Linode Review
March 17, 2021
Linode Review
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Linode
I use Linode to provide email/web services to my customers. I am a single-person shop.
- Right products: The breadth of their offerings is pretty complete. Some are a little rough around the edges or don't stack up to some of their competitors' but, overall, the capabilities offered by their product offerings are pretty amazing.
- Great support: It's timely, friendly, and knowledgeable. As an infrastructure provider, they generally stay away from issues regarding your application(s) or set up but sometimes, if the stars align, you will get advice on those things as it pertains you your specific situation. The support reps go above and beyond.
- Flexible environment: I can do what I want when I want for as long as I need it. There are no fixed contract terms. I pay as I go and stop paying when I don't need a particular service or product anymore.
- Support of OSs besides Linux: I really would like to see support for other open-source OSs...most notably *BSD. Some of their competitors offer this but the competition's services are either too limited or too expensive.
- Off-site backups: Backups are kept in the same datacenter on a different machine. I would really like to see them be kept off-site (even in a different datacenter) to maximize the protection backups offered.
- Keeping documentation updated: This is a continuous battle and Linode does better than most by keeping all their docs at https://github.com so that customers can update them and initiate "pull requests" to install updates.
- Reliable infrastructure: Their infrastructure is incredibly reliable...including their network. I rarely ever have failures.
- Reliable backups: They've saved my butt more than once...and allow me to rollback failed upgrades in a few minutes with minimal loss (usually just a few lost email messages).
- Great support: This is probably their best feature. As a single-person shop, it's probably the feature I rely on the most.
Before I came to Linode, I was a shared hosting customer. I tried several providers over several years. All of them sucked...there were no good options only the "least bad" option. The "least bad" option quickly joined the rest of the "just plain bad" pack very quickly. The support was always terrible when it existed at all. I looked at Digital Ocean. There seems to be no "acceptable use" policies there. If there are, there is little enforcement. My Linode blocks all access from Digital Ocean's networks.
It's inexpensive and capable. It just works. I never have to worry.
I could probably withstand a little more downtime than most, but, during my tenure with Linode, I've had very little. Whenever downtime is planned, I always have LOTS of advance notice and lots of explanation about why the planned downtime is necessary. I feel like I have some input into the scheduling of downtime.
I always have lots of notice so planned downtime is never really an issue for me. I've had unexpected network failures but those have usually been the result of my local ISP, not Linode.
I always have lots of notice so planned downtime is never really an issue for me. I've had unexpected network failures but those have usually been the result of my local ISP, not Linode.
Using Linode
1 - I'm really the only one who uses Linode day-to-day. My Linode provides web & email services to my customers. My customers use those services but don't interact with the Linode directly. My customers don't write software while I do.
1 - I have a very small number of customers and they use the services that my Linode provides to them.
- Email services: send/receive email, filing, spam defenses.
- Web services: individual web sites.
- Shared calendar/address books for laptops and mobile devices.
- Almost all the spam defenses are home-grown from available open source products.
- Shared calendar/address books offer a shared views of schedules and contacts -- both enterprise wide and individual.
- Personal websites offer customers ways to share information in ways THEY see fit...not ways the management (me) sees fit.
- I'm currently looking at a secondary tier of offsite backups using object storage.
- I'm also thinking about moving my considerable infrastructure around email & web services to a non-Linux OS to reduce the care & feeding that Linux seems to require.
- Because of the second item, I have to come up with a replacement for Linode-provided backups that's flexible and easy to use. Hence, the first item.
Evaluating Linode and Competitors
Yes - I was using shared hosting before Linode. I probably was with a dozen different shared hosting companies before Linode. All of them were awful.
Their software was ancient (and immutable). Their support was uniformly terrible. Their cost always went up astronomically after their "teaser rate" period was over. Generally, everything about shared hosting is usually a loss leader to either get you hooked on their service or to upsell you on (WAY) more expensive products/services because what you need/want to do "isn't supported at this time"). After Linode, I'll NEVER use shared hosting again.
Their software was ancient (and immutable). Their support was uniformly terrible. Their cost always went up astronomically after their "teaser rate" period was over. Generally, everything about shared hosting is usually a loss leader to either get you hooked on their service or to upsell you on (WAY) more expensive products/services because what you need/want to do "isn't supported at this time"). After Linode, I'll NEVER use shared hosting again.
