Linode—Great for self-managed web hosting
Updated March 04, 2024
Linode—Great for self-managed web hosting
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Linode
We use Linode’s virtual dedicated servers for hosting websites and web applications on behalf of our clients. We have also used Linode’s services in the past to provide hosting infrastructure for our own projects.
- Linode’s documentation is excellent, making it easy to set up and configure for most typical use cases. When a little extra help has been needed, their technical support has always been responsive, friendly, and to the point.
- Linode’s service plans are priced competitively and provide excellent value for money. They also provide the flexibility to easily and quickly scale things up and down as required.
- Communication has always been good, with plenty of notice when there are planned changes to the network and infrastructure. On the very rare occasion that there has been a problem with the system, they have always been open and transparent.
- Hosting a web application with Linode removes many of the technical constraints of using a conventional web hosting service provider. This has been invaluable for some bespoke projects with very specific server-side software requirements.
- The ability to configure the hosting environment means we are able to strip back the software stack to the bare essentials, providing better performance and enhanced security when compared to a conventional web hosting service provider. This does come at the cost of convenience, but for specialist projects, it has been worth it.
In the past we have used Amazon’s AWS and Elastic Beanstalk with EC2 instances as a web hosting platform. We found Linode to be simpler and more straightforward to set up. Linode’s costs were also more predictable, making it easier to budget and resell to our clients.
Linode has always been great value. We even found the overall costs to be lower than using Amazon AWS and EC2 instances. We found that Amazon’s less than intuitive user interface makes a misconfiguration far more likely, which can result from over-specification, leading to unnecessary costs. We found Linode’s account dashboard and management console far easier to use.
Uptime is crucial. Many of our clients run critical business systems online, which include transactional systems. Any significant downtime can have a negative impact on the bottom line for their business.
Using Linode
1 - Linode is used within the company in our web development role.
1 - Linode provides a good web-based UI for managing servers and the various tasks associated with routine management like spinning up and down, talking and restoring backups. Carrying out other sysadmin tasks like software installation and updates are done using shell access. However Linode does provide comprehensive documentation to cover most of the everyday setup and configuration tasks that are likely to crop up.
- Web server
- Hosting a payment gateway
- FTP server
- Custom payment gateway
- Integration with a third-party build training platform
- Self managed web hosting