back up and restore the system conveniently. Right now, we are facing VM interruption, so I would rate it eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Software Engineer with self employed
Real User
Easy to use, well documented, good support that is responsive
Pros and Cons
  • "I very much like the support that you get, and I think that it's excellent."
  • "It would be helpful if they offered a service where they handle the Linux security."

What is our primary use case?

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

I am using a cloud platform that is running Linux.

How has it helped my organization?

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

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

What is most valuable?

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

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

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

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

What needs improvement?

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

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

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

How are customer service and technical support?

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

How was the initial setup?

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

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

What about the implementation team?

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

What was our ROI?

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

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

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

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

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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

What other advice do I have?

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

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

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

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Updated: March 2024
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Download our free Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Report and find out what your peers are saying about Akamai, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, and more!