- Price
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
As a single-person shop, Price is always my primary concern. I fund the price entirely out of my own pocket.
If the product isn't usable, then it's not worth ANY price...no matter how low.
I did a lot of research before going to Linode. They always came up the best in terms of quality of service and support.
If the product isn't usable, then it's not worth ANY price...no matter how low.
I did a lot of research before going to Linode. They always came up the best in terms of quality of service and support.
I might focus a bit more on capabilities. As I've said elsewhere, I'm pretty locked into Linux at Linode and that's a place I would rather not be. If I had a few more alternatives in terms of OS choice and still be able to meet my previous criteria, that would be a golden situation for me. It's not that I can't do what I want to do at Linode; I can. However, the level of support falls off dramatically. Fortunately, I'm a relatively advanced user with a lot of experience so I doubt that would impact me much. I'm not very good a predicting the future though.
Linode Implementation
- Implemented in-house
Yes - Getting email services right was probably the biggest challenge. Previously, I had to depend on the shared-hosting provider for this to I had to become a fairly knowledgeable mail server administrator in pretty short order. I've still not mastered it all but I know how to do the stuff I need to do to maintain and enhance the system I have in place.
Not sure - The biggest issue for me was going from an environment where I had no control over the environment/infrastructure I was providing to one where I had absolute control over the environment/infrastructure I was providing. Web sites and shared calendars/address books was pretty straightforward but the email part of things was a pretty big challenge. It took lots of iterations and fits/starts to get that right.
- Education: I have to become very informed very quickly about what I needed to do and how I needed to do it.
- I had forgotten some aspects of routine system administration. I had to brush up on those...and in some cases implement some things from scratch.
Linode Training
- no training
I thought so. Of course, I had a large amount of experience in Unix/Linux software development so I don't think it was very hard to learn. My long sojourn in shared hosting made me rusty on some things that I had to re-learn but even that came back pretty quickly.
Linode Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | Difficult to get immediate help |
Linode does not offer tiered support. Support is also part of the subscription price.
Yes - Yes. I also participate in community support. I have also reported abusive customers and underhanded attempts to do sales/marketing in on the community support board. These have always been dealt with quickly and quietly.
Violations of acceptable use are always taken seriously. I usually never know the outcome of those but I feel like they are investigated.
Violations of acceptable use are always taken seriously. I usually never know the outcome of those but I feel like they are investigated.
I asked for some help in the community support site about some Linode products other than VPSs (storage mostly). I received a prompt response to my community support query from a Linode staff member. The staff member told me exactly what I wanted to know...and recommend an easier alternative for the same price. I really can't stress enough that the support is top-notch and NOT pay-extra or tiered.
Using Linode
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Well integrated Consistent Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- The online manager provides most of the functions required to manage Linode products.
- The CLI makes it easy for me to automate management of my suite of Linode products.
- The API makes it easy to develop custom automation for my suite of Linode products.
- There are some anomalies in the way the community support functions work and are presented.
- The list of supported OS images is fairly small...although it is growing. Still, there is no support for other, non-Linux OSs/distributions (e.g. *BSD).
- Some capabilities are ONLY available through the CLI and/or API.
Yes - Linode has the Cloud Manager. It's a website for managing your suite of Linode products. It's pretty comprehensive and, IMHO, pretty easy to use. Still not everything is explained as well as it could be...and some of the switches/buttons have arcane functions that are not explained at all (you have to be an expert in the area of virtualization or storage or networks) so that you just "don't touch that"...even though the function might be useful if you understood it better.
There used to be a separate mobile app but it's was deprecated long ago. The Cloud Manager is mobile-friendly...it's the same site with the same functionality as the desktop site.
There used to be a separate mobile app but it's was deprecated long ago. The Cloud Manager is mobile-friendly...it's the same site with the same functionality as the desktop site.
Linode Reliability
Upgrading Linode
- Linode is an infrastructure provider so "new releases" are generally in the form of new services added to their portfolio.
- I have done several OS upgrades/updates in the past.
- I'm looking at another OS upgrade in the future to an unsupported, non-Linux OS.
- More automation -- less care/feeding of my Linode.
- Better utilization of existing services
- Incorporating some new services to add some new functionality to my platform.