Linode Vs DigitalOcean | Which is better?

This article will compare Linode and the Digital Ocean. It will cover the essential features, pricing structure, uptime guarantee, and data center locations.

Are you the one looking for an effective cloud hosting provider in 2021? If you are, the chances are that you already know why these providers are hugely beneficial for app designers and web developers.

If you are still in confusion, take a look at this out-and-out Linode vs DigitalOcean comparative study, where you will find some highlighted crucial features of each and a pricing overview. 

Before you sign up for a cloud hosting service, get a thorough understanding of the pros and cons, performance, and pricing of each to decide on your choice better.

Here is what you will learn reading this article:

• What is Linode?
• Linode Pricing
• Linode Key Features
• Linode Advantages
• What is DigitalOcean?
• DigitalOcean Pricing
• DigitalOcean Key Features
• DigitalOcean Benefits
• Linode vs DigitalOcean | What are the differences?
• Comparison Table

What is Linode?

Introduced back in 2003, Linode, founded by Christopher Aker, has played a relevant role in virtual hosting. A Linode cloud server is quite easy to launch for a first-timer and can be used to deploy a complicated system.

You can get almost five types of computing services from Linode, which cater to fulfill the customers’ specific requirements. Linode has satisfied its clients with multiple services and products, from high memory requirements to dedicated GPU or CPU.

Linode Pricing

There are no sudden lock-ins with its chalked-out chart, no surprise bills, and the pricing is the same at every data center. You can start from $5 per month for 1GB and go up to the extent of $480 per month for 96GB. If you opt for the Standard Plan, the service goes all the way up to 192GB RAM with 3840 GB SSD and 32 cores.

Linode offers you more advanced plans as well – Dedicated GPU or CPU Plans. The following are Linode’s pricing:

• $5 per month for 1 core, 1GB RAM, 25GB SSD, 1TB transfer
• $10 per month for 1 core, 2GB RAM, 50GB SSD, 2TB transfer
• $20 per month for 2 cores, 4GB RAM, ,80 GB SSD, 4TB transfer

For additional information please refer to Linode’s Pricing Page.

Linode Key Features 

Linode is committed to delivering a top-class Linux server experience in the cloud. When it comes to pricing and performance features, web developers worldwide love Linode for its extreme reliability.

The first and foremost preferable element is its predictable and straightforward pricing. With no hidden fees, you can scale up or down fearlessly without the worry of penalties.

The layout is easily navigated and well designed owing to its easy-to-use control panel. With tools like an advanced API platform and DNS management and scaling facilities, Linode always provides stunning results.

Key products and features include:

• Standard Instances
• Kubernetes
• Dedicated CPU
• GPU Compute for AI
• Object Storage
• Block Storage
• Backups
• Load Balancers
• Managed Servers

To know more please access Linode’s Products Page.

Linode Advantages

Take a look at the following points to know why developers opt for Linode:

• 11 Datacenter locations across the globe
• Services bundled into a simple price
• Managed Services are available
• The system is built with beneficial backup options and allows you to get data backup with a single click.
• Linode uses multiple load balancers that help to spread the traffic over the servers.
• Award winning support

What is DigitalOcean?

A developer cloud with launching in the cloud made easy, DigitalOcean helps to deploy and scale applications. With DigitalOcean, you can run your applications on multiple computers without facing any glitches. The platform offers virtual private servers while using KVM as the hypervisor.

Developers can easily manage DigitalOcean through a best-in-class web interface. Apart from this, this platform is widely preferred due to its predictable pricing, intuitive and easy-to-use control panel, and team accounts. Its optimized configuration is designed to process applications much faster.

Digital Ocean IPO happened in early 2021, and the company is now publicly traded. It plans to use the money raised for a better cash position and to enhance its features.

DigitalOcean Pricing

In DigitalOcean’s terms, several ‘droplets’ are introduced with different features and add-ons. The predictable plan with monthly caps and flat pricing keeps it simple for users all over. 

