In order to help our readers find out whether Linode VPS hosting is the right choice for their hosting needs, we have carried out an in-depth review which covers every aspect of Linode VPS hosting service, such as features, usability, price, performance, customers support, and company reputation. Do note that this review is based on our own real experience with Linode and feedbacks we have collected from its customers.
Linode Overall Rating
Linode has been established since 2003 by Christopher Aker, and is an American hosting company that primarily focuses on providing VPS hosting service to customers.
linode Review
Website: http://www.linode.com/
Reputation
Features
Speed
Reliability
Support
Ease-of-use
Price
$20/mo
The VPS hosting service offered by Linode is undoubted excellent, otherwise it won’t have such a large customer base. However, this company also has some drawbacks. In the following parts, we have summaries the pros and cons of Linode VPS hosting.
The Pros of Linode VPS Hosting
Linode has grown up significantly over the years, with an excellent industry reputation and a large number of royal customers all over the world. Why could it be so successful? Find the answers by checking out the main advantages listed as below.
Multiple Choices
Instead of offering a single hosting package, Linode offers several VPS hosting plans on Linux only ranging from $20/mo to $400/mo, which meets different individual requirements. Besides, this company has 6 data centers including Fremont, Atlanta, Dallas, Newark, London, or Tokyo, so customers can choose the most appropriate data center for their virtual servers, hence get the best hosting performance.
Server Resources
Linode upgrades the storage and RAM for customers at no extra cost. In 2009, its cheapest plan offers 360MB RAM, 16GB disk storage, and 200GB transfer. Then, this company has upgraded the server resource with 512MB RAM and 24GB disk storage. Until now, the RAM of Linode cheapest plan is up to 1 GB. All the upgrades are totally automatic and free of charge.
Hosting Performance
Linode utilizes the Xen Hypervisor for virtualization which allows users to get a guaranteed portion of CPU, memory, and disk storage. Therefore, customers’ sites will never be affected by some abusive users consuming too many server resources. Moreover, if there are extra unused resources, then the websites will automatically and dramatically burst.
The Cons of Linode VPS Hosting
As the strong points of Linode VPS hosting are quite attractive, this company, however, also have some noticeable shortcomings. Check details as following.
Lack of Visual or Easy-To-Start Control Panel
One of the major issues that customers may have with Linode is the lack of user-friendly control panel by default. Many webmasters are used to utilizing the powerful cPanel or Plesk to set up their websites or configure their virtual hosting, but Linode offers neither of the 2. Instead, the company provides a command line, which is not a big issue with experienced developers, but can be a daunting thing for newbies.
Very Technical and Complicated
In fact, Setting up a website with Linode VPS hosting requires a high degree of IT competency. Linode is an unmanaged virtual private server company, which means its customers need to install Apache, MySQL, set up iptables firewall rules, disable remote root access, configure Apache virtual hosts (to serve multiple sites with one IP address), and more on their own. To be honest, this is very inconvenient for non-technical webmasters especially who are not familiar with shell script
Not Cost-Effective
Actually, Linode VPS hosting is not very cost-effective compared with some other VPS hosts which has the same server hardware configuration. The cheapest plan has been priced at $20/mo, which is undoubtedly budget-friendly, but only comes with 1 GB RAM, 8 CPU, 24 GB disk storage, and 2 TB data transfer. Surely, customers can choose to purchase some larger plans with a tremendous volume of server resources, but the price is very expensive which is up to $800/mo-far more costly than the majority of VPS hosting services in the market.
A Better Choice
According to the pros and cons of Linode VPS hosting service, we do not think this company is a good option, especially for newbies or non-technical customers. Therefore, here, we have given you an alternative-BlueHost. At first, read the overall comparison between BlueHost and Linode listed as below.
Features
BlueHost VPS
Linode VPS
Free Domain
RAM
2 GB
1 GB
Disk
30 GB
24 GB
Bandwidth
1 TB
200 GB
cPanel
Starting at
$23.74/mo
$20/mo
Go BlueHost
NOT Recommended
BlueHost VPS is Better than Linode
BlueHost has been in the hosting industry for more than 10 years, serving more than 2,500,000 users worldwide with over 20,000 new customers each month. This long history and large customer base help this company become one of the best web hosts in the market.
Unlike Linode which fails to offer a good balance between price and features, BlueHost provides customers with a rich-featured VPS hosting package at an affordable price starting at $23.74/mo for annual billing.
All plans (Standard, Enhanced, Premium, and Ultimate) come with a large portion of server resources, as well as the latest advanced technologies, such as cloud technology, enhanced cPanel control panel, full root access to CentOS, instant provisioning, multi-account management, etc. Do note that the cheapest VPS plan of BlueHost includes 2 GB RAM, 30 GB disk space, 1 TB/month, free domain name, and 1 Dedicated IP, which is undoubtedly better than the cheapest VPS plan of Linode.
Besides, as the uptime and page loading speed of a hosting company are largely determined by the infrastructure of its datacenter, BlueHost has invested millions of USD to build its own world-class data centers, which are equipped with multiple redundant systems and cutting-edge monitoring technologies. As tested, BlueHost offers a 99.9% uptime and a fast server response time which is approximately 20% faster than Linode.