Likelihood to Recommend I think Box is great for research teams or anyone that has a large number of files that need to be securely stored. Particularly in the case of social science research, where it is important to protect identifying data, Box is a great option. In cases where teams need a more reliable means for real-time collaboration, I would probably consider a different alternative
Read full review Linode provides a wide range of configurations and prices, suitable for many budgets and needs. They also have a lot of experience in providing these services for many years. We have almost exclusively used Debian distributions for our work, but they offer a large number of other versions of Linux. Beside "raw" distributions of Linux, they also offer other VMs containing specialized installations of a variety of applications, such as Wordpress, Drupal and Docker.
Read full review Pros The main feature that I like the most in Box is that it makes collaboration seamless, workers can easily check the documents any time and make changes according to the needs. Box manages and backs up all of your files on its cloud servers, and provides a very nice interface for creating, viewing, editing, and collaborating on the most commonly used file types (PDF, XLS, DOC, etc.). Over the past few years, Box has built on top of its basic cloud storage management with a host of other tools, such as workflows, AI, monitoring, and analytics. It is helping us to make good connections with clients and our workers themselves as to its syncing and viewing feature to all is very much helpful and easy to go. Read full review It's super easy-to-use - set up a complete virtual environment in a few minutes. Linode is the ONLY service I know that will let you DOWNSIZE a VM - super useful. The price is right - spin up any size server and add additional block storage if needed. Object memory is cheap and integrates very well with S3 CLIs and applications. I've been very happy with the knowledgeable and friendly customer service. The more recent additions of a firewall and Kubernetes is a welcome plus. The load balancer ("Load Balancer") service is easy to spin up and configure. Read full review Cons The graphic design of the dashboard should be simpler and more tangible that can be changed to the liking of the Admin. Sometimes there are some syncing issues in the background. The product has very limited functionality in some areas which could be a bit frustrating at times. Read full review I have not succeeded in using the DNS of Linode with a website not hosted in their server. I hope their DNS is as user-friendly as DO and Vultr. Cloud storage user interface is not as easy as DO. I want to see their cloud storage on a pay-per-usage scheme, not monthly. For VPS, I wish Linode to increase the SSD space storage of their basic VPS larger than those of competitors. Read full review Likelihood to Renew I like the security features and I like the website. It's easy to use and create and move things around as needed. The main reason for a lower rating is because the Box Sync app is just not a good program. It's a memory hog, it's slow, transfer speeds are slow, and it's not the most efficient route. If you have a large Box account and you need to get a computer up to speed on a large amount of data within Box, you are in for the long haul. Last time I had to do this, it took 3 days to sync all of the files and we are talking around 100 GB worth of data
Read full review I've been with them a long time. They provide me with the capabilities I need coupled with knowledgeable support that's not pay-for-extra. However, if I move to a non-Linux OS, the level of support by necessity will drop off. I can still ask questions about the infrastructure but I my ability to ask about OS features will decrease.
Read full review Usability Everything with Box is seamless. It can be integrated into virtually any other software or application. You can even get the app for your phone or tablet to work on the go. File syncing is so quick. The only reason I gave it a 9 is the issue I discussed earlier about the local file application rebooting and not continuing to sync files. Other than that, it's great!
Read full review It's pretty easy for me, but I preferred their old interface before it was called 'cloud' (not a computer science term.) The new interface looks easier but I had to ask for help for things I used to be able to find myself. If someone was new to it--without having used their old interface--it might be easier for them than it originally was for me.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Yeah, it's always worked, I've never had any kind of connection issues, the only issues I've had it I've been on our end when the Internet hasn't worked.
Read full review There is very little planned downtime. Whenever planned downtime is necessary I'm always given lots of advanced notice and an explanation that I can pass along to my users that they'll understand. I really appreciate that Linode appreciates my commitment to reliable service to my users. It shows that they believe they've been successful when I'm successful.
