Likelihood to Recommend 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 Sometimes we just need to send a single large file, and compressing it is easier than using ShareFile. But generally, we use ShareFile to exchange or send anything over 20 MB. A problem that we have not had [yet], but wonder about is this: Are ShareFile and its e-mailed links safe for transmission to/from U.S. Government computers? All of our public-sector clients are state and locality-based. We haven't had any interacton with U.S. entities. U.S. entities, especially DOD, are rather particular about these type of file-sharing sites and links embedded inside e-mails.
Read full review Pros 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 Authenticated electronic document signatures--self-signing, and sending out for signatures. This is a robust feature that also allows for additional information to be added to documents being sent for signatures, such as dates, notes, and items omitted but needed. Encrypted emails through ShareFile, Citrix apps for Outlook, Gmail, and Mac email systems. Encrypted email messages cannot be cut/pasted, nor forwarded without encryption. If only the attachments need to be encrypted, the email message can be unencrypted. Also, two options for securely opening an encrypted email (one with less credentials, one with more). Read full review Cons 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 Users grow quickly (each client gets a separate account). Automated pruning would be nice. I'm not aware of integration with Office365 online (only the outlook app). This could make it harder for some users. It would be nice to have something that auto-scans emails and attachments for PII and would require Sharefile for those emails. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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 The cost is fair and the program does what it has promised to do. Customer service is attentive. I'm not aware of any better-sounding file sharing systems out there that would tempt us to discontinue ShareFile.
Read full review Usability 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 ShareFile is so easy to use I was able to download all of my projects files and have them set up to sync before my supervisor could even come over to explain the process to me. It is a neatly organized and intuitive software that allows even the less tech-savvy to become power users.
Read full review Reliability and Availability 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 The software has never been down when I needed to use it.
Read full review Performance 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 Easy to use, easy to integrate with Outlook. I only gave it a 9 because I have found that sometimes it does not play nicely with Outlook and can slow it down. But, when that happens (not frequent), I restart Outlook and all is well again
Read full review Support Rating 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 Typically the support is very knowledgeable and interested in following an issue until it is fully resolved. I have not had any issues working with their staff as they are all polite and easy to communicate with. If the first or second level tech does not fix the concern then it is escalated until we get to someone who can close the case.
Read full review Online Training 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 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 Good documentation for the API. With a little help from RS tech staff, any competent programmer should be able to integrate RightSignature with an existing system in a week or three. That help is easy to get as well
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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 ShareFile is easier and does what you need. I have moved a few organizations from SharePoint to ShareFile. Just easier. You can setup different areas for different departments, setup their permissions and it is easy enough for them to do what they want in their zones. The mobile app works great as well. So you can all the features you really use from SP, but just easier to setup and use.
Read full review Scalability 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 I am a one person office. I have no idea how this software would scale to a larger office.
Read full review Return on Investment 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 It's been huge in allowing our freelancers to upload a doc or email comp into the system and initiate a workflow so that those inside the organization can provide feedback without the need of staying on top of emails/messages. It's all located in one place. The time suck from the previously-mentioned annotations issue has caused me to lose some productivity as I have to 'wait my turn' to drop in an annotation, then have it removed, and re-attempt multiple times. Not a huge impact on ROI, but it does affect productivity. From the product side, it is helpful for me to reference what the content will be on our website before the page goes up, as well as the copy we send to our retailers who resell our products. Our marketing lingo stays even across all touch-points because of ShareFile. Read full review ScreenShots