Standard Droplets come with quite some spacious memory and can be used to scale applications like blogs and testing.

• $5 per month for 1 core, 1GB RAM, 25GB SSD, 1TB transfer
• $10 per month for 1 core, 2GB RAM, 50GB SSD, 2TB transfer
• $20 per month for 2 cores, 4GB RAM, ,80 GB SSD, 4TB transfer

For additional information please refer Digital Ocean’s Pricing Page.

DigitalOcean Key Features

A developer has to know all about DigitalOcean’s specialties before choosing it. Irrespective of the Plan, the Container Registry is available to all users, giving way to easy storage, managing private images, and pushing images without any hassle.

DigitalOcean boasts of Spaces CDN that comes with individual caches for unique URLs. In fact, the sign-in experience has recently been redesigned as an added bonus to enhance special announcements and two-factor workflows.

Here a summary with the main features:

• Droplets
• Kubernetes
• Databases
• Object Storage
• Networking (VPC, Firewalls, Load Balancers, Floating IPS, DNS)
• Developer Tools
• App Platform (new feature)

To know more please access Digital Ocean Products.

DigitalOcean Advantages

The following are the list of benefits why developers like to work with DigitalOcean:

• Uptime guarantee of 99.99%
• Amazing UX and easy to use console
• You can launch a droplet in less than 1 minute
• With just one account, you have the chance of creating multiple server instances.
• Load Balancers are designed to support backend connections, thereby becoming more resource-efficient and improving the overall performance.
• DigitalOcean proves to be an ideal option for those who want to offer managed hosting services for websites in shared environments.
• A one-stop shop named Trust Platform lets you get an answer to your privacy questions and also download security certifications.

Linode vs DigitalOcean Key Differences

Now that we went over the basics of each supplier let’s dig deeper and analyze the differences between each supplier:

Pricing – Instances

Pricing structure is pretty similar for these two providers. For example, let’s compare the entry level instance with the following specifications:

• 1 vCPU
• 1GB Memory
• 1TB Transfer
• 25GB SSD Disk

For this instance, both Linode and Digital Ocean will charge you $5 per month.

Pricing – Object Storage

Now, let’s compare file storage pricing.

So, pricing is pretty much the same for Object Storage.

Pricing – Backups

Now, let’s compare backups cost.

Looks like DigitalOcean is less expensive when we compare the backup costs. For example, if we compare the backup cost for the entry-level plan ($5/mo) for both providers it will cost $2/mo at Linode and $1/mo at Digital Ocean.

Pricing – Load Balancers

Now, let’s compare the cost for Load Balancers:

There is no difference in pricing for load balancers.

Pricing – Bandwidth

Now, let’s compare the cost for data transfer.

There is no difference in pricing for data transfer.

Managed Services

The way both providers handle managed services is different.

Linode provides a fully managed service that starts at $100/mo and delivers the incident response, 24/07 coverage, dashboard, data protection, and a control panel.

DigitalOcean provides managed services for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Redis. Pricing starts at $15/mo and covers daily backups, automated failover, end-to-end security, and reliable performance.

Data Center Locations

Both providers have a global presence.

Looks like Linode has an advantage here. In special, if you are in Australia or Asia-Pacific you will be better served by Linode.

Server Up Time Guarantee

Linode used to have a lower uptime guarantee, but that is no longer the case.

• DigitalOcean guarantee an uptime of 99.99%
• Linode guarantee an uptime of 99.99%

Linode vs DigitalOcean Comparison Table

Conclusion

The services and essential products provided by Linode and DigitalOcean are very similar. The pricing structure is also similar, and there are only minor variations between both providers in this regard.

The main differences relate that Digital Ocean is a larger company and Linode has a broader global data center distribution.

Both Linode and DigitalOcean are excellent and reliable options for application hosting. There is no clear winner or loser on this comparison, and a decision has to be made upon specific hosting requirements.

Hope you liked this article. You might be interested on the following articles:

Linode vs. Vultr

Digital Ocean vs. Google Cloud

General FAQ