Read full review Performance The general operation and management of Box is very efficient, both when accessing the account, and when adding files, downloading or modifying any document directly. The web platform, mobile and desktop versions work really well and quickly, making all the work and process flow smoothly and without setbacks. So far I have not been able to observe any inconvenience
Read full review Linode is an infrastructure provider issues related to performance are really on me. Linode provides a capable infrastructure and allows me to tailor performance of the services I provide to my customers to my specific situation. Linode allows me to implement "tweaks" that, from experience, I know will do the job with little risk without a whole bunch of static from idiot support 'droids who just get in the way ("this isn't supported at the present time").
Read full review Support Rating I found their support community lacking in clarity when I experienced a login issue. The error messaging was poor on my Box Sync application. I did not reach out to support staff for help, instead, I reasoned that I should try downloading the Box Sync application again and reinstall it. That fixed my issue, thankfully. I think a less computer-savvy user would've been much more frustrated.
Read full review Support from Linode has always been excellent for us. We've barely had to wait any time between ticket requests and replies, and we've always received replies that actually answered our problems. Whenever maintenance has occurred on Linode's side, they've always alerted us beforehand and left a ticket open as a source of communication in case we had any issues after maintenance or any other questions that we needed answered.
Read full review In-Person Training The in person training was done in house and I helped with the training, people seem to respond well.
Read full review Online Training The documentation is good. Since Box is a popular service, there were also a number of YouTube videos and other sources that were helpful as we were considering the product and planning for deployment. Also, the ability to try the free version helped to prepare us.
Read full review We got kick started with an initial walkthrough along with some free credits. The initial walkthrough helped us to understand Linode's ecosystem and start our hands on with Linode. We tried out some apps from Marketplace initially with the free credits, which not only helped us understand Linode better, but also those apps. We had implemented many such apps to our customers with Linode
Read full review Implementation Rating Be careful with settings. It is easy to get overwhelmed with updates. For example, you don’t want to be updated when doing historical data uploads. I recommend taking off notifications initially and then turn on post you have done your historical data upload.
Read full review We're a small organization. The implementation of our Linode solution was trivial. Once I justified a cloud server to my bosses over a co-location -- the co-lo wasn't as fast as our linode server in load tests -- it was a matter of moving one Linux implementation to another. Trivial.
Read full review Alternatives Considered They are kind of the same. And both of them do their job as promised. But for company and project wise I think that Box slightly wins for some points. Which [makes him] win over
Google Drive (don't forget that
Google Drive is very easy to use and has a lot [of] nice features too).
Read full review Compared to the big cloud players like
Amazon Web Services , Google Cloud Platform, MS Azure, Oracle Cloud, and co., Linode's product is simpler and cheaper. For quick and straightforward client engagements, the power and flexibility afforded by the previously mentioned vendors are overkill. Compared specifically to some of its closest rivals: Versus
DigitalOcean , Linode has better pricing for VMs; while compared to
Vultr , while
Vultr 's backups are cheaper (20% of VM cost versus effective ~25% of VM cost),
Vultr 's DDoS protection is an add-on product, which made the overall cost of the deployment more expensive. The runner-up competitor for our use cases, Hetzner, offers superior pricing; However due to their flaky KYC and anti-fraud which was a pain to deal with, I lost faith in them. They also do not have a region in East Asia, which would impact performance.
Read full review Scalability It's great, as we put more files on there it's done very well.
Read full review Although I use only a fraction of their product offerings, the total set makes scalability an easy goal to shoot for. As I said, I have a few customers that use the services my Linode provides...and I like it that way. However, should I need to scale up, I can...without incurring any more cost than I need to.
Read full review Return on Investment Box has been an only positive experience. It provides a seamless way for me and my team to collaborate on documents in such a way where we're not sending the document back/forth via email. It's a huge timesaver. Box reduces the risk of sharing a sensitive document to the wrong person via email. Box has provided a platform where my team can share notes in meetings - this has helped streamline and organize our meetings. Our meetings are more productive and actionable. Read full review With the partnership of Linode, Configr is today the best performance hosting solution in Brazil. With Linode, Configr can provide a PaaS solution without the cost of taking care of all the infrastructure issues such as IaaS. Linode allowed Configr to be one of the biggest hosting companies in Brazil. Read full review ScreenShots Akamai Cloud Computing Screenshots