Linode review 2022: Features, support, pricing

What is Linode?

Linode is an American web hosting company that provides cloud hosting through VPS hosting plans. With its global data centers, Linode is an excellent hosting option for customers who want the power and responsibility of running their own virtual web servers.

Christopher Acker launched the company back in 2003 and Linode has grown a lot since those humble beginnings. As of May 2008, the New Jersey-based operation switched from UML to ZenUML visualization. A year later, they also launched a data backup service.

Over the years, Linode has grown into a multinational company. Data centers have opened in England, Japan, Singapore and Germany. Meanwhile, it has endured security breaches in both 2012 and 2013. This eventually led to improved security measures being put in place by the company.

This Virtual Private Server (VPS) company now mainly focuses on cloud hosting. They host a number of well-known clients, including The Onion and AQ Radio. In total, they serve over 400,000 Linux customers, and that number continues to grow year after year.

Linode data centers are located at

Users can choose from 11 server locations in Tokyo, London, New Jersey, Georgia, Texas, California or India.

The site has 100MB speed test download files so you can evaluate the best option even before you sign up, and Linode also says you can move on later.

Linode Main Features

The main features of using Linode are as follows:

To compute

The Compute section of Linode provides the following features

Kubernetes Cluster Deployment: It makes setting up and administering clusters with simple tasks, without incurring management fees. LKE also supports assimilation with tools like Operators, Ranchers and Helm. DNS management, storage, automatic recovery and etc backup are also some of the exciting properties of LKE.

Dedicated CPU and GPU: For accelerated CPU applications, the use of a dedicated CPU is considered the best infrastructure solution. 100% CPU run time, ability to operate latency-sensitive apps, and instance modification features also make it perfect for users. In addition, this cloud vendor delivers on-demand GPUs with the power of CUDA and the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000.

High Memory: This not only accelerates the memory retrieval operation but also allows large-scale data querying.

Shared Instances: To deal with high workloads, Linode's shared instances are the perfect choice for both small and large businesses.

Storage

With 11 data centers in different regions of the world, Linode offers three types of storage. The first is block storage which allows data to be handled independently. It is flexible to increase storage capacity and speed with ultra-fast NVMe drives and HDDs on block storage.

The second is object storage which is known for free transfer, S3 compatibility and high availability of data. Similarly, Linode also offers cloud backup. With the help of these backups, you can access your data locally anytime.

Networking

To improve the networking experience of users, Linode is offering versatile features. It protects your infrastructure using DDoS protection and uses NodeBalances and DNS managers to improve the scalability of applications. Under the networking section, it also provides DNS controls and a cloud firewall to extend and secure apps.

Management tools

To improve the customer experience, Linode provides management tools including Cloud Manager, prebuilt images, APIs, and custom StackScript. With the presence of these management tools, it becomes easier to deploy, manage and scale applications with Linode.

Linode Pricing:

Linode has three types of cloud hosting plans

• Standard VPS Hosting Plans

• Dedicated CPU

• High Memory Scheme

There are ten VPS options, ranging from 1GB of RAM to 192GB of RAM, including a sliding scale of storage and transfer.

All ten of Linode's dedicated CPU plans come with at least two main processors, along with nearly double the figures for VPS plans.

High memory plans come with 24GB to 300GB of RAM and are the most expensive subscriptions.

Features of the plan

All plans come with Intel E5 processor, Solid State Drives (SSD) for speed, SSH access, 40 Gbps network and root access.

Linode provides StackScript to customize your layout.

What is not included

Backup is offered as an optional additional service that you will have to pay for. Similarly, cPanel and WHM licenses are not included in any of the plans.

Linode offers many other features including its NodeBalancer service. NodeBalancers help to intelligently balance the demand across different linodes. Again, this is an extra paid one.

Choosing a Managed Plan

If you need help managing your Linodes, you can purchase a "managed" add-on service they call an "Incident Response Service". If something goes wrong with your infrastructure, the Linode team will handle it for you.

As you can imagine, Linode's managed plan comes at an additional cost than what you are paying for your VPS plan.

Linode Customer Support

Linode is primarily a self-managed hosting company, so don't expect support. You will be left alone with your VPS unless you have purchased a managed plug-in or if you experience a system issue that needs to be analyzed by your technical team. You can get basic support just like other competitors.

Linode pros and cons

pros		cons
Competitive pricing and hardware for VPS and dedicated CPU plans		Managed plans have an additional cost
Ideal for Linux experts who want SSH and root access and virtually unlimited power		Managed plans charge extra
Great Prices on VPS and Dedicated Server Plans		Customer service is basic
Get almost unlimited power on your servers		Backup requires additional cost

Conclusion

This article shares a comprehensive review of Linode cloud hosting, its features, pricing, pros and cons. So, if you are thinking of using Linode's plans, you should definitely consider this guide.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q. What is Linode?

US-based IaaS provider.

Q. What is Linode used for?

Linode Block Storage allows users to expand their server storage capacity with volumes on demand. Linode Backup allows customers to back up their servers on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Both Linode Manager and NodeBalancer allow users to manage multiple server instances in a single system.

Q. Is Linode trusted?

Linode is an excellent choice for developers and those who are at home with Linux. For complete beginners, the learning curve can be steep, so both Bluehost and Hostgator offer products that are easy to understand and work with.

Q. What are the advantages of Linode?

Multiple datacenters, high uptime, Less cost

Q. What are the best Linode alternatives?

Digital Ocean, Walter, AWS