Starting out with servers? Look no further than Linode. Already an expert? Start here too.
March 16, 2021
Starting out with servers? Look no further than Linode. Already an expert? Start here too.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Linode
I actually use Linode for personal use, to run my personal email server mainly. Occasionally I will also use Linode's services when I want to do some experimenting with other servers. I'm a college student, so while my use is comparatively limited, email plays a big part in my personal and professional life, so I rely on my Linode instance to run my mailserver, using Mail-in-a-Box. I have also considered expanding my use of Linode to include things such as a custom VPN server as well.
- Pricing - as a stereotypical broke college student, having a $5/month option is a lifesaver for me
- Support - both Linode's published documentation and support team are incredibly helpful and easy to get access to
- Flexibility - I like the option of having a tiny little server for small tasks, instead of having to get big instances by default
- Reliability - I've never had an issue with Linode's infrastructure being unreliable
- Installing a different Linux distribution than the ones provided by default is an enormous pain in the butt, and I've only gotten it to work once. It's a complicated procedure involving, from what I remember, creating a storage instance and manually shuffling around ISO files via the command line - while I'm no stranger to complicated CLI procedures, a better process for this would be extremely welcome.
- *My* usage of Windows is quite limited, but having the option to install Windows on a Linode instance would definitely make it easier for me to recommend the service to friends and other industry professionals.
- Making backups *within* Linode is a supported feature, but I would like the ability to integrate other, custom storage services (such as my SMB server) to easily create off-site backups.
- Allows me to run my own email server
I tried Azure at one point, but it was WAY more than what I was looking for - I wanted something a lot simpler that had the ability to scale well if I ever wanted to expand in the future. For a beginner in the world of servers, Azure was just too daunting for me.
Having the ability to pay $5 a month for a virtual server instance to run whatever little projects I want to work on is an enormous value to me as a beginner and a student. I was already paying $5 per month for an email service before that, so switching to DIYing it in Linode was no additional cost to me, and came with all the benefits of being able to do it yourself.
I can only remember one time where the server was restarted due to a maintenance issue on Linode's end, and everything went smoothly when it did. Other than that, I've never had any issues with Linode's reliability and infrastructure in general. I appreciate that there are seemingly no blocked network ports as opposed to my home ISP.